MARGHERITA OF SAVOY, QUEEN OF ITALY

Margherita of Savoy (Turin 1851 - Bordighera 1926) was the first queen of united Italy. Since her wedding with Prince Umberto, she was able to conquer the hearts of the Italians and, with her popularity, she contributed to building the feeling of identity of the nation around the crown of the Savoy. Queen from 1878 to 1900, she imposed her redundant taste in fashion, decoration, her love for music and the mountains reverberated in the life of the Italian aristocracy. She was testimonial of activities in support of women and promoted the development of vocational schools, and of charitable works. The myth of Margherita did not disappear with the assassination of Umberto, on the contrary, she accompanied the nation in the twentieth century.

Daughter of a hero of the Risorgimento, the Duke of Savoy Genoa Ferdinando, and nephew of King Vittorio Emanuele II, Margherita married her cousin and heir to the throne, Umberto, at the age of sixteen. In the years immediately following national unification, you became the protagonist in building a strong feeling of national identity around the monarchy. The exhibition illustrates the tumultuous passage of the country between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries through the trajectory of this figure who became a female icon of the House of Savoy: glamor in the rich and excessive toilettes, maternal in taking an interest in the needs of the people and in supporting their education, pioneering of a new lifestyle that relates to nature and the mountains. Furniture, paintings, photographs illustrate Margherita's private and public world.