Description
Kingdom of Sardinia, also known as Piedmont-Sardinia or Sardinia-Piedmont, was the name given to the possessions of the House of Savoy in 1720, when the island of Sardinia was awarded by the Treaty of London to Duke Victor Amadeus II of Savoy to compensate him for the loss of Sicily to Austria. Besides Sardinia, the kingdom included Savoy, Piedmont and Nice; Liguria, including Genoa, was added by the Congress of Vienna in 1815. Officially, the nation’s name became Kingdom of Sardinia, Cyprus, and Jerusalem, Duchy of Savoy and Montferrat, Principality of Piedmont. During most of the 18th and 19th centuries under the House of Savoy, the political and economical capital was Turin. In 1860 Nice and Savoy were ceded to France as a price paid for French support in the campaign to unify Italy. In 1861, it became a founding state of the new Kingdom of Italy, and ceased to exist after that date.
Carlo Felice was born in Turin as the eleventh child and fifth son born to Victor Amadeus III and Maria Antonia of Spain. From birth he was titled as the Duke of Genoa and the Marquis of Susa from 1796. He was a younger brother of Charles Emmanuel IV and Victor Emmanuel I. He spent his childhood with his sister Maria Carolina, the Count of Moriana, living at the Castle of Moncalieri. He had a very closed character.
He was married by proxy to Princess Maria Cristina of Naples and Sicily on 7 March 1807. She was a daughter of Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies and Maria Carolina of Austria, sister of Marie Antoinette.
Carlos was not expected to ever succeed to the throne. However Charles Emmanuel never had any children and abdicated the throne on June 4, 1802. Victor Emmanuel I had four living daughters when he abdicated the throne in 1821. As the succession was regulated by the Salic Law, Charles Felix succeeded his brother on the throne. He and his wife died without issue after a reign of ten years. He was succeeded by the senior male of his House as Charles Albert of Savoy after he died in Turin at the Palazzo Chablais which had been given to him by his sister Princess Maria Anna.
