The Funeral of the Duke of Aosta

 

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The funeral of HRH the Duke of Aosta was celebrated today in Florence's Basilica of San Miniato.   The guest list was largely limited to members of the late Duke's family and members of the Italian nobility.  Foreign royals including the late duke's relatives were unable to travel to Italy due to Covid restrictions.

His son, Prince Aimone, Duke of Aosta described him as an "exceptional father -- and he was a reference figure for many in addition to my family.  I am moved by the number of people who came here to remember my father,"

Princess Signoretta Alliata Licata di Baucina, a longtime friend of the Duchess of Aosta, spoke of her sadness that the news of his death.  

"I am deeply saddened. Amedeo was a generous man, available, ready to help friends but also people he did not know, of any social class they were, because he had a great love for his neighbor and felt the needs of the others as his problems. He had an upbringing as a member of the royal family, an upbringing different from the one we all receive.

"I met him 43 years ago - he had just separated from Claudia d'Orleans and had started a relationship with Silvia (Paternò di Spedalotto), who was one of my closest friends.  She was young and her father, Marquis Spedalotto, was worried and went to Tuscany to better understand Silvia's relationship which later turned out to be a wonderful union. Silvia entered the Savoy family with great lightness, almost on tiptoe, and she loved  Amedeo and Claudia's children as if they were her own.

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What has always struck me and what I will miss a lot about Amedeo is his extreme humanity: if you needed something he was the first to get in motion to help you solve problems. He made you feel at the center of the world, a special person, and everywhere he left an excellent memory of himself. Moreover - and this was the result of his 'royal' education - he was always very attentive to everything that happened in Italy and he experienced unpleasant things as open wounds. He had been brought up in total respect of the others and thus educated his three children, Bianca Mafalda and Aimone, in simplicity and love for nature and the sea, without ever losing sight of an extraordinary sense of righteousness that made him clearly distinguish good from evil, white from black, unlike a society like the one we live in which is immersed in the gray in which good and evil are confused.

"He had fought with extraordinary tenacity against cancer and for this reason, none of us thought he would die. He loved the house in Pantelleria very much, he still wanted to live and return to the island and his sea ​​that for him was a world. I will make him say a mass in Palermo."