Kingdom of Sardinia (1720–1861)

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Kingdom of Sardinia
Regnum Sardiniae (Latin)
Rennu de Sardigna (Sardinian)
Regno di Sardegna (Italian)
Regn ëd Sardëgna (Piedmontese)

1720–1861

Flag
(1816–1848)[1][2]

Coat of arms
(1833–1848)
 Motto: FERT
(Motto for the House of Savoy)

Anthem: 

S'hymnu sardu nationale

"The Sardinian national anthem"

2:03

Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia in 1859; client state in light green

Sovereign state under Savoy (1720–1861)

Status

Capital Turin
(1720–1798, 1814–1861)

 Cagliari
(1798–1814)

Common languag Since the Iberian period in Sardinia:

es Sardinian, Corsican, Catalan and Spanish;[3]
During the Savoyard period as a composite
state:
Also Italian (already official in the peninsula
since the 16th century via the Rivoli Edict;
introduced to Sardinia in 1760[4][5][6]
[7]
), French (official in the peninsula since the
16th century via the Rivoli
Edict), Piedmontese, Ligurian, Occitan and Ar
pitan
 Religion Catholicism (official)[8]

Demonym(s) Sardinian

Government Absolute monarchy

(1720–1849)
Parliamentary constitutional monarchy
(1849–1861)

King  

• 1720 (first) Victor Amadeus II

• 1849–1861 (last) Victor Emmanuel II

Prime Minister  

• 1848 (first) Cesare Balbo

• 1860–1861 (last) Camillo Benso

Legislature Parliament

• Upper house Subalpine Senate

• Lower house Chamber of Deputies

Historical era Late modern

• Established 1720

• Became part of the 1720

Savoy state

• Perfect fusion 1848

• Loss of Savoy and N 1860
ice

• Became the new 1861

Kingdom of Italy

Population

• 1821 3,974,500[9]

Currency Cagliarese (to 1813)

Sardinian scudo (to 1816)
Piedmontese scudo (to 1816)
French franc (1800–14)
 Sardinian lira (1816–61)

Preceded by Succeeded by

Kingdom of Kingdom of
Sardinia (1700- Italy
1720)
Second
Duchy of Savoy French
Empire
United Provinces
of Central Italy

Kingdom of the
Two Sicilies

Today part of Italy

France
Monaco

For broader coverage of this topic, see Kingdom of Sardinia and Kingdom of Sardinia

(1324–1720).

