Friday 27 May 2005

Of Popes and Kings - Italy's House of Savoy

As the cardinals met in the de-bugged Sistine Chapel last month to choose a successor to the late and much revered Pope John Paul II, it may have seemed ludicrous to some to put on such a cloak-and-dagger dance to guard against premature leaking of the new pope�s identity. But intrigue, danger and political maneuvering have always been an integral part of each pope�s reign since St. Peter established the Church in Rome and was crucified there in 67 AD. Their fates were often at the mercy of the rulers of Italy. Up until the 1820�s those kings, princes and dukes presided over an Italy that was fragmented into the independent kingdoms of Piedmont, Savoy, Turin, Naples, Venice, and Sardinia. Each was ruled from whatever Big Power controlled it at the time. This could be France, Spain, Prussia or Austria. In the end the House of Savoy won out as the Kings of Italy. Their history and the history of the Popes are very much entwined. In fact, some Savoyards actually became anti-Popes.           

When the Roman Empire fell apart the known world plunged into the Dark Ages. Since things couldn�t get much worse something had to be salvaged. The universal truth hit on was that the greater the unity the greater the power, the greater the power the greater the wealth. And those best suited to guide those unities were of course kings and emperors, empowered and guided by God. 

For centuries these kings fought each other, rose and fell, made treaties and alliances, and in the end the most powerful won out by getting the Church on their side. With the battles won they then wanted peace, and to ensure the peace remained they instituted ironclad laws that refused any kind of change in the established hierarchy. 

Charlemagne's death brought about the end of his empire. A minor count named Rudolf claimed an area stretching from the Rhone River in France, across the Alps to Val d�Osta in Italy. In 1034 when his grandson died childless German Emperor Conrad II claimed the area for himself. But the locals resisted and all fought Conrad�s Burgundian and Italian army in a series of bloody skirmishes. When it looked like Conrad might lose suddenly out of the Great Saint Bernard Pass thundered Humbert the Whitehanded to save the day. For this feat Conrad made Humbert a Count, gave him control of the three most important mountain passes, numerous feudal dominions and a small county called Savoy. Ingrate that he was he then set about using his control of those very passes to undermine Conrad while pretending he was still a loyal vassal of Conrad and his successor King Henry III. Henry arranged for Humbert�s fourth son Oddone to marry the very wealthy, thrice widowed Adelaide, heir to Turin and most of Piedmont. Oddone succeeded his father. It was to his son that Humbert gave his best advice, and the family took it to heart from then on. �Never ally yourself completely to one side, to one faction, to one policy.� For the next 350 years, until the time of Duke Amadeus VIII in 1470, the Savoys played off one faction against another until they grew mighty. And their best strategy was to extol the emperor and make great the pope-with as little effort as possible. 

Two of the pre-monarch members of the family even became popes during a time of yet another upheaval in the Church itself. Pope Clement V had been born in France and was finally elected after five months of internal bickering by the cardinals. King Philip IV, Clement�s boyhood friend aimed to get his hands on the riches of the Templar Knights by ordering a resistant Clement to suppress them. It worked eventually but neither Clement or Philip lived to take advantage. It took two years of King Philip V�s wrangling with dissenting cardinals to finally convene at Lyon and crown John XXII as Pope, who then set up his seat in Avignon, France, Rome being too dangerous. 

There was a split between the factions favouring Louis of Bavaria and Frederick of Austria as Emperor. They both asked John to confirm their kingship. He declared that until they came to an arrangement the throne would stay vacant. But Louis attempted to have himself crowned in Rome and declared an Italian Franciscan Pope, Nicholas V, in 1328. Nicholas himself didn�t like the idea and went to Avignon to beg John for forgiveness, which he got. In 1378 after Pope Gregory XI died there was a fight between the French cardinals and the Italian cardinals over the origin of the next Pope. The compromise was Urban VI, Italian born but friendly to Avignon where he had been a favorite at the Papal Court. Because his methods of reforming the cardinals was bitterly resented by the Roman faction and by Queen Joanna, the King of France encouraged them to elect their own pope.  

They chose one Robert of Savoy in 1378. Robert�s claim to fame was to suppress a rebellion in northern Italy, where he was legate, by murdering 4000 people. As Clement VII he set up shop in Avignon and proceeded to �donate� most of the Papal States to Louis II, King of Naples. The Great Western Schism- civil war between those who recognized Clement and those who remained loyal to Urban VI- lasted from 1378 to 1417.  

A much more successful Savoy Pope, although still regarded as an anti-Pope, was Amadeus VIII, Count of Savoy and Piedmont. Emperor Sigismund raised him to Duke in 1422. When his wife died Amadeus retreated to the Order of St. Maurice. After excommunication by the Italian pope Eugene IV, and giving up his duchy, a tiny Council quickly elected him as Pope Felix V. For years of he fought with his Council over money and his Prerogatives and at last retreated to Geneva. He fought on there for six years but eventually reconciled to the Italian Pope, Nicholas V, who made him Vicar General of Savoy. He died in 1451, the last of the anti-popes. 

