Maria Cristina di Savoia

Maria Cristina of Savoy Carlotta Giuseppa Gaetana Efisia of Savoy, this is the full name but more simply Maria Cristina and called Tintina by her mother, was born in Cagliari on 14 November 1812 to Vittorio Emanuele I, King of Sardinia, and Maria Teresa of Austria, during the period of exile in Sardinia following the annexation of Piedmont to Napoleonic France. In 1814 after the abdication of Napoleon, Victor Emmanuel returned to Turin with his family. Maria Cristina was educated in a climate full of religion, dedicated to charity, order and discipline. She spent the first part of her life training with her tutor and spiritual guide Father Giovan Battista Terzi, a Neapolitan, who introduced her to subjects such as mathematics, astronomy, geography and languages, music, singing, drawing, painting, calligraphy, and a strong religious devotion. In 1825 he was in Rome for the jubilee, where he visited churches and met Pope Leo XII several times. On this occasion, following some episodes of devotion and humility, a sort of “almost legendary aura” about Maria Cristina was born. She received several marriage proposals, opposed by her mother, and upon the latter's death in 1832, she returned to Turin to the court of her uncles Maria Teresa and Carlo Alberto of Savoy, where she asked to become a cloistered nun, but her guardian Father Terzi convinced her to give in to the wedding request of Ferdinand II, future king of the Two Sicilies. Thus began the second part of her short life when on 21 November 1832 she married Ferdinand II at just 18 years old and moved to Naples: a political bond of rapprochement between the Bourbon and Savoy courts. In the capital of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies Maria Cristina allocated part of the sum reserved for the wedding celebration as a dowry for 240 young brides, to redeem a good number of pledges deposited at the Monte di Pieta and for other charitable activities. He founded a workshop of beds to be given to needy families inside the convent of San Domenico Soriano. He encouraged the art of coral in Torre del Greco, the silk industry in San Leucio and promoted the Neapolitan cloth and cloth industry always for charitable purposes. He set court life on a sincere religiosity based on the reading of sacred works and devout practices. According to the testimony of Benedetto Croce, Maria Cristina, although not participating in state affairs, managed to be influential on the work of Ferdinand II, making him more «confidential and respected» (Croce, p. 299) and milder towards those condemned to death. Through religious and charitable efforts, the Savoy queen was able to bring political significance to her activity. He died prematurely, at just 23 years old, in 1836 following some complications that arose after the birth of his son Francesco II. She was buried in the Neapolitan basilica of Santa Chiara, considered the pantheon of the Bourbons, and was loved by the people as the «holy queen». In 1859 Pope Pius IX began the beatification process and in 2014 she was proclaimed “blessed” by the Church by Pope Francis who defined her «true mother of the poor».