Umberto I of Italy is attacked with…
November 1878 CE
The King wards off the blow with his saber, but Cairoli, in attempting to defend him, is severely wounded in the thigh.
The would-be assassin is condemned to death, even though the law only allows the death penalty if the King is killed.
The King commutes the sentence to one of penal servitude for life, which is served in a cell only one point four meters high, without sanitation and with eighteen kilograms of chains.
Passanante will later die in a psychiatric institution.
Umberto, the son of Victor Emmanuel II and Archduchess Adelaide of Austria, was born in Turin, which was then capital of the kingdom of Sardinia, on March 14, 1844, his father's twenty-fourth birthday.
His education had been entrusted to, among others, Massimo Taparelli, marquis d'Azeglio and Pasquale Stanislao Mancini.
From March 1858, he had had a military career in the Sardinian army, beginning with the rank of captain.
Umberto had taken part in the Italian Wars of Independence: he had been present at the battle of Solferino in 1859, and in 1866 had commanded the XVI Division at the Villafranca battle that had followed the Italian defeat at Custoza.
Because of the upheaval the Savoys had caused to a number of other royal houses (all the Italian ones, and those related closely with them, such as the Bourbons of Spain and France) in 1859–60, only a minority of royal families in the 1860s were willing to establish relations with the newly founded Italian royal family.
It had proved difficult to find any royal bride for either of the sons of king Victor Emmanuel II. (His younger son Amedeo, Umberto's brother, had ultimately married a Piedmontese subject, princess Vittoria of Cisterna.)
Their conflict with the papacy has not helped these matters.
Not many eligible Catholic royal brides were easily available for young Umberto.
At first, Umberto was to marry Archduchess Mathilde of Austria, a scion of a remote sideline of the Austrian imperial house; however, she died as the result of an accident at the age of 18.
On April 21, 1868, Umberto had married his first cousin, Margherita Teresa Giovanna, Princess of Savoy.
Their only son is Victor Emmanuel, prince of Naples.
She was one of the rare young ladies of any royal house available to the despised Savoy royal family in that decade—being a Savoy herself.
Ascending the throne on the death of his father January 9, 1878, he had adopted the title "Umberto I of Italy" rather than "Umberto IV" (of Savoy), and had consented that the remains of his father should be interred at Rome in the Pantheon, rather than the royal mausoleum of Basilica of Superga.
Locations
Groups
Regions
Southwest Europe
View →Subregions
