Duchy of Savoy in the context of "Aosta Valley"

Turin (/tjʊəˈrɪn, ˈtjʊərɪn/ ture-IN, TURE-in, Piedmontese: [tyˈriŋ] ; Italian: Torino [toˈriːno] ; Latin: Augusta Taurinorum, then Taurinum) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in northern Italy. It is the capital city of the Piedmont region and of the Metropolitan City of Turin. From 1861 to 1865, it was the first capital of the Kingdom of Italy. The city is mainly on the western bank of the River Po, below its Susa Valley, and is surrounded by the western Alpine arch and Superga hill. The population of the city proper is 856,745 as of 2025, while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat to be 1.7 million inhabitants. The Turin metropolitan area is estimated by the OECD to have a population of 2.2 million.

The city was historically a major European political centre. From 1563, it was the capital of the Duchy of Savoy, then of the Kingdom of Sardinia ruled by the House of Savoy, and the first capital of the Kingdom of Italy from 1861 to 1865. Turin is sometimes called "the cradle of Italian liberty" for having been the political and intellectual centre of the Risorgimento that led to the unification of Italy, as well as the birthplace of notable individuals who contributed to it, such as Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour.

The term Kingdom of Sardinia denotes the Savoyard state from 1720 to 1861. From 1720 to 1847, only the island of Sardinia proper was part of the Kingdom of Sardinia, while the other mainland possessions (principally the Duchy of Savoy, Principality of Piedmont, County of Nice, Duchy of Genoa, and others) were held by the House of Savoy in their own right, hence forming a composite monarchy and a personal union, which was formally referred to as the "States of His Majesty the King of Sardinia". This situation was changed by the Perfect Fusion act of 1847, which created a unitary kingdom. Regardless, historians often use "Sardinia" as a synecdoche to designate the whole Savoyard state from 1720. Due to the fact that Piedmont was the seat of power and prominent part of the entity, the state is also referred to as Sardinia–Piedmont or Piedmont–Sardinia, and sometimes erroneously as the Kingdom of Piedmont.

Before becoming a possession of the House of Savoy, the medieval Kingdom of Sardinia had been part of the Crown of Aragon and then of the burgeoning Spanish Empire. With the Treaty of The Hague (1720), the island of Sardinia and its title of kingdom were ceded by the Habsburg and Bourbon claimants to the Spanish throne to the Duke of Savoy, Victor Amadeus II. The Savoyards united it with their historical possessions on the Italian peninsula, and the kingdom came to be progressively identified with the peninsular states, which included, besides Savoy and Aosta, dynastic possessions like the Principality of Piedmont and the County of Nice, over both of which the Savoyards had been exercising their control since the 13th century and 1388, respectively.

Claude Gaspar Bachet Sieur de Méziriac (9 October 1581 – 26 February 1638) was a French mathematician and poet born in Bourg-en-Bresse, at that time belonging to Duchy of Savoy. He wrote Problèmes plaisans et délectables qui se font par les nombres, Les éléments arithmétiques, and a Latin translation of the Arithmetica of Diophantus (the very translation where Fermat wrote a margin note about Fermat's Last Theorem). He also discovered means of solving indeterminate equations using continued fractions, a method of constructing magic squares, and a proof of Bézout's identity.

The Peace of Utrecht was a series of peace treaties signed by the belligerents in the War of the Spanish Succession, in the Dutch city of Utrecht between April 1713 and February 1715. The war involved three contenders for the vacant throne of Spain, and had involved much of Europe for over a decade. Essentially, the treaties allowed Philip V (grandson of King Louis XIV of France) to keep the Spanish throne in return for permanently renouncing his claim to the French throne, along with other necessary guarantees that would ensure that France and Spain should not merge, thus preserving the balance of power in Europe.

The treaties between several European states, including Spain, Great Britain, France, Portugal, Savoy and the Dutch Republic, helped end the war. The treaties were concluded between the representatives of Louis XIV of France and of his grandson Philip on one hand, and representatives of Queen Anne of Great Britain, King Victor Amadeus II of Sardinia, King John V of Portugal and the United Provinces of the Netherlands on the other. Though the king of France ensured the Spanish crown for his dynasty, the treaties marked the end of French ambitions of hegemony in Europe expressed in the continuous wars of Louis XIV, and paved the way to the European system based on the balance of power.

The French Wars of Religion were a series of civil wars between French Catholics and Protestants (called Huguenots) from 1562 to 1598. Between two and four million people died from violence, famine or disease directly caused by the conflict, and it severely damaged the power of the French monarchy. One of its most notorious episodes was the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre in 1572. The fighting ended with a compromise in 1598, when Henry of Navarre, who converted to Catholicism in 1593, was proclaimed King Henry IV of France and issued the Edict of Nantes, which granted substantial rights and freedoms to the Huguenots. However, Catholics continued to disapprove of Protestants and of Henry, and his assassination in 1610 triggered a fresh round of Huguenot rebellions in the 1620s.