History of Sardinia

 Pre-Nuragic Sardinia
 Nuragic civilization

 Phoenician–Punic Sardinia

 Sardinia and Corsica

 Vandal Sardinia

 Byzantine Sardinia

 Sardinian Judicates

 Kingdom of Sardinia

 v
 t
 e

The Kingdom of Sardinia is a term used to denote the Savoyard state from 1720

until 1861, which united the island of Sardinia with the mainland possessions of
the House of Savoy. Before 1847, only the island of Sardinia proper was part of
the Kingdom of Sardinia, while the other mainland possessions (principally
the Duchy of Savoy, Principality of Piedmont, County of Nice, Duchy of Genoa and
others) were held by the Savoys in their own right, hence forming a composite
monarchy and a personal union which was formally referred to as the "States of His
Majesty the King of Sardinia".[10][11][12][13] This situation was changed by the Perfect
Fusion act of 1847, which created a unitary kingdom. Due to the fact that Piedmont
was the seat of power and prominent part of the entity, the state is also referred to
as Sardinia-Piedmont or Piedmont-Sardinia and sometimes erroneously as
the Kingdom of Piedmont.[14][15][16]
Before becoming possession of the House of Savoy, the medieval Kingdom of
Sardinia had been part of the Crown of Aragon and then of the burgeoning Spanish
Empire. With the 1720 Treaty of The Hague, the island of Sardinia and its title of
Kingdom were ceded by the Habsburg and Bourbon claimants to the Spanish throne
to the Duke of Savoy, Victor Amadeus II. The Savoyards united it with their historical
possessions on the Italian peninsula, and the kingdom came to be progressively
identified with the peninsular states, which included, besides Savoy and Aosta,
dynastic possessions like the Principality of Piedmont and the County of Nice, over
both of which the Savoyards had been exercising their control since the 13th century
and 1388, respectively.
Under Savoyard rule, the kingdom's government, ruling class, cultural models and
center of population were entirely situated in the peninsula. [17] The island of Sardinia
had always been of secondary importance to the monarchy. While the capital of the
island of Sardinia and the seat of its viceroys had always been de jure Cagliari, it
was the Piedmontese city of Turin, the capital of Savoy since the mid 16th century,
which was the de facto seat of power. This situation would be conferred official
status with the Perfect Fusion of 1847, when all the kingdom's governmental
institutions would be centralized in Turin.
When the peninsular domains of the House of Savoy were occupied and eventually
annexed by Napoleonic France, the king of Sardinia temporarily resided on the
island for the first time in Sardinia's history under Savoyard rule. The Congress of
Vienna (1814–15), which restructured Europe after Napoleon's defeat, returned to
Savoy its peninsular possessions and augmented them with Liguria, taken from
the Republic of Genoa. Following Geneva’s accession to Switzerland, the Treaty of
Turin (1816) transferred Carouge and adjacent areas to the newly-created
Swiss Canton of Geneva. In 1847–48, through an act of Union analogous to the one
between Great Britain and Ireland, the various Savoyard states were unified under
one legal system with their capital in Turin, and granted a constitution, the Statuto
Albertino.
By the time of the Crimean War in 1853, the Savoyards had built the kingdom into a
strong power. There followed the annexation of Lombardy (1859), the central Italian
states and the Two Sicilies (1860), Venetia (1866), and the Papal States (1870). On
17 March 1861, to more accurately reflect its new geographic, cultural and political
extent, the Kingdom of Sardinia changed its name to the Kingdom of Italy, and its
capital was eventually moved first to Florence and then to Rome. The Savoy-led
Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia was thus the legal predecessor of the Kingdom of
Italy, which in turn is the predecessor of the present-day Italian Republic.[18]

Terminology[edit]
The Kingdom of Sardinia was the title with the highest rank among the territories
possessed by the House of Savoy, and hence this title was and still is used often to
indicate the whole of their possessions.[19] In reality, the Savoys ruled not a unitary
state, but a complex array of different entities and titles with different institutional,
cultural, and legal backgrounds.[20] These included for example the Duchy of
Savoy, Duchy of Aosta, Principality of Piedmont, and county of Nice, which were
distinct and not juridically part of the Kingdom of Sardinia, which included only
the island of Sardinia itself.[21][22][23] The Savoys themselves referred to their
possessions as a whole as "the States of the King of Sardinia" (Italian: "gli Stati
del Re di Sardegna").[19] Today, historians use the term Savoyard state to indicate this
entity, which is an example of composite monarchy where many different and distinct
territories are united in a personal union by having the same ruler.[21][22][23]
The situation changed with the Perfect Fusion of 1847, an act of
the Savoyard king Charles Albert of Sardinia which abolished the administrative
differences between the mainland states and the island of Sardinia, creating a
unitary kingdom.

History[edit]
Early history of Savoy[edit]
Main article: Duchy of Savoy

The Savoyards' Italian possessions in the early 18th

century.

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 (c. 220 BC), 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
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[edit]
Main articles: Kingdom of Sardinia (1700–1720) and Kingdom of Sicily under Savoy

19th-century coat of arms of the Kingdom of Sardinia

under the Savoy dynasty

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 of 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 and
Prince of Piedmont (and now King of Sicily too), 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.
Victor Amadeus initially resisted the exchange, and until 1723 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 Corsica.
Since then the archipelago has been a part of the Sardinian region.
 A map of the Kingdom of Sardinia in 1856, after the fusion
of all its provinces into a single jurisdiction

Napoleonic Wars and the Congress of Vienna[edit]

In 1792, the Kingdom of Sardinia and the other states of the Savoy Crown joined
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 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 representaion
in government[24][25][26] caused the Sardinian Vespers (also known as the "Three years
of revolution") started by sa dii de s'aciappa[27] ("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.[28]
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. [29] By the Treaty
of Stupinigi, the Kingdom of Sardinia extended its protectorate over the Principality of
Monaco.
In the reaction after Napoleon, the country was ruled by conservative
monarchs: Victor Emmanuel I (1802–21), Charles Felix (1821–31) and Charles
Albert (1831–49), who fought at the head of a contingent of his own troops at
the Battle of Trocadero, which set the reactionary Ferdinand VII on the Spanish
throne. Victor Emanuel I disbanded the entire Code Napoléon and returned the lands
and power