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King of Italy | |
---|---|
Re d'Italia | |
Details | |
Style | His Majesty |
First monarch | Odoacer |
Last monarch | Umberto II of Italy |
Formation | 4 September 476 |
Abolition | 12 June 1946 |
Residence | Quirinal Palace |
Pretender(s) | Disputed: |
King of Italy (Italian: Re d'Italia; Latin: Rex Italiae) was the title given to the ruler of the Kingdom of Italy after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. The first to take the title was Odoacer, a barbarian warlord, in the late 5th century, followed by the Ostrogothic kings up to the mid-6th century. With the Frankish conquest of Italy in the 8th century, the Carolingians assumed the title, which was maintained by subsequent Holy Roman Emperors throughout the Middle Ages. The last Emperor to claim the title was Charles V in the 16th century. During this period, the holders of the title were crowned with the Iron Crown of Lombardy.
A Kingdom of Italy was restored from 1805 to 1814 with Napoleon as its only king, centred in Northern Italy. It was not until the Italian unification in the 1860s that an independent Kingdom of Italy covering the entire Italian Peninsula was restored. From 1861 the House of Savoy held the title of King of Italy until the last king, Umberto II, was exiled in 1946 when Italy became a republic.
After the deposition of the last Western Emperor in 476, Heruli leader Odoacer was appointed Dux Italiae (Duke of Italy) by the reigning Byzantine Emperor Zeno. Later, the Germanic foederati, the Scirians and the Heruli, as well as a large segment of the Italic Roman army, proclaimed Odoacer Rex Italiae ('King of Italy). [1] In 493, the Ostrogothic king Theoderic the Great killed Odoacer, and set up a new dynasty of kings of Italy. Ostrogothic rule ended when Italy was reconquered by the Byzantine Empire in 552.
In 568, the Lombards entered the peninsula and ventured to recreate a barbarian kingdom in opposition to the Empire, establishing their authority over much of Italy, except the Exarchate of Ravenna and the duchies of Rome, Venetia, Naples and the southernmost portions. In the 8th century, estrangement between the Italians and the Byzantines allowed the Lombards to capture the remaining Roman enclaves in northern Italy. However, in 774, they were defeated by the Franks under Charlemagne, who deposed their king and took up the title "king of the Lombards". After the death of Charles the Fat in 887, Italy fell into instability and a number of kings attempted to establish themselves as independent Italian monarchs. During this period, known as the Feudal Anarchy (888–962), the title Rex Italicorum ("King of the Italians" or "King of the Italics") was introduced. After the breakup of the Frankish empire, Otto I added Italy to the Holy Roman Empire and continued the use of the title Rex Italicorum. The last to use this title was Henry II (1004–1024). Subsequent emperors used the title "King of Italy" until Charles V. They were crowned in Pavia, Milan and Bologna.
In 1805, Napoleon I was crowned with the Iron Crown of Lombardy at the Milan Cathedral. The next year, Holy Roman Emperor Francis II abdicated his imperial title. From the deposition of Napoleon I (1814) until the Italian Unification (1861), there was no Italian monarch claiming the overarching title. The Risorgimento successfully established the House of Savoy dynasty over the whole peninsula and, uniting the kingdoms of Sardinia and the Two Sicilies, it formed the modern Kingdom of Italy. The monarchy was superseded by the Italian Republic, after a constitutional referendum was held on 2 June 1946, after World War II. [2] The Italian monarchy formally ended on 12 June of that year and Umberto II left the country.
Initially named Dux Italiae (Duke of Italy) by Zeno, the Roman Emperor in Constantinople, he later was recognized as King of Italy by the foederati in control of the Italian peninsula. He was deposed by the Ostrogoths, who established their own kingdom.
