Vittorio Emanuele di Savoia, the son of the last king of Italy, Umberto II, died on Saturday morning at the age of 86, ANSA, the AFP news agency, reported. and Agerpress.

Victor Emmanuel of Savoy (Vittorio Emanuele di Savoia, Italian), in the center, with his son Emanuele Filiberto and his wife Marina Doria di Savoia (2003)Photo: IPA/ABACA / Abaca Press / Profimedia

“At 07:05 this morning, 3 February 2024, His Royal Highness Vittorio Emanuele, Duke of Savoy and Prince of Naples, passed away peacefully in Geneva, surrounded by his family,” the House of Savoy said in a statement.

He notes that “the place and date of the funeral will be announced soon.”

Vittorio Emanuele would have turned 87 on February 12 (he was born on February 12, 1937 in Naples).

He was head of the House of Savoy, which ruled Italy from unification in 1861 until 1946, when Italians voted in a referendum to abolish the monarchy and establish the Italian Republic.

Hated by many Italians for collaborating with the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini before and during World War II and for fleeing Rome in 1943 to avoid the German army, Umberto II, who only held the throne from May to June 1946, and his family left for emigration to Switzerland.

Thus, Vittorio Emanuele left Italy at the age of 9, banished along with all the male descendants of the royal house by the 1946 Constitution to sanction the collaboration of his grandfather, Victor Emanuele III, with the Fascist regime and the signing of the racial laws.

He was able to return to the territory of Italy only in December 2002, after the parliament canceled the ban imposed on male heirs of the royal family. For this, Vittorio Emanuel had to swear allegiance to the Republic, which he refused for a long time.