Margherita was the eldest daughter of Ferdinando Maria Alberto of Savoy, Duke of Genoa, and Maria Elisabetta, Royal Princess of Saxony. She was born in Turin on the 20th of November 1851, in Palazzo Chiablese, the palace that was the residence of her parents. She lost her father, who was Vittorio Emanuele II’s younger brother, when she was only four years old. The following year her mother was united in a morganatic marriage to the major Nicolò Rapallo, who was already an officer of the Duke of Genoa. Growing up, young Margherita did not hide her disapproval of her mother for the choice she had made, cultivating for years a kind of fatherly cult that made Duke Ferdinando an example of beauty, kindness, virtue and military courage from which the princess derived her pride of belonging to the House of Savoy.
Like every maiden of royal blood of her time, Margherita received a private education, initially following the teaching of Countess Clelia Monticelli of Casalrosso and then those of Rosa Arbesser, an Austrian from a good family who entered the service in 1861 and was destined to remain at the young girl’s side until almost the eve of her marriage to Prince Umberto of Savoia. At seventeen, she was a cultured young girl, with a love for books that surprised her relatives, an outspoken desire to enter the world of art, a romantic imagination that made her dream of the arms and kindnesses of the chivalrous Middle Ages and she spoke fluent French (due to the custom of the Turin court) and German (thanks of her maternal ancestry).
Margherita’s marriage to Prince Umberto was decided at the end of 1867 by Vittorio Emanuele II. The wedding act was signed on the 21st of April 1868 in the ballroom of Turin’s Royal Palace, followed the next day by the civil ceremony and the religious ceremony. The five days of festivities that followed had the character of a veritable popular feast, with the intention of restoring to the city of Turin that centrality that the transfer of the capital had taken away from it and of reinforcing the prestige of the Crown. The honeymoon across the Peninsula was also a political operation, aimed at promoting and reviving the splendour of the monarchy through the couple that embodied its future. Moreover, with Queen Maria Adelaide having died in 1855, and Vittorio Emanuele II having no official consort, Margherita assumed the role of first lady of Italy. Her political intuition, combined with her innate ability to do and say the most appropriate things to arouse popular enthusiasm, immediately made her a model of royalty recognised by all, so precious in a newly constituted Italy in need of unifying symbols.
Umberto and Margherita took up residence in Naples, in the palace of Capodimonte, to express their closeness to the provinces of the South, which had been joined to the Savoy Crown a few years earlier. And it was in Naples, on the 11th of November 1869, that Margherita gave birth to their only son, Vittorio Emanuele Ferdinando Maria Gennaro.
The queen’s contribution to the nationalisation of the monarchy was realised first and foremost through her travels around Italy, during which she never failed to wear local costumes and publicly appreciate the traditions and culture of the places she visited, thus winning the sympathy and even the devotion of the communities more than her consort.
In Rome, where the hereditary princes entered only four months after the breach of Porta Pia, on the 23rd of January 1871, Margherita had the onerous task of reconciling the success of the monarchy with the respect of the pontiff, using the only weapons allowed to her role: charm, elegance, worldliness and artistic patronage. Margherita set up her own circle at the Quirinale, transforming the Roman palace into one of the most aristocratic and exclusive salons in Europe. Among the personalities who met for discussions in the “Queen’s Thursdays” was Marco Minghetti. With his elegant manners, eclectic intelligence and brilliant company he had become Margherita’s intellectual confidant and a true guide in the world of culture.
In a short time, the sovereign made herself the icon for a new beginning in Italian history and, when it came to embedding the social image of the monarchy, she reserved a specific role for herself as protector and visitor of hospices for children and the blind (in 1892 the first library for the blind was founded in Florence under her patronage), hospitals, charity societies and schools, as well as educational academies and art exhibitions. Moreover, her reputation as a devoted woman amplified the value of her initiatives in the eyes of Catholic and conciliatorist public opinion, which expected her to have a ‘beneficial influence’ on the sovereign’s positions. The assassination of Umberto I (29th of July 1900) then consolidated her myth as a woman capable of overcoming even the deepest sorrows with dignity.
Having been widowed, with a commendable respect for dynastic rules, Margaret stepped back, leaving room for her son and her daughter-in-law Elena of Montenegro. However, the Queen Mother did not abandon the public scene. On the contrary, she confirmed her presence at events and ceremonies, to preserve the traditions and customs of the House of Savoy and intensified her travels, also abroad, dedicating herself with renewed enthusiasm to works of charity, with a lively curiosity for the novelties of the times.
During the First World War, although she disagreed with the reasons for it, she participated unsparingly in the way that was possible for her rank, by assisting the wounded and the mothers, wives and children of the soldiers. Wanting to reconcile duty and Christian charity, Margherita decided to transform her Roman home in Via Veneto into a territorial hospital of the Red Cross, giving assistance to the wounded in first person.
Until the end, Margherita zealously performed her duties, alternating receptions, charitable visits and a fervent religious life with longer and longer stays in Bordighera and Gressoney. Her departure, which took place in Bordighera on the 4th January of 1926, was followed by the journey of the body to the Pantheon, undertaken on 10 January: it was the last demonstration of the queen’s popularity and the last piece added to the construction of her legend.