Theodoric the Great was invited by the emperor Zeno to take Italy from Odoacer and rule it in Zeno's name. He defeated Odoacer in 493, establishing a new kingdom in place of Odoacer's. Officially, the Ostrogothic kings ruled the Roman citizens in Italy as a viceroy of the Roman emperors, and their own Gothic people as their king, though functionally they ran their kingdom entirely independently from the Roman authority in Constantinople. Their greatest extent was during Theodoric's reign; as Roman Emperors from the east began to exert more power and retake control of Roman territory, the last Ostrogothic king fell to the Emperor Justinian in 553.
Roman authority in Italy was briefly re-established under Justinian, though his gains were lost under his successor Justin II, after a new Germanic tribe, the Lombards, invaded from the north and established their kingdom in 568.
The Lombards under Alboin established their kingdom in the extreme north of Italy in 568, gradually pushing the Byzantine Romans back from the peninsula until only the Exarchate of Ravenna remained under Roman control. This finally fell in the 750s, with the Lombards gaining control of most of the peninsula. The last Lombard King of Italy, Desiderius, was deposed by his son-in-law Charlemagne, who folded it into the larger Carolingian Empire, which evolved over time into the Holy Roman Empire.
Charlemagne ruled over northern Italy as King of the Lombards. In 781, he named his son Pepin as King of Italy, though he still maintained suzerainty over the land. Charlemagne was crowned Roman Emperor in 800, while the Kingdom of Italy became one of the constituent kingdoms of the Empire. Beginning with Louis the Pious in 818, the Kingdom was ruled directly by the Carolingian Emperor himself.
After 887, Italy fell into instability, with many rulers claiming the kingship simultaneously:
In 896, Arnulf and Ratold lost control of Italy, which was divided between Berengar and Lambert:
In 951 Otto I invaded Italy and was crowned with the Iron Crown of Lombardy. In 952, Berengar and Adalbert became his vassals but remained kings until being deposed by Otto.
Otto is considered to be the founding emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, and the Kingdom of Italy was considered one of the constituent realms of the Empire. Beginning in the 12th century, states such as the Republic of Venice and the Papal States captured more and more territory from the Kingdom of Italy, and the Empire's territory on the Peninsula shrunk over time. After Charles V, the emperors stopped being crowned with the Iron Crown of Lombardy and the Italian title fell into disuse. Imperial control in Italy receded to Trent and South Tyrol until the dissolution of the Empire in 1806. Southern Italy had never been part of the Holy Roman Empire; it remained initially under the control of various Byzantine fiefs until the Norman Kingdom of Sicily (later the Kingdom of Naples) took control of the area in the 13th century. Central Italy, along the Rome-Ravenna axis, was part of the Papal States, under the direct personal rule of the pope. The Duke of Savoy was de jure a vassal of the Holy Roman Emperor being Prince and Perpetual Vicar of the Holy Roman Empire.