Tensions between the two religions had been building since the 1530s, exacerbating existing regional divisions, and quests for power among the nobles. The sudden accidental death of Henry II of France in July 1559 initiated a prolonged struggle for power between his widow Catherine de' Medici and powerful nobles. These included a fervently Catholic faction led by the Guise and Montmorency families, and Protestants headed by the House of Condé and the Navarrese queen, Jeanne d'Albret. Both sides received assistance from external powers, with Spain and Savoy supporting the Catholics, and England and the Dutch Republic backing the Protestants.

The Republic of Geneva was an independent city-state that emerged in the early 16th century following its break with both the Catholic Church, the political authority of the Bishop of Geneva, and the political influence of the House of Savoy. Strongly influenced by the Protestant Reformation, and particularly by the work of Guillaume Farel and later John Calvin, the city became a leading center of Calvinism and a refuge for Protestants from across Europe. Politically, Geneva developed republican institutions modeled on some of the Swiss cities, asserting its sovereignty against the Duchy of Savoy and navigating a precarious position between powerful neighbors such as France and the Swiss cantons. From its declaration of independence in 1534 until its annexation by revolutionary France in 1798, Geneva evolved into a prosperous hub of trade, finance, watchmaking, and publishing, while maintaining a distinctive identity as both a fortified “Protestant Rome” and a cosmopolitan republic. The republic was restored in 1813, and briefly existed again before joining the Swiss Confederation as a canton in 1815.

Joseph Marie, comte de Maistre (1 April 1753 – 26 February 1821) was a Savoyard lawyer, diplomat, and political philosopher. He is chiefly remembered as one of the intellectual forefathers of modern conservatism, noted for his advocacy of social hierarchy and monarchy in the period immediately following the French Revolution. French by language and culture, Maistre was nonetheless a subject of the King of Piedmont–Sardinia, whom he served in various government positions, including stints in the Savoy Senate (1787–1792), as ambassador to the Russian Empire (1803–1817), and as minister of state to the court in Turin (1817–1821).

A key figure of the Counter-Enlightenment and a precursor of Romanticism, Maistre regarded monarchy both as a divinely sanctioned institution and as the only stable form of government. Maistre argued that the rationalist rejection of Christianity was directly responsible for the Reign of Terror and the chaos that followed the Revolution of 1789 in France. He therefore called for the restoration of the House of Bourbon to the throne of France and for the ultimate authority of the Pope in both spiritual and temporal matters.

Nice (/niːs/ NEESS; French pronunciation: [nis] ) is a French city located in the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes department. The Nice agglomeration extends far beyond the administrative city limits, with a population of nearly one million on an area of 744 km (287 sq mi). Located on the French Riviera, the southeastern coast of France on the Mediterranean Sea, at the foot of the French Alps, Nice is the second-largest French city on the Mediterranean coast and second-largest city in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region after Marseille. Nice is approximately 13 kilometres (8 mi) from the principality of Monaco and 30 kilometres (19 mi) from the French–Italian border. Nice's airport serves as a gateway to the region.

The city is nicknamed Nice la Belle (Nissa La Bella in Niçard), meaning 'Nice the Beautiful', which is also the title of the unofficial anthem of Nice, written by Menica Rondelly in 1912. The area of today's Nice contains Terra Amata, an archaeological site which displays evidence of a very early use of fire 380,000 years ago. Around 350 BC, Greeks of Marseille founded a permanent settlement and called it Nikaia, after Nike, the goddess of victory. Through the ages, the town has changed hands many times. Its strategic location and port significantly contributed to its maritime strength. From 1388, it was a dominion of Savoy, then became part of the French First Republic between 1792 and 1815, when it was returned to the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia, the legal predecessor of the Kingdom of Italy, until its annexation by France in 1860.

Savoy (/səˈvɔɪ/; Arpitan: Savouè [saˈvwɛ]) is a cultural-historical region in the Western Alps. Situated on the cultural boundary between Occitania and Piedmont, the area extends from Lake Geneva in the north to the Dauphiné in the south and west and to the Aosta Valley in the east.

Savoy, formerly a part of the Kingdom of Burgundy, emerged as the feudal County of Savoy ruled by the House of Savoy during the 11th to 14th centuries.The original territory, also known as "ducal Savoy" or "Savoy proper", is largely co-terminous with the modern French Savoie and Haute-Savoie départements in the region of Rhône-Alpes, but the historical expansion of Savoyard territories, as the Duchy of Savoy (1416–1860), included parts of what is now western Italy and southwestern Switzerland. The current border between France and Italy is due to the Plombières Agreement of 1858, which in preparation for the unification of Italy ceded western Savoy to France, while the eastern territories in Piedmont and Liguria were retained by the House of Savoy, which was to become the ruling dynasty of Italy.