Report on the 2026 Annual General Meeting, with a talk by Riccardo Sciolti on "the links between Portuguese and Iberian ruling families and the House of Savoy"

This year’s Annual General Meeting on 11 July was held at the D. Carlos I restaurant in Areia, Cascais. Before the AGM, the 47 members present enjoyed a fascinating talk by Riccardo Sciolti (above) on the links between Portuguese and Iberian ruling families and the House of Savoy, one of Italy’s most important noble families and the Royal House of re-unified Italy from 1861 onwards. Such ties date back at least to the 12^th Century. Unbeknown to Riccardo before he started to investigate the Savoy family’s history, a liaison also emerged with England’s Plantagenets. Henry III (1216-1272) married Eleanor of Provence, daughter of Beatrice of Savoy (Countess of Provence). Their son Edward I ruled from 1272 till 1307 and was the great-grandfather of John of Gaunt and of the Black Prince.

Riccardo explained how Umberto Biancamano (above right) was the first member of the family to be called “Count”, in 1003. The County was created within the so-called Kingdom of Arles, later gaining territorial expansion into North-Western Italy through marriage. The Savoy family came to dominate all Alpine passes between today’s France and Italy. He then recalled how, in the Iberian Peninsula, Alfonso VI of Castille and Leon had conquered Toledo in 1085. This, along with El Cid's taking of Valencia, greatly expanded the influence of the Leonese/Castilian realm, but also provoked the Almoravid invasion. Several Burgundian knights rushed to Spain to defend the Christian kingdoms. One of them was Henry, to whom one can trace the origin of the first Portuguese dynasty, the Borgonha. Henry married Alfonso’s illegitimate daughter, Teresa, while his brother, Raymond, married Urraca, the King’s legitimate daughter.

Alfonso VI, reportedly to counter a not-so-secret pact between his two sons-in-law aimed at sharing his kingdom upon his death, appointed Henry governor of the region extending from the Minho River to the banks of the Tagus. Until then, this region had been governed by Raymond. Unhappy with Teresa's relationships with some Galician nobles, the Portuguese nobility rallied around her son Afonso Henriques, (above left) who revolted and defeated his mother at the Battle of São Mamede in 1128, later proclaiming Portugal’s independence from Leon in 1139 (after the battle of Ourique). Afonso Henriques was later recognized as King of Portugal. As part of his efforts to broker Papal recognition for Portugal, he married Matilda (or Mafelda) of Savoy (below left), daughter of Count Amadeus III of Savoy. The Savoy were notoriously a dynasty very close to the Papacy, and Count Amadeus had joined the 2^nd Crusade.

D. Manuel I was born in Alcochete, in 1469, the son of Prince D. Fernando and the grandson of Dom Duarte, and he died in Lisbon in 1521. He ascended to the throne on 25 October 1495. He married three times. He started a programme of law reform in 1496 and continued to extend the politics of expansion developed by D. João II. Thus, in July 1497, a fleet commanded by Vasco da Gama left in search of the maritime route to India. Profits from overseas trade grew enormously. Beatriz (born in 1504 -above right) was the daughter of D. Manuel and Queen Maria of Aragon and Castile, his second wife. Beatriz married Charles III, Duke of Savoy, by proxy, and later (on 29 September 1521) in person, at Villefranche-sur-Mer, after a sea voyage. She took an impressive dowry! Her one surviving son, Emanuele Filiberto, became possibly one of Savoy’s most famous dukes, recovering all of the Duchy while fighting for his cousin, King Philip II of Spain.

Fast forward about 200 years, the outcome of the War of Spanish Succession (1701-13) was mainly the product of two exceptional Imperial generals, one British and one Franco-Italian: John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, known for never having lost a battle, and Eugene of Savoy (1663-1736), considered by some the greatest general in modern history and a cousin of the then Duke of Savoy.  As a result of the War, the Duchy of Savoy first became the Kingdom of Sicily and, after a swap with Austria, the Kingdom of Sardinia.  Both the islands held medieval kingdom titles, and a Savoy, Vittorio Amedeo II, was finally a King.

