Amadeo I of Spain

Biography

Amadeo of Savoy was born in Turin in 1845, the second son of Victor Emmanuel II, later the first king of united Italy, and held the title Duke of Aosta from birth. He entered the Sardinian army in 1859, led a brigade at Custoza in 1866, where he was wounded, and in 1868 was made a vice admiral of the Italian navy. In 1867 he married Maria Vittoria dal Pozzo, a wealthy Piedmontese heiress.

After the Glorious Revolution of 1868 deposed Isabella II, Spain's new Cortes looked for a liberal king from another dynasty and elected Amadeo on 16 November 1870. His chief backer, General Juan Prim, was assassinated just before he arrived, and Amadeo swore to the 1869 constitution in Madrid on 2 January 1871.

His short reign was undermined by the split of Prim's Progressives into rival parties, the hostility of the nobility and the Church, republican agitation, a renewed Carlist war in the north and the war in Cuba. He and the queen survived an assassination attempt in Madrid in July 1872. In February 1873, after a dispute with the government over the artillery corps, he abdicated, and the Cortes proclaimed the First Spanish Republic.

He returned to Italy, resumed the title of Duke of Aosta and founded the Aosta branch of the House of Savoy. Widowed in 1876, he married Princess Maria Letizia Bonaparte in 1888 and died in Turin in 1890.