Prince Emanuele Filiberto of Savoy, Prince of Venice, usually called Emanuele Filiberto di Savoia, is a member of the House of Savoy. He is the son and heir of Vittorio Emanuele di Savoia and only male-line grandson of Umberto II, the last King of Italy. In his latter days, Umberto II created and gave the title of "Prince of Venice" to his grandson Emanuele Filiberto, but as heir-apparent to the disputed headship of the House of Savoy, Emanuele Filiberto also styles himself as "Prince of Piedmont". Emanuele Filiberto grew up as an exile from Italy, in accordance with the provision of the Italian constitution prohibiting the male issue of the Savoy kings of Italy from entering or staying on Italian territory. Since returning to Italy he has made many appearances on national television, including his participation as a contestant in Ballando con le stelle, and the Sanremo Music Festival. He is married to French actress Clotilde Courau.
Early life and family
Emanuele Filiberto was born in Geneva, Switzerland, the only child of Vittorio Emanuele, a disputed head of the House of Savoy, and his wife, Marina Ricolfi Doria, a Swiss former water ski champion. On 10 November 2002, he accompanied his father and mother to Italy, following revocation of the provision in the Italian constitution that forbade the male Savoy descendants of kings of Italy from setting foot in the country. On the three-day trip, he accompanied his parents on a visit to the Vatican for a 20-minute audience with Pope John Paul II. He also appeared in a TV commercial for a brand of olives, in which he said they made you "feel like a king". On 10 July 2003, the engagement of Emanuele Filiberto to Clotilde Courau, a French actress, was announced. The couple married on 25 September of that year at the Church of Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri in Rome. There were some 1,200 guests at the wedding; among them were Pierre Cardin and Valentino Garavani, who had designed the wedding dress. Emanuele Filiberto and Clotilde Courau have two daughters:
Luisa of Savoy, Princess of Chieri, born on August 16, 2006
On December 28, 2019, their grandfather announced that the line of succession was to be changed to absolute primogeniture. On the same date he created them Princess of Carignano and Marchioness of Ivrea and Princess of Chieri and Countess of Salemi. Emanuele Filiberto received the America Award of the Italy-USA Foundation in 2019.
Controversies
In 2015 Emanuele Filiberto engaged in a public spat on Twitter with aristocratic journalist Beatrice Borromeo who broke the story of his father's confession on video regarding the death of Dirk Hamer. Vittorio Emanuele had sued the newspaper for defamation, but in 2015 after it won the case, Borromeo tweeted Vincere una causa è sempre piacevole, ma contro Vittorio Emanuele di Savoia la goduria è doppia!, and "caro @efsavoia goditi questa sentenza" which provoked Emanuele Filiberto to defend his father. She had earlier publicly confronted him on camera with a copy of a book on the murder by Hamer's sister, whose preface she had written. In 2018 Emanuele Filiberto revealed that he is contemplating the launch of a royalist party to advocate for restoration of monarchy in Italy. The comment was made during the prince's interview with the news daily Libero, following release of polling data by the Istituto Piepoli'' that showed 15 percent of Italians favor the concept, while eight percent expressed support for Emanuele Filiberto as future king.
Titles, styles and honours
Titles and styles
Emanuele Filiberto is, by strict primogeniture in the male-line, the heir apparent of the House of Savoy, Italy's former ruling dynasty. In June 2006 his distant cousin Amedeo, 5th Duke of Aosta, declared himself to be head of the house and rightful Duke of Savoy, maintaining that Vittorio Emanuele had forfeited his dynastic rights when he married Emanuele Filiberto's mother, Marina Ricolfi Doria, in 1971 without the legally required permission of his father and sovereign-in-exile, Umberto II. Emanuele Filiberto and his father applied for judicial intervention to forbid Amedeo from using the title Duke of Savoy. In February 2010, the court of Arezzo ruled that the Duke of Aosta and his son must pay damages totalling 50,000 euros to their cousins and cease using the surname Savoy instead of Savoy-Aosta. The Duke of Aosta appealed the ruling and the dynastic dispute is still unresolved.