Image | Name | Life | Coronation | Ceased to be King |
---|---|---|---|---|
Otto I | 23 November 912 – 7 May 973 | 962 [4] | 7 May 973 | |
Otto II | 955 – 7 December 983 | c. October 980 [5] | 7 December 983 | |
Otto III | 980 – 23 January 1002 | c. February 996 [6] | 23 January 1002 | |
Arduin | 955–1015 | 1002 [4] | 1014 | |
Henry II [7] | 6 May 973 – 13 July 1024 | 1004 [4] | 13 July 1024 | |
Image | Name | Life | Coronation | Ceased to be King |
---|---|---|---|---|
Conrad I [8] | 990 – 4 June 1039 | 1026 [4] | 4 June 1039 | |
Henry III | 29 October 1017 – 5 October 1056 | 1039 [4] | 5 October 1056 | |
Henry IV | 11 November 1050 – 7 August 1106 | 1056 [4] | December 1105 | |
Conrad II of Italy | 1074–1101 | 1093 [4] | 1101 | |
Henry V [9] | 8 November 1086 – 23 May 1125 | 1106 [4] | 23 May 1125 | |
Image | Name | Life | Coronation | Ceased to be King |
---|---|---|---|---|
Lothair III | 9 June 1075 – 4 December 1137 | 1125 [4] | 4 December 1137 | |
Image | Name | Life | Coronation | Ceased to be King |
---|---|---|---|---|
Conrad III | 1093 – 15 February 1152 | 1138 [4] (also crowned in 1128 in opposition to Lothair [10] ) | 1152 | |
Frederick I | 1122 – 10 June 1190 | 1154 | 1186 | |
Henry VI | November 1165 – 28 September 1197 | 1186 [4] | 28 September 1197 | |
Image | Coat of Arms | Name | Life | Coronation | Ceased to be King |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Otto IV | 1175 or 1176 – 19 May 1218 | 1209 [4] | 1212 | ||
Image | Coat of Arms | Name | Life | Coronation | Ceased to be King |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Frederick II (Friedrich II) | 26 December 1194 – 13 December 1250 | 5 December 1212 | 13 December 1250 | ||
Henry (Heinrich (VII)) | 1211 – 12 February 1242 | 23 April 1220 | 12 February 1242 | ||
Conrad IV (Konrad IV) | 25 April 1228 – 21 May 1254 | May 1237 | 21 May 1254 |
Image | Coat of Arms | Name | Life | Coronation | Ceased to be King |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Henry VII | 1275 [11] – 24 August 1313 | 6 January 1311 [12] | 24 August 1313 | ||
Image | Coat of Arms | Name | Life | Coronation | Ceased to be King |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Louis IV | 1 April 1282 – 11 October 1347 | 1327 | 11 October 1347 | ||
Image | Coat of Arms | Name | Life | Coronation | Ceased to be King |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Charles IV | 14 May 1316 – 29 November 1378 | 1355 [4] | 29 November 1378 | ||
Sigismund | 14 February 1368 – 9 December 1437 | 1431 [4] | 9 December 1437 | ||
Image | Coat of Arms | Name | Life | Coronation | Ceased to be King |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Frederick III | 21 September 1415 – 19 August 1493 | 16 March 1452 | 19 August 1493 | ||
Charles V | 24 February 1500 – 21 September 1558 | 24 February 1530 [13] | 16 January 1556 | ||
Charles V was the last emperor to be crowned king of Italy or to officially use the title. [4] The Habsburg emperors claimed the Italian crown until 1801. The empire continued to include Italian territories until its dissolution in 1806.
In 1805, Napoleon established a client state in northern Italy, named the Kingdom of Italy. He established himself as King of Italy, in personal union with his role as Emperor of the French. This client state did not survive the end of the Napoleonic era; in its place, the Congress of Vienna established a number of independent duchies and kingdoms in the region.
Image | Coat of Arms | Name | Life | Coronation | Ceased to be King |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Napoleon I | 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821 | 17 March 1805 | 11 April 1814 |
This title is present in Italian laws proclaimed by Napoleon I:
[Name], by the Grace of God and the Constitutions, Emperor of the French and King of Italy.
During and after the Revolutions of 1848, sentiment on the peninsula grew for the establishment of a unified Italian kingdom. Southern Italy had not been united with Northern Italy since the early medieval period, being mostly under the rule of the Kingdom of Naples and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Northern Italy, in the early 19th century, came under the domination of the Kingdom of Sardinia, which besides its namesake island, also ruled the expansive Piedmont and Savoy regions along the French-Italian borderlands. The formerly Republican leader in southern Italy, Giuseppe Garibaldi, made common cause with the House of Savoy to overthrow the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, and the people voted in a plebiscite to join Sardinia to form the Kingdom of Italy in 1861; the Papal States and the city of Rome were annexed to the Kingdom in 1870, completing the Unification of Italy. This kingdom lasted until the aftermath of World War II, when the 1946 Italian institutional referendum ended the monarchy.
