11 Facts about Marie José of Belgium, the May Queen of Italy

Marie Jose, last Queen of Italy. Image: Wikimedia Commons

1. She was born on August 4, 1906 in Ostend, Belgium, the youngest child of Albert I, King of the Belgians, and his Queen consort, Elisabeth of Bavaria.

2. She was related to “The Mad King” Ludwig II of Bavaria and Empress Elisabeth or Sisi of Austria through her mother.

3. Marie José received a diamond tiara and antique pearl previously owned by Stéphanie, Grand Duchess of Baden, when she attended her first court ball in 1924.

 4. She married the House of Savoy’s Crown Prince Umberto of Italy on January 8, 1930, making Marie José the Princess of Piedmont. The union produced four children: Princess Maria Pia of Savoy; Vittorio Emanuel, Prince of Naples; Princess Maria Gabriella of Savoy; and, Princess Maria Beatrice of Savoy.

5. The free-thinking Marie José found herself suffocated by Rome’s royal court, so she formed her own retinue composed of anti-fascist intellectuals. “You know, I don’t have much to do with the House of Savoy… It’s not a family; it’s a fridge,” she said in 1940.

6. Her married life was not happy either. “We were never happy,” she said of her relationship with King Umberto in a 1988 interview.

7. Marie José did not succeed in seducing former Italian Prime Minister Benito Mussolini at a beach resort somewhere in Rome as alleged by the latter’s infamous mistress, Clareta Petacci, in her 1937 diary. The dictator’s son, Romulo, however, claimed that his father and the then princess, in fact, had a sexual relationship. When asked about the said affair in 1998, she only had this to say: “He was a lion. I, too, am a lion. And we both feared one another.”

8. Marie José became Queen of Italy when her husband succeeded his father King Victor Emmanuel III, who switched sides during the war that led to his abdication on May 9, 1946.

9. The abolishment of the House of Savoy by plebiscite on June 2, 1946 also marked the end of Queen Marie José’s reign, which lasted for just 27 days, earning her the title as “The May Queen”.

10. She and her family left the country for exile on June 13, 1946, and though Marie José and Umberto eventually separated, they never divorced as both were faithful Catholics.

11. Marie José, the last Queen of Italy, died of lung cancer on January 27, 2001 at a clinic in Geneva, Switzerland. She was 94 years old.