Fast-forward nearly 400 years to the Italy of Pope Pius VII. He had been summoned to crown Napoleon (although Boney actually crowned himself), and was happily supervising a worldwide Catholic resurgence, partly fueled by the Romantic Movement. Writers in France were calling for altar and throne to cooperate as closely as possible. However a secret society in Italy, calling itself the Carbonari, were dedicated to founding a united Italian republic. Among the states outside Pius IX�s domains was the Kingdom of Sicily, belonging to the House of Savoy. In 1858 Victor Emmanuel I ceded Savoy and Nice to France in exchange for French support in their war with Austria. After a series of ceding Papal States to Sardinia by Garibaldi, but with France still occupying Rome for Pius, and Austria giving Venice to Italy, the Franco-Prussian War broke out. Rome fell and was incorporated into Italy as its capital. In an attempt to avoid further bloodshed Pius asked his own army, the Zouaves, to lay down their arms, fled the Quirinal (papal palace) and shut himself up in the Vatican. He then forbade Catholics to take part in politics. The Roman nobility split into White, who supported the new King of Italy (as of 1861), Victor Emmanuel, and the Black who refused to recognize him. From here on popes ceased to be temporal (secular) princes (or so it seemed), and concentrated on spiritual matters. 

In 1878 Victor Emmanuel II and Pius IX died, succeeded by a pious Humbert I and Leo XIII respectively. Leo wanted to aid the cause of socialism and excommunicated Humbert. Humbert could not get his ministers to deal with Leo�s attempts to force bargaining with the Italian government. In secret Leo reconciled the king and his queen as private people so they could go to low mass, but not attend High Mass in public.  

The Savoys went about adopting foreign titles and lands under treaties after WWI. Victor Emmanuel III became Emperor of Ethiopia and King of Albania in 1936 (renounced in 1943). He had become King while on his honeymoon with his new Russian princess Elena. They had been sailing around the world on a series of borrowed yachts belonging to other royal families when his father Victor Emmanuel II was assassinated. Upon their return to Rome in 1929 they had had an audience with Pius XI, both grateful to the fascists, and Mussolini, whom they saw as Italy�s saviour. But by 1943, the war was not going well for Italy as Hitler�s forces had occupied Rome, With Goebbels� assistance Victor, Elena and Crown Prince Humbert were evacuated on September 9. By month�s end Hitler had encouraged the people to demand a republic and he sent Mussolini up north to head a puppet republic. In 1944, without Churchill�s knowledge, British diplomats informed the king he was finished. In turn the king announced his �retirement� and he and Elena went into exile after abdicating on May 6.  

The new king, Humbert II, went on the campaign trail to encourage the continuance of the monarchy in a June 2, 1946 referendum. His and his queen Maria Jose tried to instill some of the old splendor into the Quirinal, but they didn�t know that the UK and US had decided the monarchy had to go. By June 5, when the results of the allegedly rigged election were announced, the republic had won, but only by 2 million votes. To oppose this meant bloody civil war, which Humbert had no stomach for.  

Stripped of his power and with the constitution thrown out, Humbert left for Lisbon. He had been king for only 34 days. He did not abdicate nor renounce his claims. In the new 1948 Constitution the House of Savoy lost their lands, lost any right to run for office and had to leave Italy period. After 1,946 years the House of Savoy had fallen. In 1947, Victor Emmanuel III died in Alexandria, Egypt, shortly after his wife left him, and was buried there. Their daughters married minor European Royals or commoners. The marriages failed and they turned to alcohol. 

In the meantime Pius XII had been spending his war years helping the Jews, mediating between Germany, Poland, France, Italy and Britain in a peace bid that was never accepted, and trying mightily to help the Christians now trapped and persecuted in Communist-held countries. 

The deposed King of Italy, Victor Emmanuel IV, Prince of Naples, took the name Victor di Sarre, declaring that he had no desire to be king of nothing. He married a Swiss heiress in 1971. Their only son Emanuel Philbert, Prince of Venice, was born in 1972. He married a French actress in 2003.

In 1978, off the south coast of Corsica, Victor Emmanuel IV shot and killed a man sleeping onboard a yacht anchored near his, whom he believed had stolen a dinghy from his own yacht. He was arrested on the charge of fatal wounding and offensive weapons possession, but was acquitted. On November 10, 2002 the provision that forbade any male Savoy from setting foot in the Italian Republic was abolished. His heir the Prince and Princess of Naples immediately paid a courtesy call on Pope John Paul II at the Vatican. Last year, on the eve of the wedding of Prince Felipe* of Spain, King Juan Carlos held a dinner. At that dinner was Victor Emmanuel and the current representative of his family�s archenemy of six centuries, his cousin Amadeo, the Duke of Aosta. Amadeo and Victor Emmanuel got into a fistfight. Victor Emmanuel got in two good shots to Amadeo; no word on what he received. 

There was no sign of him among the monarchs of Europe who attended Pope John Paul�s funeral or Pope Benedict XVI�s coronation. It had been during the pontificate of Benedict XV in WWI that both the Emperor of Austria and the Tsar of Russia were deposed; diplomatic relations with France and Britain were reestablished and Catholics in Italy were again permitted to take part in politics to counter communism. He started negotiating with Mussolini to regain his Papal States. In 1929 his successor Pius XI ceded all Papal States except Vatican City, Castel Gandolfo, certain buildings in Rome and a tiny area outside the city where Vatican Radio was situated in return for recognition of Catholicism as the official state religion.  

And so it remains, but in the world of popes and kings nothing lasts forever. 

* The Jester sends congratulations to Prince Felipe and his Princess Letizia, expecting their first child in November. If it is a boy he will be second in line for the throne. If it is a girl she will only succeed if she has no brothers.

Arrivederci!

- The Court Jester