Amadeo (Italian: Amedeo, sometimes Latinized as Amadeus; full name: Amedeo Ferdinando Maria di Savoia; 30 May 1845 – 18 January 1890) was an Italian prince who reigned as King of Spain from 1870 to 1873. The first and only King of Spain to come from the House of Savoy, he was the second son of Victor Emmanuel II of Italy and was known for most of his life as the Duke of Aosta, the usual title for a second son in the Savoyard dynasty.
He was elected by the Cortes Generales as Spain’s monarch in 1870, following the deposition of Isabel II, and was sworn in the following year. Amadeo’s reign was fraught with growing republicanism, Carlist rebellions in the north, and the Cuban independence movement. After three tumultuous years in the throne, he abdicated and returned to Italy in 1873, and the First Spanish Republic was declared as a result.
He founded the Aosta branch of Italy’s royal House of Savoy, which is junior in agnatic descent to the branch descended from King Umberto I that reigned in Italy until 1900, but senior to the branch of the dukes of Genoa.
Early life and first marriage
Prince Amedeo of Savoy was born in Turin, then part of the Kingdom of Sardinia. He was the third child and second son of King Victor Emmanuel II, who would later become the first King of a unified Italy, and of Archduchess Adelaide of Austria. He was granted the hereditary title of Duke of Aosta from birth.
Entering the Royal Sardinian Army as captain in 1859, he fought through the Third Italian War of Independence in 1866 with the rank of major-general. He led his brigade into action at the Battle of Custoza and was wounded at Monte Croce. In 1868, after his marriage, he was created vice admiral of the Italian Royal Navy, but the position ended when he ascended the Spanish throne.
In 1867, his father yielded to the entreaties of the parliamentary deputy Francesco Cassins, and on 30 May of that year, Amedeo was married to Donna Maria Vittoria dal Pozzo. The King initially opposed the match on the grounds that her family was of insufficient rank and that he hoped for his son to marry a German princess. Despite her princely title, Donna Maria Vittoria was not of royal birth and belonged rather to the Piedmontese nobility. She was, however, the sole heir to her father’s vast fortune, which subsequent Dukes of Aosta inherited, and thereby obtaining wealth independent of their dynastic appanage and allowances from Italy’s kings. The wedding day of Prince Amedeo and Donna Maria Vittoria was marred by the death of a station master, who was crushed under the wheels of the honeymoon train.
In March 1870, Maria Vittoria appealed to the King to remonstrate with her husband for marital infidelities, which caused her hurt and embarrassment. However, the King wrote in reply that he understood her feelings, but he considered that she had no right to dictate her husband’s behaviour, and her jealousy was unbecoming.
King of Spain
After the Glorious Revolution deposed Isabella II, the new Cortes decided to reinstate the monarchy under a new dynasty. The Duke of Aosta’s father was a descendant of King Philip II of Spain through his daughter Infanta Catherine Michelle of Spain and her son Thomas Francis, Prince of Carignano, while his mother was a descendant of King Charles III of Spain through his daughter Infanta Maria Luisa of Spain. The Savoyard prince was elected king as Amadeo I on 16 November 1870 and swore to uphold the Constitution in Madrid on 2 January 1871. The election of the new king coincided with the assassination of General Juan Prim, his chief supporter, and Amadeo took the oath in the presence of Prim’s corpse.
Amadeo then had to deal with difficult situations, with unstable Spanish politics, republican conspiracies, Carlist uprisings, separatism in Cuba, interparty disputes, fugitive governments and assassination attempts. Amadeo could count on the support of only the Progressive Party, whose leaders traded off in the government by its parliamentary majority and electoral fraud. The progressives divided into monarchists and constitutionalists, which worsened the country’s instability, and in 1872 a violent outburst of interparty conflicts hit a peak. There was a Carlist uprising in the Basque and Catalan regions, and republican uprisings later occurred in cities across the country. The artillery corps of the army went on strike, and the government instructed Amadeo to discipline them.
Though warned of a plot against his life on 18 August 1872, he refused to take precautions. While returning from Buen Retiro Park to Madrid in company with the queen, he was repeatedly shot at in Vía Avenal. The royal carriage was struck by several revolver and rifle bullets. The horses were wounded, but its occupants escaped unhurt. A period of calm followed that event.
With the possibility of reigning without popular support, Amadeo issued an order against the artillery corps and then immediately abdicated from the Spanish throne on 11 February 1873. At ten o’clock the same night, Spain was proclaimed a republic, and Amadeo made an appearance before the Cortes and proclaimed the Spanish people to be ungovernable.
Later life
Completely disgusted, the ex-monarch left Spain and returned to Italy, where he resumed the title of Duke of Aosta. The First Spanish Republic lasted less than two years, and in November 1874 Alfonso XII, the son of Isabella II, was proclaimed king, with Antonio Cánovas del Castillo, Spanish intermittent prime minister from 1873 until his assassination in 1897, briefly serving as regent.
Amadeo’s first wife died in 1876. In 1888 he married his French niece, Princess Maria Letizia Bonaparte, Duchess of Aosta (20 November 1866 – 25 October 1926), daughter of his sister Maria Clotilde and of Prince Napoléon Bonaparte, a nephew of Napoleon I. They had one child, Umberto (1889–1918), who died of the flu during the First World War.
Amadeo remained in Turin, Italy until his death on 18 January 1890. His friend Puccini composed the famous elegy for string quartet Crisantemi in his memory.
