Eduardo Alvarez
Updated Sunday, February 4, 2024-12:04
Death The controversial Victor Emmanuel of Savoy, son of the last king of Italy, dies
Controversy "King Juan Carlos killed his brother. I was there": the testimony of Victor Manuel of Savoy
When the then Princes of Asturias,
Felipe
and
Letizia
, married in Madrid on May 22, 2004, it had only been two years since Victor Manuel of Savoy had been able to set foot in his country, Italy, after a very long
exile of six decades
. The head of one of the most important dynasties in Europe was one of the many guests of world royalty at the wedding of our Heir. And he would have gone largely unnoticed by the media, among so many crowned heads, if he had been able to maintain his composure over the weekend. However, he ended up becoming one of the stars of the wedding. Because, at the private dinner that
Kings Juan Carlos
and
Sofía
offered at the La Zarzuela Palace to the
Götha
representatives displaced to our country, Victor Manuel of Saboya delivered a very strong punch in the face to his cousin
Amadeo of Aosta
.
Both, irreconcilable enemies, claimed to be legitimate heirs to the extinct throne of Rome. Don Juan Carlos, according to some present, almost out of his mind, snapped at the aggressor "never again!" And the truth is that since then the relationship between the Spanish Bourbons and the Savoys, which had been so close, completely deteriorated. To the point that just a year ago Victor Manuel of Savoy, making firewood from the fallen tree, slipped some very unfortunate comments in a video regarding the unfortunate accident in which Prince Juan Carlos had shot his brother Alfonso with a gun, resulting in death.
Everything in the life of Victor Emmanuel of Savoy was
excess and scandal
, to the point that more than a claimant to the throne he seemed like a character from some
Alberto Sordi
film .
Illegal arms trafficking
His quarrelsome reputation had followed him since the 1970s. Even then his name appeared in bold on a list of international personalities investigated by the Venice Prosecutor's Office for their alleged
links to an illegal arms trafficking network
. And, at the end of that same decade, Victor Manuel was involved in the
death of a 19-year-old German tourist
when the prince and the unfortunate man coincided with their respective yachts anchored in a cove on the elitist Costa Smeralda, in Corsica.
Many years would pass until, in 1991, the head of the Savoy family had to sit in a Parisian court
accused of involuntary manslaughter
. The German had died from the impact of several shots in the leg that the French Prosecutor's Office concluded were fired by the aristocrat after a fight. The truth, however, is that Víctor Manuel was
acquitted
of homicide, although he was sentenced to a few months' probation for illegal possession of weapons. But the scandal grew even worse when, some time later, while the prince was in prison for other reasons that we will now relate, he was recorded with a hidden camera boasting about having outwitted the Paris court. His lawyers came out warning that the recording was manipulated.
In 2006, as we anticipated, Victor Emmanuel of Savoy did end up in prison, already in Italy. He was convicted within the framework of an
operation against corruption and the exploitation of prostitutes
in which members of the European aristocracy and businessmen were involved, within a gambling organization connected to the
Sicilian Mafia
. The candidate to the throne, who ended up being acquitted this time too after appealing to a higher judicial court, made fun of his prison experience. "I have never slept so well. They gave me a lot of medication and asked me for autographs and photos," he declared from his Swiss residence in Gstaad to the Swiss newspaper
Le Matin Dimanche
.
And, after a few months, he returned to scandalize his hypothetical subjects with the claim to the Italian Republic for
compensation of 260 million euros
in compensation for the supposed "moral damages" suffered during the long exile. The government of the day at the head of the transalpine nation responded by filing another complaint against him.
The only son of
King Umberto
and Queen
Mary Joseph of Italy
, Victor Emmanuel of Savoy was born in Naples in 1937. His grandfather, Victor Emmanuel III, reigned then, the monarch who gave himself body and soul to
Mussolini
and who signed the Laws Racial reasons for which thousands of Jews were deported to concentration camps. He abdicated on May 9, 1946, in an attempt to save the Crown, in favor of his son Umberto II. But the new sovereign barely lasted a month on the throne as a referendum gave way to the republican regime in the transalpine country.
This led the entire dynasty to a long expatriation. They all settled first in
Portugal
, which was then home to countless princes without a throne, including the Spanish Bourbons. That was when the friendship between Don Juan and his offspring and Humberto de Italia and his people became so close. Victor Emmanuel, however, grew up mainly in
Switzerland
, where his mother, Queen María José, ended up settling.
Controversial marriage
In 1971, Victor Emmanuel of Savoy married
Marina Doria
in Tehran , with whom he had a son, Prince Emanuel Filiberto, Prince of Venice. The couple had entered into a civil marriage a year earlier in Las Vegas. Marina Ricolfi-Doria was a Swiss marine skier, of Italian origin. They met at the Geneva Nautical Society, where they both practiced water skiing. And they fell in love, almost like a crush. But King Umberto forbade his son to marry a
commoner
. After a long courtship, the prince ended up making his cloak into a tunic. Of course, Umberto II did not recognize the marriage and stripped his eldest son of inheritance rights, which is the origin of the
ongoing dispute between the Savoys and the Aostas
.
In 2002, the constitutional rule that prevented male members of the royal family from setting foot in Italy was abolished and he was able to return to the country, where he has frequently visited since then, alternating periods of residence there with stays at his home in Geneva. The mediation of
Pope John Paul II
was key for the Savoys to set foot in their homeland again. Victor Emmanuel then swore in writing his acceptance of the end of the Monarchy and his
loyalty to the Republican Constitution
, although he undertook a long judicial battle against the Italian authorities for the restitution of the assets confiscated from the dynasty, which has not yet written its chapter. final.
In 2019, Victor Manuel used his status as a suitor to change the succession rules and
abolish the Salic law
to allow his granddaughter
Victoria
to one day be at the head of the House. And, by the way, of course, try to prevent the crown from irrevocably passing to the male descendants of the Savoy-Aosta, the rival line.
Today, Victor Emmanuel's only son, the well-known Philibert of Savoy, has become the new head of the Royal House. But last summer he announced that he would abdicate directly to his eldest daughter, Victoria (19), the last of those antics that lead to this Monarchy without a throne no longer being able to be treated seriously. To begin with, because of the harmful image of inconsistency of Filiberto, who for decades has not stopped embracing fame as a contestant on programs on Italian television such as Dancing with the Stars or putting his face to the promotion of a
fresh pasta
food truck.
in United States. But, above all, because Victoria, a young girl who spends her hours working as an
influencer
on the networks, is more interested in having parties with our
Froilanes
than attending to stale institutional commitments.
This being the case, it will be very interesting to see which members of royalty attend the
funeral
of Victor Emmanuel, which will take place in the
Basilica of Superga in Turin on February 10
. Because, in the end, it is the farewell of the most similar thing to a king, even if he never sat on the throne.