F. Cognasso, ed. Le Lettere di Vittorio Emanuele II.
(Turin, 1966).
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Smith. Victor Emanuel, Cavour and the
Risorgimento. (New York, 1971).
Denis Mack Smith. Italy and Its Monarchy. (New Haven,
1989).
H. McGaw Smyth, "The Armistice of Novara: A Legend of a Liberal
King," Journal of Modern History (1935): 141-74.
F. Valsecchi, ed. Le Relazioni diplomatiche fra l'Austria e
il Regno di Sardegna (1849-1860). (Rome, 1963).
JGC revised this file
(http://www.ohiou.edu/~chastain/rz/victorem.htm) on October 27, 2004.
Please E-mail comments or suggestions to
© 1998, 2004 James Chastain.
VICTOR EMMANUEL II (1820-1878) First king (1861-1878) of united
Italy and last king of Piedmont-Sardinia (1849-1861). Victor
Emmanuel succeeded his father Charles Albert to the throne of
Piedmont-Sardinia on March 24, 1849, following the abdication of
Charles Albert after two humiliating defeats (1848 and 1849) by
Austria. The first task to face the young, inexperienced monarch
was making peace with Austria, which he successfully achieved by
August 6, 1849, with the signing of the Treaty of Milan. Although
opposed to constitutionalism and a believer in unrestrained royal
authority, Victor Emmanuel retained the constitution, or
Statuto, granted by his father in January 1848. Under
the guidance of two able prime ministers Massimo d'Azeglio and then
Camillo Benso di Cavour, both veterans of the 1848-49 turmoils,
Victor Emmanuel successfully met various crises in the early years
of his reign. In the 1850s Piedmont-Sardinia remained the only
constitutional state in Italy, a haven for persecuted Italian
nationalists and liberals who had been involved in the 1848-49
revolutions. By 1859, assured of military support by Napoleon III
of France in the Treaty of Plombières, Piedmont-Sardinia
once again went to war with Austria. As a result of this conflict,
Austria ceded Lombardy. Successive upheavals in the smaller states
of central Italy and Giuseppe Garibaldi's successful campaign in
southern Italy against the Neapolitan Bourbons led to the creation
of a united Italy. On March 17, 1861, the kingdom of united Italy
was proclaimed at Turin, capital of Piedmont-Sardinia, in a
national parliament composed of deputies elected from all over the
peninsula and the 1848 Statuto extended to all of
Italy. Victor Emmanuel became the new country's first king. To
the disappointment of many, however, he insisted on retaining his
dynastic designation of Victor Emmanuel II, rather than becoming
Victor Emmanuel I of Italy.
Emiliana P. Noether
Bibliography