Victor Emmanuel II

Italy state institutions Monarchy and royalism 1820–1878 ○ Natural causes

King of Sardinia who fought at Custoza in 1848, took the throne after Novara and became the first king of united Italy

Born in Turin in 1820 the eldest son of Charles Albert, he fought in the front line under his father at Pastrengo, Santa Lucia, Goito and Custoza in the First Italian War of Independence of 1848–1849. When his father abdicated after the defeat at Novara in 1849 he became King of Sardinia, obtained an armistice from Radetzky at Vignale, and that year fiercely suppressed a revolt in Genoa. In 1852 he appointed Cavour prime minister. Through the Crimean War and the French alliance he won Lombardy in 1859, ceding Savoy and Nice to France in payment. Backing Garibaldi's Expedition of the Thousand, he became the first King of Italy on 17 March 1861, and added Veneto in 1866 and Rome in 1870. Excommunicated after his attack on the Papal States, he had the sentence lifted just before his death in 1878.

Also known as: Vittorio Emanuele II