Exiled Italian king’s remains repatriated after 70 years
ROME — The remains of Italy’s King Victor Emmanuel III were repatriated from Egypt and interred in a family mausoleum Sunday in northern Italy, 71 years after Italians rejected the monarchy in a referendum and the country’s royals went into exile.
The return of the king who for a time backed Benito Mussolini’s fascist dictatorship dismayed members of Italy’s tiny Jewish community and Italians devoted to the memory of the partisan fighters who tried to free the country from fascism’s grip during World War II.
Draped in a flag with the House of Savoy crest, a coffin bearing the king’s remains was brought to a chapel inside the Sanctuary of Vicoforte, a church in the northwest Piedmont region, which was the royal family’s base.
Victor Emmanuel died in 1947 in Alexandria, Egypt, a year after he abdicated in favour of his son in an unsuccessful attempt to preserve the monarchy. His remains had been kept in Alexandria’s St. Catherine’s Cathedral.