Margherita Maria Teresa Giovanna di Savoia, consort of King Umberto I, was the first queen consort of Italy since the wife of King Vittorio Emanuele II, Maria Adelaide of Austria, died in 1855, before the proclamation of the Kingdom occurred in 1861.
In the years when he was alongside Umberto as a hereditary princess and, since 1878, as queen of Italy, he exercised a considerable influence on the choices of her husband and a great fascination among the population, making wise use of their public appearances, designed to attract the people with refined clothing and constant affability. According to Ugoberto Alfassio Grimaldi, he was the political figure of a united Italy which, after Giuseppe Garibaldi and Benito Mussolini, aroused "the greatest enthusiasm in the upper classes and in the humble classes".
Catholic, fiercely attached to the House of Savoy and deeply reactionary, was a convinced nationalist and supported the imperialist policy of Francesco Crispi. The incitement to the repression of popular revolts, as happened in Milan in 1898, however controversial, did not compromise its image, perhaps because it was the first Italian woman to sit on the throne of the newly established country. At court, he ran a weekly cultural circle that earned him the admiration of poets and intellectuals and placed it perhaps, at least in this respect, more to the left of many other ladies of the aristocracy. His dances, moreover, like those in which he participated, often concealed a diplomatic plan, and in his intentions sought in particular to ensure a mediation with the "black" aristocracy, remained loyal to the Vatican after the capture of Rome.
Many were the popular and poetic tributes paid to the noblewoman (from pizza Margherita to the famous Carduccian ode to the queen of Italy, written immediately after the visit of the sovereigns in November 1878), even in the years following the murder of her husband, when she became a queen mother.
His figure was exalted by the poet Giosuè Carducci in the last years of his life, despite his republican past and his contempt for all the monarchs, so much to gain criticism from several Republicans.
As a queen he promoted the arts and culture, introduced chamber music in Italy, founded the string quintet of Rome. Once a week he gathered around him at the Quirinale the best of Italian and European culture passing through the capital. Just think of Ruggiero Bonghi, Theodor Mommsen, Ferdinand Gregorovius, Giuseppe Martucci. It was thanks to a scholarship granted by her that, from 1880 to 1883, she was able to study the young Giacomo Puccini at the Milan Conservatory.
Passionate mountaineer, she climbed, first woman, one of the highest peaks of the Alps: Monte Rosa. For this reason it was dedicated the refuge Margherita, built near the top of the mountain.
On 11 August 1900 the throne passed to the son of Umberto, Vittorio Emanuele III. After the death of her husband UmbertoI, the queen had to adapt to the role of queen mother. In this capacity he dedicated himself to charitable works and to the increase of arts and culture, he encouraged artists and writers and founded cultural institutions. All his previous life had been consecrated to the role of wife of the king, now he had to work for his son and daughter-in-law Elena.
a regina, after the period of mourning moved to live in the Hunting Palace of Stupinigi but his official residence was in Rome, at Palazzo Margherita, together with his personal court. The queen also received regularly at her mountain residence and continued to be a center of attraction for artists, men of letters, nobles and men of the world. In 1904 the Belgian nursery Soppelt & Notting dedicated a very rare rose to the queen.
He died in Bordighera on January 4, 1926. Queen Margherita had funeral services first in Bordighera, and then in Rome, where she was buried in the royal tombs of the Pantheon. On this occasion it showed all the popular affection, at the passage of the train, where a crowd moved, hindered and slowed its progress, to be able to approach and throw flowers.