v22_0599 - SAVOIA - DUCATO DI SAVOIA - VIITTORIO AMEDEO III Demi-sol (mezzo soldo)

SAVOY - DUCHY OF SAVOY - VICTOR-AMADEUS III

(1773-1796)

Victor-Amédée III was born in 1726 in Turin. He is the son of Charles-Emmanuel III and Polyxene of Hesse. In 1750 he married Marie-Antoinette of Bourbon-Spain, daughter of King Philip V of Spain and Elizabeth of Spain. In 1773, he succeeded his late father. In 1792 he went to war against the newly proclaimed French Republic which took Savoy and Nice from him. On January 24, 1793, the French fleet bombarded Cagliaria. Helped only by the English, he could not reconquer his territories and the French invaded Piedmont in 1796 and imposed the Treaty of Paris on it. Overwhelmed by these defeats, Victor-Amédée III died in 1796 at the Château de Moncalieri.