Victor Amadeus

Kings of the Savoy dynasty in Sardinia (Piedmont).

Victor Amadeus II. Born May 14, 1666; died Oct. 31, 1732. He was duke of Savoy from 1675, king of Sicily from 1713 to 1720, and king of Sardinia from 1720 to 1730. In 1690 he joined the anti-French League of Augsburg. But in 1696, when Spain did not grant him Lombardy for his services as an ally, he concluded a peace treaty with France. In the War of the Spanish Succession he first acted as France’s ally (and gave his daughter in marriage to the French pretender to the Spanish throne, Philip V), but in 1703, not supported in his claims to Lombardy, he went over to the camp of France’s enemies. By the provisions of the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713, he was given the island of Sicily and the title of king. In 1720, under pressure from Austria, he ceded Sicily in return for the island of Sardinia. In internal politics he steered a course of enlightened absolutism.

Victor Amadeus III. Born June 26, 1726; died Oct. 16, 1796. King of Sardinia from 1773 to 1796. From the beginning of the bourgeois French Revolution he made his court a refuge for French counterrevolutionary emigres, and in 1792 he joined the anti-French coalition. However, after several military de-feats he was compelled to conclude a peace treaty with France in Paris in 17%. By the terms of this treaty he ceded Nice and Savoy to France and agreed to the placement of French garrisons on Piedmontese territory.

S. V. FRIAZINOV