A princess for Umberto and Marie Jose - 90 years ago!

 

Marlene A Eilers Koenig Collection

September 24, 1954

At 11:15 p.m., Crown Princess Marie Jose of Italy gave birth to her first child, a daughter.  According to the New York Times,  Italy had been waiting "with suppressed excitement" but the  jubilation was "rendered only one degree less intense" as the baby is not a boy, which would have ensured a "direct line of succession to the throne."  

Females are barred from succeeding to the Italian throne.

The new princess will be named Maria Pia.   Crown Princess Marie José's mother, the Dowager Queen Elisabeth of the Belgians, and her mother-in-law, Queen Elena, were present for the birth,    Crown Prince Umberto waited in an adjoining room with two of his sisters was "overjoyed" when his mother "appeared at the door" with the good news.

The Crown Princess and her infant daughter are doing well.  The infant princess was born in a second-floor bedroom of the palace in Naples, which has two balconies overlooking the Bay of Naples.  The room is "simply furnished" and almost bare "except for a plain bed of lacquered white wood, a sideboard, a table, and a few chairs."

all 5 images  Marlene A Eilers Koenig collection

The room also includes a small scale to weigh the newborn, and a tiny "nickeled metal bathtub."   

The Crown Princess and her daughter will be moved tomorrow to an adjoining apartment, "furnished in Empire style."   In the center of the new bedroom is a "beautiful cradle of silver, coral and tortoise shell," a gift from the people of Naples.

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Maria Pia's baptism took place 2 days after her birth in a room adjoining her mother's bedroom suite.  She was given the names Maria Pia Elena Elisabetta Margherita Milena Mafalda Ludovica Tecla Gennara, but would be known as Princess Maria Pia.  Her father and her grandmothers were present at the ceremony.

https://royalmusingsblogspotcom.blogspot.com/2014/09/little-princess-gets-ten-names.html

On June 2, 1946, the Italian monarchy ended in a referendum supporting a republic.  Queen Marie José and her children settled in Switzerland with King Umberto remained in Portugal.

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On September 23, 1954, Umberto announced Princess Maria Pia's engagement to Prince Alexander of Yugoslavia, 30,  eldest of three children of Prince Paul of Yugoslavia, who served as one of three Regents during the minority reign of King Peter II, and Princess Olga of Greece and Denmark.  The couple met one month earlier, on August 22, 1954, on board the Greek royal yacht, Agamemnon, a royal meet and greet cruise hosted by Queen Frederika of the Hellenes.

all three images: Marlene A Eilers Koenig Collection 

The couple married in Cascais, Portugal on February 12, 1955.  Three years later, on June 18, 1958,  Maria Pia gave birth to a set of twins, Prince Dimitri Nicholas Paul George Maria and Prince Michael Nicolas Paul George Maria.  Although Prince Alexander was Orthodox, he agreed to raise his sons as Roman Catholics.

all five images: Marlene A Eilers Koenig collection

A second set of twins, Prince Serge Wladimir Emanuel Maria and Princess Helene Olga Lydia Tamara Maria, were born on March 12, 1963.

Maria Pia and Alexander's marriage was also strained when the second set of twins were born.  She was already involved with Prince Michel of Bourbon-Parma when she gave birth to Serge and Helene.

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The Princess's first marriage ended in divorce, but she could not marry Prince Michel until 2003 following the annulment of his first marriage to Princess Yolande de Broglie-Revel.

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