Victor Emmanuel II

Biography

Victor Emmanuel was born in Turin in 1820, the eldest son of Charles Albert, Prince of Carignano, and Maria Theresa of Austria. He fought in the First Italian War of Independence and became King of Sardinia in March 1849, when his father abdicated after defeat.

With Count Cavour as prime minister he strengthened the kingdom and kept the republican left in check. Sardinia sent troops to the Crimean War, which won it a voice at the peace conference and helped secure an alliance with Napoleon III. French help in the Second Italian War of Independence in 1859 brought Lombardy, and in return he ceded Savoy and Nice to France in 1860.

In 1860 the central Italian states joined his kingdom and Garibaldi's Expedition of the Thousand overthrew the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Victor Emmanuel's army took the Marche and Umbria from the Papal States, for which he was excommunicated, and he received southern Italy from Garibaldi. On 17 March 1861 he became the first King of Italy.

Italy gained Veneto in the 1866 war and, after French troops left during the Franco-Prussian War, took Rome on 20 September 1870; it became the capital in 1871. He died in Rome in January 1878 and was buried in the Pantheon.