PHILIBERT

Milan, 25 September 2017

A few days ago, I was looking for a street on a map of Milan when my eye fell on a road called via Emanuele Filiberto. Now, readers need to know that my third (and last) given name is Philibert, the English – and French – equivalent of the Italian Filiberto. Readers also need to know that the current heir to the defunct Italian throne goes by the name of Emanuele Filiberto – he is the grandson of the last King of Italy, Umberto II, who was kicked out by the referendum of 1946. For the umpteenth time, I wondered why I shared a name with this twerp. Because he is a twerp. He’s the kind of guy who ends up on the cover of magazines you flip through while waiting for your appointment with the dentist.


(will you look at that stupid grin!) He has no obvious source of income. He has a vague career as a TV presenter, and has launched a food truck in LA selling pasta, all of this trading on his royal pretensions.

Finally, I decided to try and find an answer to my question: why do I share the same name with this twerp?

This quest took me up the family tree of the Kings of Italy, which quite quickly turns into the family tree of the Dukes of Savoy; it was the Dukes of Savoy who through the twists and turns of history eventually became the Kings of Italy. I thought perhaps that Filiberto was a family name and that I would find traces of it through the generations. But no. There hasn’t been a Filiberto in the family since Emanuele Filiberto, Duke of Savoy 1553-1580.

But that explains why my twerp carries the name that he does. This first Emanuele Filiberto – or more likely Emmanuel Philibert, for the family was more French than Italian at the time – towers above many of the Dukes of Savoy who came before and after him.

It was he who rescued the family from oblivion. His father Charles had lost all the Savoy lands both south and north of the Alps to the French king Francis I (with the Spanish helping themselves to a few pickings along the way). Refusing to accept the loss of his inheritance, Emmanuel Philibert went to work in the armies of Francis I’s enemy, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. He was a brilliant general, winning some key battles for Charles against the French, and earning for himself the sobriquet of Testa di Ferro, Ironhead. In gratitude, Charles V ensured that in the Peace of Cateau Cambrésis which was signed in 1559 Emmanuel Philibert got most of his lands back. It was a new lease of life for the Dukes of Savoy, although it only put off the inevitable loss of Savoy to the French, which finally occurred in 1860 during the reign of Napoleon III. Perhaps it was because he sensed that this would be the long-term outcome that Emmanuel Philibert moved the ducal capital from Chambéry in Savoy to Turin in Piedmont. This is the Royal Palace in Turin.

Obviously, the modern Emanuele Filiberto was so named by his equally twerpish father Vittorio Emanuele to bask in the reflected glory of their ancestor, and perhaps to signal that they would one day emulate his great feat and regain the crown of Italy. Fat chance of that.

But of course this discovery simply reframed my original question: why do I then share a name with Emmanuel Philibert 10th Duke of Savoy? Here, I was helped by a book from 1778 helpfully scanned by Google and available on the internet: “Histoire Généalogique de la Royale Maison de Savoie”.

It’s essentially a hagiography of the House of Savoy, but it was very useful for my purposes. Under the entry on Emmanuel Philibert it has this to say about his two names: “Emmanuel Philibert was born in Chambéry on 8 July 1528. He was given the name Emmanuel in memory of Emmanuel King of Portugal, his maternal ancestor, and that of Philibert because of a vow made by Duke Charles his father to Saint Philibert in Tournus”.

Ah! Now that was exceedingly interesting to read! To explain my excitement, I must now tell readers why I was given the name Philibert. Tournus is a small town – a very small town – in Burgundy on the river Saône, some 35 kilometers north of the somewhat larger town of Mâcon which my mother hailed from. It is famous – and indeed has been famous since the early Middle Ages – for its sanctuary to Saint Philibert. It is a glorious construction from the 11th Century and I would highly recommend my readers to visit it should they ever be in the area.


For reasons that are not clear to me, Saint Philibert is (or at least was) the saint to whom you prayed if you wanted a son. When my mother was pregnant with me, she already had three girls but only one boy. She therefore made a vow to her more-or-less local saint that if her next child was a boy she would give him the saint’s name. I was born and she honored her vow. It may just be a fancy but I suspect that Duke Charles made the same vow some time in the 1520s, especially since Tournus lay just across the river from his westernmost lands.

So there is indeed a link, however tenuous, between me and that twerp Emanuele Filiberto. Which is a pity, but there you are.

Readers might assume, since I have expended so much time on the matter, that I am proud to carry the name Philibert. I have to admit that this is not quite the case. It is, let’s face it, a bit of a silly name. When I was young, I kept it well hidden, only admitting to it when I really had to. Often, when I pronounced it, it would elicit a snicker from my listeners. I silently thank the Good Lord that my mother honored her vow but only by giving it to me as my third name. I shudder to think what my life would have been like if I had had to spend my boyhood years in the playground being called Philibert. I would probably have taken to alcohol or drugs or worse.

But let me finish on a more positive note. Saint Philibert’s feast day is 20th August, which happens to be peak harvest time for hazelnuts in England. So people began to call them filbert nuts, or filberts. I rather like the idea of having a connection with hazelnuts, an excellent nut which I enjoy in my morning muesli and from time time in pieces of chocolate. Better a connection with a nut than with a twerp.
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Cover of Gente: http://olgopinions.blog.kataweb.it/tag/emanuele-filiberto-di-savoia/page/3/
Cover of Telesette: http://m.famousfix.com/post/valeria-marini-telesette-magazine-cover-italy-24-february-2015-51840502/p51840501?view=large
Emanuele Filiberto and his food truck: https://www.google.co.uk/amp/www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3690125/amp/The-prince-Italy-sells-pasta-food-truck-California-truffle-linguine-16-bowl.html
Emmanuel Philibert, Duc de Savoie: https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/lordozner.tumblr.com/post/89144934533/frans-pourbus-the-elder-emmanuel-philibert-duke/amp
Royal Palace, Turin: http://www.turismotorino.org/mobile/
Histoire Généalogique etc. cover page: https://books.google.it/books/about/Histoire_généalogique_de_la_royale_mai.html?id=GPrH8yauF94C&redir_esc=y
Abbey church of Tournus, aerial view: http://www.tournus.fr/le-site-abbatial-de-saint-philibert
Abbey church of Tournus, interior: http://www.hotel-greuze.fr/test-a-vister
Hazelnuts: https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/edible/nut-trees/hazelnut/when-to-harvest-hazelnuts.htm