Early history of Savoy During the 3rd century BC, the
Allobroges settled down in the region between the
Rhône and the
Alps. This region, named Allobrigia and later "Sapaudia" in Latin, was integrated to the
Roman Empire. In the 5th century, the region of Savoy was ceded by the
Western Roman Empire to the
Burgundians and became part of the
Kingdom of Burgundy.
Piedmont was inhabited in early historic times by Celto-
Ligurian tribes such as the
Taurini and the
Salassi. They later submitted to the
Romans (), who founded several colonies there including
Augusta Taurinorum (Turin) and
Eporedia (
Ivrea). After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the region was repeatedly invaded by the Burgundians, the
Goths (5th century),
Byzantines,
Lombards (6th century), and the
Franks (773). At the time, what is known today as Piedmont, as part of the
Kingdom of Italy within the
Holy Roman Empire, was subdivided into several
marks and counties. In 1046,
Oddo of Savoy added Piedmont to their main segment of
Savoy, with a capital at
Chambéry (now in France). Other areas remained independent, such as the powerful
communes of
Asti and
Alessandria, and the
marquisates of
Saluzzo and
Montferrat. The
County of Savoy was elevated to a
duchy in 1416, and Duke
Emmanuel Philibert moved the seat to
Turin in 1563.
Exchange of Sardinia for Sicily The Spanish domination of Sardinia ended at the beginning of the 18th century, as a result of the
War of the Spanish Succession. By the
Treaty of Utrecht (1713), Spain's European empire was divided: Savoy received
Sicily and parts of the
Duchy of Milan, while
Charles VI (the
Holy Roman Emperor and
Archduke of Austria), received the
Spanish Netherlands, the
Kingdom of Naples, Sardinia, and the bulk of the Duchy of Milan. During the
War of the Quadruple Alliance,
Victor Amadeus II, Duke of Savoy, Prince of Piedmont, and by now also King of Sicily, had to agree to yield Sicily to the Austrian Habsburgs and receive Sardinia in exchange. The exchange was formally ratified in the
Treaty of The Hague of 17 February 1720. Because the Kingdom of Sardinia had existed since the 14th century, the exchange allowed Victor Amadeus to retain the title of king in spite of the loss of Sicily. From 1720 to 1798, when
Napoleon invaded Italy, the
de facto government resided in Turin; Cagliari, which had been the capital of the Kingdom of Sardinia since 1324, returned to be the
de facto government during the Savoy exile from 1798 to 1814. When Napoleon was first resided, the
de facto government returned to Turin but did not officially become the capital of the Kingdom of Sardinia until 1847. Victor Amadeus initially resisted the exchange of Sardinia for Sicilia in 1720. Until 1723, he continued to style himself King of Sicily rather than King of Sardinia. The state took the official title of Kingdom of Sardinia, Cyprus, and Jerusalem, as the House of Savoy still claimed the thrones of
Cyprus and
Jerusalem, although both had long been under
Ottoman rule. In 1767–1769,
Charles Emmanuel III annexed the
Maddalena archipelago in the
Strait of Bonifacio from the
Republic of Genoa and claimed it as part of Sardinia, which became a part of the Sardinian region since then. Since the Iberian period in Sardinia, common languages included
Sardinian,
Corsican,
Catalan, and
Spanish. Other languages included
French,
Piedmontese,
Ligurian,
Occitan, and
Arpitan. During the Savoyard period as a composite state,
Italian, which alongside French had already been made official in the peninsula since the 16th century via the Rivoli Edict, was introduced to Sardinia in 1760. With the Regio Biglietto of 25 July 1760, Italian was made a priority over French in Piedmont. The Kingdom of Sardinia's attempt of promotion of a unitary language was incisive, and also the replacement of Spanish with Italian has been described as a "revolution of ideas". Since French was still in use in some provinces, the
Statuto Albertino (1848) authorised the use of French.
