Twenty Years Since the Death of the May Queen: Marie-José of Italy

In 1930, Princess Marie-José of Belgium married Prince Umberto of Savoy, Prince of Piedmont and the heir to the Italian throne. Umberto was the only son of King Vittorio Emanuele III of Italy (1869-1947) and Queen Elena (1873-1952; née Princess of Montenegro). Umberto and Marie-José had four children: Princess Maria Pia (b.1934), Prince Vittorio Emanuele (b.1937), Princess Maria Gabriella (b.1940), and Princess Maria Beatrice (b.1943). Umberto and Marie-José had rather different temperaments, and their marriage was not a union of love. In May 1946, Umberto succeeded his father as King of Italy, and thus Marie-José became queen. Their reign was short-lived; it lasted thirty-four days, from 9 May to 12 June 1946.

The King and Queen of Italy arrive at the marriage of Princess Maria Isabella of Savoy-Genoa in 1971.

After the royal family left Italy following the referendum abolishing the monarchy, Umberto and Marie-José settled in Portugal with their children. This cohabitation was of brief duration: Queen Marie-José moved to Switzerland, and King Umberto remained at Cascais. Although informally separated, the last King and Queen of Italy often appeared together at Gotha events over the decades. 

The year of 1983 brought great loss to Queen Marie-José. In March, her husband of fifty-three years, King Umberto II, died in Geneva at the age of seventy-eight. In June, her brother Prince Charles, Count of Flanders, died at the age of seventy-nine. In September, her last surviving brother King Léopold III of the Belgians, who had abdicated in 1951, died at the age of eighty-one. Thus, in the space of one year, Marie-José lost her husband and both of her siblings.

The funeral of Queen Marie-José of Italy. Photograph (c) Getty Images.

The burial of Queen Marie-José of Italy took place on 2 February 2001 at Hautecombe, Savoy, France. The queen was buried next to King Umberto II. Besides her children and grandchildren, the attendees included King Albert II and Queen Paola of Belgium, Grand Duchess Joséphine-Charlotte of Luxembourg, King Juan Carlos of Spain and his sister Infanta Pilar, Empress Farah of Iran, the Duke and Duchess of Aosta as well as the duke’s children Prince Aimone and Princess Bianca, the Duke and Duchess of Braganza, Princess Béatrice of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, the Duke and Duchess of Calabria, Archduke Carl Christian and Archduchess Marie-Astrid of Austria, Prince Alexander and Princess Barbara of Yugoslavia, and Prince Michael of Greece. A wreath of flowers was sent by Prince Rainier II of Monaco.