Image | Coat of Arms | Name | Life | Became King | Ceased to be King |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Victor Emmanuel II | 14 March 1820 – 9 January 1878 | 17 March 1861 | 9 January 1878 | ||
Umberto I | 14 March 1844 – 29 July 1900 | 9 January 1878 | 29 July 1900 | ||
Victor Emmanuel III | 11 November 1869 – 28 December 1947 | 29 July 1900 | 9 May 1946 | ||
Umberto II | 15 September 1904 – 18 March 1983 | 9 May 1946 | 12 June 1946 |
Up until the dissolution of the monarchy in 1946, the full titles of the Kings of the Kingdom of Italy (1861–1946) were:
[Name], by the Grace of God and the will of the Nation, King of Italy, King of Sardinia, Cyprus, Jerusalem, Armenia, Duke of Savoy, count of Maurienne, Marquis (of the Holy Roman Empire) in Italy; Prince of Piedmont, Carignano, Oneglia, Poirino, Trino; Prince and Perpetual Vicar of the Holy Roman Empire; Prince of Carmagnola, Montmélian with Arbin and Francin, Prince bailiff of the Duchy of Aosta, Prince of Chieri, Dronero, Crescentino, Riva di Chieri and Banna, Busca, Bene, Bra, Duke of Genoa, Monferrat, Aosta, Duke of Chablais, Genevois, Duke of Piacenza, Marquis of Saluzzo (Saluces), Ivrea, Susa, of Maro, Oristano, Cesana, Savona, Tarantasia, Borgomanero and Cureggio, Caselle, Rivoli, Pianezza, Govone, Salussola, Racconigi over Tegerone, Migliabruna and Motturone, Cavallermaggiore, Marene, Modane and Lanslebourg, Livorno Ferraris, Santhià, Agliè, Centallo and Demonte, Desana, Ghemme, Vigone, Count of Barge, Villafranca, Ginevra, Nizza, Tenda, Romont, Asti, Alessandria, of Goceano, Novara, Tortona, Bobbio, Soissons, Sant'Antioco, Pollenzo, Roccabruna, Tricerro, Bairo, Ozegna, delle Apertole, Baron of Vaud and of Faucigni, Lord of Vercelli, Pinerolo, of Lomellina, of Valle Sesia, of the Marquisate of Ceva, Overlord of Monaco, Roccabruna and eleven-twelfths of Menton, Noble Patrician of Venice, Patrician of Ferrara.[ citation needed ]
Arnulf of Carinthia was the duke of Carinthia who overthrew his uncle Emperor Charles the Fat to become the Carolingian king of East Francia from 887, the disputed king of Italy from 894 and the disputed emperor from February 22, 896, until his death at Regensburg, Bavaria.
Year 476 (CDLXXVI) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Basiliscus and Armatus. The denomination 476 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.
The Holy Roman Emperor, originally and officially the Emperor of the Romans during the Middle Ages, and also known as the Roman-German Emperor since the early modern period, was the ruler and head of state of the Holy Roman Empire. The title was held in conjunction with the title of king of Italy from the 8th to the 16th century, and, almost without interruption, with the title of king of Germany throughout the 12th to 18th centuries.
The term Western Roman Empire is used in modern historiography to refer to the western provinces of the Roman Empire, collectively, during any period in which they were administered separately from the eastern provinces by a separate, independent imperial court. Particularly during the period from AD 395 to 476, there were separate, coequal courts dividing the governance of the empire into the Western provinces and the Eastern provinces with a distinct imperial succession in the separate courts. The terms Western Roman Empire and Eastern Roman Empire were coined in modern times to describe political entities that were de facto independent; contemporary Romans did not consider the Empire to have been split into two empires but viewed it as a single polity governed by two imperial courts for administrative expediency. The Western Empire collapsed in 476, and the Western imperial court in Ravenna disappeared by AD 554, at the end of Justinian's Gothic War.
