In the Superga hill, where the cold winds of Turin carve the cypresses with the precision of a maniacal sculptor, the Savoy dynasty still interprets in this century its baroque score, full of counterpoints and uncomfortable silences.
This Saturday, in the basilica that keeps the illustrious bones of his lineage, the Mass took place for the first anniversary of the death of Victor Manuel de Savoyathe last suitor to the throne of Italy, a king without the kingdom who sailed the waters of exile with the same expertise with which others handle a broken rudder.
Marina Doriahis widow, came wrapped in a dark wool coat, melancholy barely visible behind smoked glasses. In his hand, a bouquet of white roses, the minimum offering that demands the script of history when it belongs to a house that, over time, has passed from the military glories to the tabloids of the heart. Next to him, Manuel Filiberto de Savoyathe son who still holds in his hands the scepter of an evaporated monarchy, although his true domain seems to be in the fortune that the businessman treasures, in the show press and in the coming and going of romances that suggest that the lineage weighs less that well -administered frivolity.
Because in this mass not only a man was remembered who was born with the blood of King and a throne that was denied, but also the last act of a comedy of mistakes was also represented. After the death of his father, Manuel Filiberto He solemnly announced the transfer of dynastic rights to his daughter, Vittoriaa 20 -year -old girl who, according to the logic of the family tree, would have been the hope of continuity. But then he regretted, retracting with the same ease with which others change their tie.
Tradition weighed more than modernity and the head of the Savoy House remains him, a prince who has changed the palaces for the pages of spoon paper and the state acts for sponsored events.
The Mass was sober, as corresponds to a family that has been dragging the weight of its history. But beyond the liturgy, the focus inevitably moved towards a detail that added a little more salt to this dish already seasoned: the absence of Adriana Abascal. We have not seen the ex -wife of Juan Villalonga in Turin and, before, the woman who shared the bed and the secrets with Emilio Azcárraga MilmoEl Tigre, owner and lord of Televisa. A business lineage that, although oblivious to European royalty, has the aroma of power and influence that fascinates certain princes without throne.
The romance between the head of the house of Savoy and the Mexican Miss has been the trail of recent weeks. Adriana Abascalwith its beauty measured to the millimeter and its innate ability to move between the high spheres, it is the last chapter of a life in which the lineage weighs less than the ability to stay in the center of the stage. Because Manuel Filiberto is, first of all, a man who has understood that in the 21st century royalty is not supported only on titles, but on media relevance.
In this funeral of the first flat, the presence of Abascal had marked its official debut in the parallel court that Manuel Filiberto has been building with patience. It is no longer the nobility of blood, but about the aristocracy of the reflectors, where lineages are mixed with the entertainment business and power is a capital that is measured in trending topics.
The stones of the Superga Basilica have seen generations of Savoy with the same indifference with which the centuries observe human illusions. There the remains of Víctor Manuel II, the first king of Italy, Humberto I, killed in Monza, and Carlos Alberto, the monarch who abdicated and died in exile. Among those tombs, the echo of the steps of Manuel Filiberto and his new companion echoed with a strange cadence, that of those who know that the weight of history is nothing more than a well -mounted scenery.
Because, after all, what remains today of the house of Savoy beyond a fortune and the chronicles of society? A name, a coat of arms and a succession of titles that have been reduced to anecdotes. The royalty, in its purest sense, is a matter of real power, and the power (as a reigning dynasty) of the Savoy, vanished long ago. What remains is a postmodern version of the nobility, where assets and marriages are no longer pacts between dynasties but strategic alliances or simply samples of love to those who succumb to those succumbing like the plebs.
Víctor Manuel de Savoya, the man who is honored today, lived between exile and the hope of an impossible restoration. His life was marked by dark episodes, from judicial accusations to political outbursts that moved him further away from any possibility of recovering the crown. Now rest in Superga, under the same marble that covers his ancestors, while his son walks on the tightrope between the blood aristocracy and the international show.
And so, with the concluded Mass and the flashes gradually turning off, the Savoy dynasty continues its course, closer to the pink chronicle thanks to a sounded romance. The history books are left on the shelves.
In the Superga hill, the wind continues to blow on the tombs, indifferent to the fluctuations of a family that once dreamed of governing a country and today shaped with governing headlines. We accompany in the feeling the whole family and her widow, the Swiss skier who was married 53 years with her highness.