Meanwhile, two more Italian ladies had played a significant role in the events of the Spanish War of Succession and in the following decades. Maria Luisa Gabriella of Savoy (below left) married Philip V of Spain at the age of 14, in 1701. After her early death, Philip married Elisabetta Farnese (below right), from a different old Italian family traditionally allied with Spain. She was one of Spain’s most energetic queens, for decades dictating or inspiring her husband’s and her two sons’ foreign policy.

Throughout much of the 18th century the Kingdom of Savoy constantly increased its territories. In 1848, King Carlo Alberto was the author of the first attempt to re-unify Italy. He, however, died (self-exiled) in Porto, in 1849, after his defeat in the so-called 1st War of Independence. Carlo Alberto settled in a small quinta, a guest of an affluent Porto citizen (now the Museu Romantico). He died just three months later, on 28 July 1849: thousands of Portuguese citizens paid homage to the late King before his body was transported to Turin.

A few decades later, in 1861, in Portugal, Dom Luis I (son of Dona Maria II) became king after the premature death of his brother, Dom Pedro V. Negotiations to find him a wife of an adequate rank quickly pointed to Carlo Alberto’s granddaughter, Princess Maria Pia of Savoy, daughter of the newly proclaimed King of Italy, Vittorio Emanuele II. Maria Pia quickly became a highly regarded symbol of the Portuguese monarchy in the country and abroad. She became known as the “Angel of Charity” because of her involvement in several hospitals, hospices, crèches, and schools for the poor.

Meanwhile, in 1870, the Cortes choose Maria Pia’s brother, Amedeo of Savoy, Duke of Aosta, as the new king of Spain, the first time a Spanish king had been democratically elected. Unfortunately, he arrived just after the assassination of his leading supporter Prime Minister, Juan Prim y Prats (below). Three years later he was forced to abdicate and made his way to Lisbon, and from there back to Italy.

Dom Luis I died in 1889, and the couple’s first son, Dom Carlos, became king of Portugal. Queen Maria Pia continued to reside in the Ajuda Palace, but she voluntarily removed herself from public life, except when acting as regent on the occasion of her son’s voyages abroad. Her stability was badly hit by the 1908 double regicide, and she almost disappeared from Court life during the brief reign of her grandson, Dom Manuel II. On the morning of 5 October 1910, she fled first to Ericeira (below), and from there to exile on the royal yacht Amalia, together with the rest of the royal family. From Gibraltar, unlike the rest of the royal family who proceeded to England, she went to Italy where she was received with all honours by her nephew King Vittorio Emanuele III.

As Riccardo had promised, his presentation couldn’t be complete without some reference to Great Britain, and more specifically to 13^th century England. In fact, three members of the Savoy family moved to England at the invitation of their niece, Queen Eleanor of Provence, wife of King Henry III.  They were Boniface, William and Peter. Boniface of Savoy (c. 1207—1270) became a controversial archbishop of Canterbury, noted more for his birth than his brains according to a contemporary chronicler, but in reality hated by some for taxing the clergy in an attempt to address the Church finances. Peter II (c. 1203 – 15 May 1268), called the Little Charlemagne, was Count of Savoy from 1263 until his death in 1268. He became a large landholder in Yorkshire and Sussex and was granted by the King a significant portion of land on the Thames, where he built his palace, which eventually, as Riccardo pointed out in closing, led to the name of today’s Savoy Hotel.

A MORE-DETAILED ARTICLE BASED ON RICCARDO’S WELL-RECEIVED TALK WILL BE PUBLISHED IN A FUTURE NEWSLETTER.

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Efficiently chaired by Filipe Lowndes Marques, the Annual General Meeting was quickly completed, assisted by the fact that the hungry participants could smell their lunches being prepared. The Chairman’s Report was approved, as were the Accounts. Seven members agreed to put their names forward to serve on the Council for the coming three years, Edward Godfrey, Mark Crathorne, Dani Monteiro, Curtis Stewart, Andrew Shepherd, our speaker, Riccardo Sciolti, and Paul Mallett. All were elected by acclamation. It was announced that Edward Godfrey would not be seeking re-election as Chairman, and he was warmly applauded for his contribution in that position over the past nine years.