by Susan Flantzer
© Unofficial Royalty 2021
The Kingdom of Sardinia: The House of Savoy had been Counts and then Dukes of Savoy, since the 11th century and ruled from the city of Turin, now in northern Italy. Vittorio Amedeo II, Duke of Savoy became King of Sicily in 1713 as a result of his participation in the War of the Spanish Succession. However, in 1720, Vittoria Amedeo II was forced to exchange the Kingdom of Sicily for the less important Kingdom of Sardinia after objections from the Quadruple Alliance (Great Britain, France, Habsburg Austria, and the Dutch Republic).
Sardinia, now in Italy, is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea after Sicily, also now in Italy, but the Kings of Sardinia of the House of Savoy ruled from Turin, the capital of the Duchy of Savoy. They styled themselves as Kings of Sardinia because the title was superior to their original lesser title as Dukes of Savoy. However, they retained the regnal numerical order of the Dukes of Savoy.
Vittorio Emanuele II became the last King of Sardinia upon the abdication of his father in 1849. He then became a driving force behind the Italian unification movement along with Giuseppe Garibaldi, a general and nationalist, and Giuseppe Mazzini, a politician and journalist. Garibaldi conquered Naples and Sicily, the territories of the Kingdom of Two Sicilies, while the Sardinian troops occupied the central territories of the Italian peninsula, except Rome and part of Papal States. With all the newly acquired land, Vittorio Emanuele II was proclaimed the first King of the new, united Kingdom of Italy in 1861.
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Anna Christine of Sulzbach, Princess of Piedmont; Credit – Wikipedia
Countess Palatine Anna Christine of Sulzbach was the first of the three wives of Carlo Emanuele of Savoy, Prince of Piedmont, the heir apparent to the Kingdom of Sardina, and, after Anna Christine’s death, Carlo Emanuele III, King of Sardinia. The eighth of the nine children and the youngest of the five daughters of Theodor Eustach, Count Palatine of Sulzbach (1659 – 1732) and Maria Eleonore of Hesse-Rothenburg (1675 – 1720), Anna Christine was born on February 5, 1704, at Sulzbach Castle in the Palatinate-Sulzbach, a state of the Holy Roman Empire, now in Bavaria, Germany. Her father was the head of a Roman Catholic cadet branch of Bavaria’s House of Wittelsbach.
Sulzbach Castle, Anna Christine’s birthplace; Credit – Wikipedia
Anna Christine had eight siblings:
- Countess Palatine Maria Anna of Sulzbach (1693 – 1762), from 1714, a nun at the Carmelite Monastery of St. Maria in the Free Imperial City of Cologne
- Count Palatine Joseph Karl of Sulzbach (1694 – 1729), married Elisabeth Auguste of Neuburg, had seven children
- Countess Palatine Franziska Christine of Sulzbach (1696 – 1776), Princess Abbess of Essen Abbey and Thorn Abbey
- Countess Palatine Ernestine Theodora of Sulzbach (1697 – 1775), married Wilhelm II, Landgrave of Hesse-Wanfried-Rheinfels, no children
- Count Palatine Johann Wilhelm of Sulzbach (1698 – 1699), died in infancy
- Johann Christian, Count Palatine and Duke of Sulzbach (1700 – 1733), married (1) Marie Henriette de La Tour d’Auvergne, had two children (2) Eleonore of Hesse-Rheinfels-Rotenburg, had no children
- Countess Palatine Elisabeth Eleonore of Sulzbach (1702 – 1704), died in early childhood
- Count Palatine Johann Wilhelm August of Sulzbach (1706 – 1708), died in early childhood
Carlo Emanuele, Anna Christine’s husband; Credit – Wikipedia
On March 15, 1722, in Vercelli, Duchy of Savoy, now in Italy, Anna Christine married Carlo Emanuele of Savoy, Prince of Piedmont, the heir apparent to the Kingdom of Sardina, and the son of Vittorio Amedeo II, King of Sardinia and his first wife Anne Marie d’Orléans. The couple had one son:
- Prince Vittorio Amedeo Teodor of Savoy (1723 – 1725), died in early childhood
On March 12, 1723, a few days after giving birth to her son, Anna Christine, aged nineteen, died of childbirth complications, at the Royal Palace of Turin, Duchy of Savoy, now in Italy. She was first buried in the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist in Turin and was moved to the Basilica of Superga in Turin in 1786. In 1724, Anna Christine’s widower married her cousin Polyxena of Hesse-Rheinfels-Rotenburg.
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Works Cited
- De.wikipedia.org. 2021. Theodor Eustach (Pfalz-Sulzbach) – Wikipedia. [online] Available at: <https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodor_Eustach_(Pfalz-Sulzbach)> [Accessed 18 June 2021].
- En.wikipedia.org. 2021. Anne Christine of Sulzbach, Princess of Piedmont – Wikipedia. [online] Available at: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Christine_of_Sulzbach,_Princess_of_Piedmont> [Accessed 18 June 2021].
- Flantzer, Susan, 2021. Carlo Emanuele III, King of Sardinia. [online] Unofficial Royalty. Available at: <https://www.unofficialroyalty.com/carlo-emanuele-iii-king-of-sardinia/> [Accessed 18 June 2021].