Napoleonic Wars and the Congress of Vienna In 1792, the Kingdom of Sardinia and the other states of the Savoy crown joined the
War of the First Coalition against the
French First Republic, but was beaten in 1796 by
Napoleon and forced to conclude the disadvantageous
Treaty of Paris (1796), giving the French army free passage through Piedmont. On 6 December 1798 General
Joubert occupied Turin and forced
Charles Emmanuel IV to abdicate and leave for the island of Sardinia. The provisionary government voted to unite Piedmont with France. In 1799, the Austro-Russians briefly occupied the city, but with the
Battle of Marengo (1800), the French regained control. The island of Sardinia, having defeated the armies of the
French expedition to Sardinia without the royal army's help, stayed out of the reach of the French for the rest of the war. The refusal by the Savoyards of recognizing the Sardinian's rights and representation in government caused the Sardinian Vespers (also known as the "Three years of revolution") started by ("the day of the pursuit and capture"), commemorated today as
Sa die de sa Sardigna, when people in Cagliari started chasing any Piedmontese functionaries they could find and expelled them from the island. Thus, Sardinia became the first European country to have engaged in a revolution of its own, the episode not being the result of a foreign military importation like in most of Europe. In 1814, the Crown of Savoy enlarged its territories with the addition of the former
Republic of Genoa, now a duchy, and it served as a
buffer state against France. This was confirmed by the
Congress of Vienna, which returned the region of Savoy to its borders after it had been annexed by France in 1792. By the
Treaty of Stupinigi (1817), the Kingdom of Sardinia extended its protectorate over the
Principality of Monaco. In 1821, the Kingdom of Sardinia's reported population amounted to 3,974,500. In the reaction after Napoleon, the country was ruled by the conservative monarchs
Victor Emmanuel I (1802–1821),
Charles Felix (1821–1831), and
Charles Albert (1831–1849), who fought at the head of a contingent of his own troops at the
Battle of Trocadero, which restored the reactionary
Ferdinand VII to the Spanish throne. Victor Emanuel I disbanded the entire
Napoleonic Code and returned the lands and power to the nobility and the Church. This reactionary policy went as far as discouraging the use of roads built by the French. These changes typified Sardinia. The Kingdom of Sardinia industrialized from 1830 onward. A constitution, the
Statuto Albertino, was enacted during the
Revolutions of 1848 under liberal pressure. In addition to make Turin its official capital, the
Statuto Albertino made
Roman Catholicism "the only State religion". Earlier in 1847, the island of Sardinia, a Piedmontese dependency for more than a century, lost its own residual autonomy to the peninsula through the
Perfect Fusion issued by Charles Albert. As a result, the kingdom's fundamental institutions were deeply transformed, assuming the shape of a constitutional and centralized monarchy on the French model; under the same pressure, Charles Albert
declared war on
Austria. After initial success, the war took a turn for the worse and Charles Albert was defeated by
Marshal Radetzky at the
Battle of Custozza (1848).
Savoyard struggle for the Italian unification meets
Giuseppe Garibaldi in Teano, 26 October 1860. Like all the various
duchies and
city-states on the
Apennine peninsula and associated islands, the Kingdom of Sardinia was troubled with political instability under alternating governments. After a short and disastrous renewal of the war with Austria in 1849, Charles Albert abdicated on 23 March 1849 in favour of his son
Victor Emmanuel II. In 1852, a liberal ministry under
Count Camillo Benso di Cavour was installed and the Kingdom of Sardinia became the engine driving
Italian unification. The Kingdom of Sardinia took part in the
Crimean War, allied with the
Ottoman Empire,
Britain, and
France, and fighting against
Russia. In 1859, France sided with the Kingdom of Sardinia in a war against
Austria, the
Austro-Sardinian War.
Napoleon III did not keep his promises to Cavour to fight until all of the
Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia had been conquered. Following the bloody battles of
Magenta and
Solferino, both French victories, Napoleon thought the war too costly to continue and made a separate peace behind Cavour's back in which only
Lombardy would be ceded. Due to the Austrian government's refusal to cede any lands to the Kingdom of Sardinia, they agreed to cede Lombardy to Napoleon, who in turn then ceded the territory to the Kingdom of Sardinia to avoid "embarrassing" the defeated Austrians. Cavour angrily resigned from office when it became clear that Victor Emmanuel would accept this arrangement.
Garibaldi and the Thousand On 5 March 1860,
Parma, Piacenza,
Tuscany,
Modena, and
Romagna voted in referendums to join the Kingdom of Sardinia. This alarmed Napoleon, who feared a strong Savoyard state on his south-eastern border and he insisted that if the Kingdom of Sardinia were to keep the new acquisitions they would have to cede Savoy and Nice to France. This was done through the
Treaty of Turin, which also called for referendums to confirm the annexation. Subsequently,
somewhat controversial referendums showed over 99.5% majorities in both areas in favour of joining France. In 1860,
Giuseppe Garibaldi started his campaign to conquer southern Italy in the name of the Kingdom of Sardinia.
The Thousand quickly toppled the
Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, which was the largest of the states in the region, stretching from
Abruzzo and
Naples on the peninsula to
Messina and
Palermo on Sicily. He then marched to
Gaeta in the central peninsula. Cavour was satisfied with the unification while Garibaldi, who was too revolutionary for the king and his prime minister, also wanted to conquer Rome. Garibaldi was disappointed in this development, as well as in the loss of his home province, Nice, to France. He also failed to fulfill the promises that had gained him popular and military support by the Sicilians: that the new nation would be a republic, not a kingdom, and that the Sicilians would see great economic gains after unification. The former did not come to pass until 1946.
Towards the Kingdom of Italy On 17 March 1861, law no. 4671 of the
Parliament of the Kingdom of Sardinia proclaimed the Kingdom of Italy, so ratifying the
annexations of all other Apennine states, plus Sicily, to the Kingdom of Sardinia. The institutions and laws of the kingdom were quickly extended to all of Italy, abolishing the administrations of the other regions. Piedmont became the most dominant and wealthiest region in Italy and the capital of Piedmont, Turin, remained the Italian capital until 1865, when the capital was moved to
Florence. As part of the
Brigandage in the Two Sicilies, many revolts exploded throughout the peninsula, especially in southern Italy and on the island of Sicily, because of the perceived unfair treatment of the south by the Piedmontese ruling class. The
House of Savoy ruled the Kingdom of Italy until 1946, when Italy was declared a
republic by
referendum. The result of the
1946 Italian institutional referendum was 54.3% in favor of a republic. == Demographics ==