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Maria Gabriell SavoyThe middle daughter of the last king of Italy, Umberto II, and Maria José of Belgium
Date of Birth: 24.02.1940
Country:  Italy |
Content:
- Princess Maria Gabriella of Savoy
- Early Life and Family
- Potential Marriage to the Shah of Iran
- Marriage and Later Life
- - Gabriella Luigia Maria Janssens (born March 7, 2004)
Princess Maria Gabriella of Savoy
Princess Maria Gabriella of Savoy was born in Naples on June 4, 1940. She was the third child of Prince and Princess of Piedmont, Umberto II and Maria José of Belgium. Her older siblings were Princess Maria Pia and Prince Victor Emmanuel, while her younger sibling was Princess Maria Beatrice.
Early Life and Family
Maria Gabriella's parents had married in 1930 but, according to her mother's later revelations, they were an unhappy couple. They separated after the Italian monarchy was abolished in 1946. To escape capture by Nazi forces, her mother took the children to neutral Switzerland, where they stayed from September 1943 until 1945, when their father became lieutenant general under King Victor Emmanuel III. Exiled after the monarchy's fall, the family briefly reunited in Portugal, but she, her sisters, and brother soon returned to Switzerland with their mother, while her father remained on the Portuguese Riviera. As devout Catholics, her parents never divorced.
Maria Gabriella was educated in Switzerland and also attended the École du Louvre in Paris. After her father's death and with her brother's approval, she established the King Umberto II Foundation in Lausanne, dedicated to preserving the history and legacy of the House of Savoy. She has participated in numerous presentations about culture and organized an exhibition in Albertville during the 1992 Olympic Games. In the early 21st century, she has authored several books, mostly co-written with Stefano Papi.
Potential Marriage to the Shah of Iran
In the 1950s, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran, who had divorced his second wife, expressed interest in marrying Princess Maria Gabriella. Pope John XXIII reportedly vetoed the proposal. The Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, in an editorial about the rumored marriage between "a Muslim sovereign and a Catholic princess," wrote that it posed "grave dangers."
Marriage and Later Life
On February 12, 1969, Maria Gabriella married Robert Zellinger de Balkany (August 4, 1931 – September 19, 2015) in France. The religious ceremony took place on June 21, 1969, in Èze. The couple separated in 1976 and divorced in November 1990. They had one daughter, Maria Elisabetta Zellinger de Balkany (born March 2, 1972), who married Olivier Janssens (born 1966) in 2002. The couple has four children:
- Gabriella Luigia Maria Janssens (born March 7, 2004)
- Tommaso Janssens (born January 13, 2005)- Paoul-Luigi Janssens (born November 6, 2009)
- Victor Janssens (born March 14, 2014)