The history of Italy in the Middle Ages can be roughly defined as the time between the collapse of the Western Roman Empire and the Italian Renaissance. Late Antiquity in Italy lingered on into the 7th century under the Ostrogothic Kingdom and the Byzantine Empire under the Justinian dynasty, the Byzantine Papacy until the mid 8th century. The "Middle Ages" proper begin as the Byzantine Empire was weakening under the pressure of the Muslim conquests, and most of the Exarchate of Ravenna finally fell under Lombard rule in 751. From this period, former states that were part of the Exarchate and were not conquered by the Lombard Kingdom, such as the Duchy of Naples, became de facto independent states, having less and less interference from the Eastern Roman Empire.
The Duchy of Spoleto was a Lombard territory founded about 570 in central Italy by the Lombard dux Faroald. Its capital was the city of Spoleto.
Berengar I was the king of Italy from 887. He was Holy Roman Emperor between 915 and his death in 924. He is usually known as Berengar of Friuli, since he ruled the March of Friuli from 874 until at least 890, but he had lost control of the region by 896.
Lambert was the King of Italy from 891, Holy Roman Emperor, co-ruling with his father from 892, and Duke of Spoleto and Camerino from his father's death in 894. He was the son of Guy III of Spoleto and Ageltrude, born in San Rufino. He was the last ruler to issue a capitulary in the Carolingian tradition.
Guy III of Spoleto was the Margrave of Camerino from 880 and then Duke of Spoleto and Camerino from 883. He was crowned King of Italy in 889 and emperor in 891. He died in 894 while fighting for control of the Italian Peninsula.
The Ostrogothic Kingdom, officially the Kingdom of Italy, existed under the control of the Germanic Ostrogoths in Italy and neighbouring areas from 493 to 553.
The Kingdom of Italy, also called Imperial Italy, was one of the constituent kingdoms of the Holy Roman Empire, along with the kingdoms of Germany, Bohemia, and Burgundy. It originally comprised large parts of northern and central Italy. Its original capital was Pavia until the 11th century.
The March of Ivrea was a large frontier county (march) in the northwest of the medieval Italian kingdom from the late 9th to the early 11th century. Its capital was Ivrea in present-day Piedmont, and it was held by a Burgundian family of margraves called the Anscarids. The march was the primary frontier between Italy and Upper Burgundy and served as a defense against any interference from that state.
The Kingdom of the Lombards, also known as the Lombard Kingdom and later as the Kingdom of all Italy, was an early medieval state established by the Lombards, a Germanic people, on the Italian Peninsula in the latter part of the 6th century. The king was traditionally elected by the very highest-ranking aristocrats, the dukes, as several attempts to establish a hereditary dynasty failed. The kingdom was subdivided into a varying number of duchies, ruled by semi-autonomous dukes, which were in turn subdivided into gastaldates at the municipal level. The capital of the kingdom and the center of its political life was Pavia in the modern northern Italian region of Lombardy.
The March of Friuli was a Carolingian frontier march, established in 776 as the continuation of the Lombard Duchy of Friuli, established against the Slavs and Avars. It was ceded to the Duchy of Bavaria as the March of Verona in 952. Its territory comprised parts of modern-day Italy, Slovenia and Croatia.
The March of Istria was originally a Carolingian frontier march covering the Istrian peninsula and surrounding territory conquered by Charlemagne's son Pepin of Italy in 789. After 1364, it was the Istrian province of the Habsburg monarchy, the Austrian Empire and Austria-Hungary.
Odoacer's deposition of Romulus Augustus, occurring in 476 AD, was a coup that marked the end of the reign of the Western Roman Emperor last approved by the Western Roman Senate and the creation of the Kingdom of Italy, although Julius Nepos exercised control over Dalmatia until 480.
The monarchy of Italy was the system of government in which a hereditary constitutional monarch was the sovereign of the Kingdom of Italy from 1861 to 1946.