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Princess Maria Francesca of Savoy

1914–2001

Born
26 Dec 1914, Rome
Country of birth
Kingdom of Italy, today Italy
Died
4 Dec 2001, Mandelieu-la-Napoule
facts
9
sources
1
images and files
0

Facts and their sources

Tap a fact to see where it comes from.

A life in time

  1. Born · Rome

    Birth, Rome

  2. Child born: Prince Guy of Bourbon-Parma

    Birth

  3. Child born: Prince Rémy François of Bourbon-Parma

    Birth

  4. Child born: Princess Chantal Marie of Bourbon-Parma

    Birth

  5. Child born: Prince Jean of Bourbon-Parma

    Birth

  6. Died · Mandelieu-la-Napoule

    Death, Mandelieu-la-Napoule

What was it like?

The world around Rome, 1914: who ruled, who else was alive, how people lived. This is general history, not a record about the family, and every item shows where it comes from.

When Princess was born in 1914, Rome belonged to the Kingdom of Italy, ruled by Otto I the Great.

Who ruled

  • Otto I the Great

    Monarch of Italy, 951 · Kingdom of Italy

  • Adelaide of Italy

    Monarch of Italy, 947 · Kingdom of Italy

  • Victor Emmanuel III of Italy

    Monarch of Italy, 1900–1946 · Kingdom of Italy

Born around the same time

  • Frank Sinatra

    1915 · American singer and actor (1915–1998)

  • Nino Rota

    1911 · Italian composer

  • Ronald Reagan

    1911 · president of the United States from 1981 to 1989 and actor (1911–2004)

  • Édith Piaf

    1915 · French singer (1915–1963)

  • Ingrid Bergman

    1915 · Swedish actress (1915–1982)

  • Stanley Matthews

    1915 · English association football player (1915-2000)

Fashion

Apron signals romantic interest

In mountain villages, women used their aprons as a silent language; moving the apron to the right side signaled a romantic interest in a young man.

Poor children often went barefoot

Because shoes were expensive, poor children in both rural and urban areas commonly went barefoot, even though middle-class children in cities wore fashionable European-style clothing.

Music

Christmas Music by Zampognari Musicians

At Christmastime, zampognari musicians traveled from the Abruzzi mountains to Naples, playing bagpipes and the ciaramella to perform music before images of the Holy Infant during the nine-day Novena.

Popular Neapolitan Song Printed 180,000 Times

The Neapolitan song Te voglio bene assaje became extremely popular, with 180,000 copies of its lyrics printed for the public.

Getting around

Lack of a unified time system

Travel times were inconsistent because there was no unified time; for example, trains in Verona ran with a 13-minute delay compared to those in Turin. Additionally, local time in cities like Lecce differed by several minutes depending on longitude.

Reaching the train station by mule cart

For many people in the early 1900s, reaching a train station required walking down mountain paths to a village where they could catch a mule cart. This was often the first time individuals had traveled beyond a few miles from their birthplace.

Daily life

First Italian village with modern electric light

Crespi d'Adda workers' village was the first in Italy to feature modern Edison public street lighting.

Free company-provided school for workers' children

At the Crespi factory school, the company provided everything for children, including all textbooks, pens, and the salaries and housing for their teachers.

Food

Boiled chestnuts as a main course

For one soldo, street vendors in Naples sold nine boiled chestnuts in a reddish juice, which the poor used as a main course by soaking their bread in the liquid.

Peasant diets relied on carbohydrates

Peasant families often lived on a diet centered on carbohydrates like polenta made of maize flour, beans, and bread, with meat consumption remaining very low at about 14 to 15 kilograms per person annually.

Prices and wages

Cost of basic meals

A typical dinner for a family of six or seven consisting of five pounds of bread and macaroni cost about thirty-five to forty cents (lire). Supper for a working man, often bread and a pint of coffee, cost about four cents (lire).

Daily wages for Italian laborers

Some unskilled laborers in Italy earned as little as seven cents (lire) for a fourteen-hour workday, while very few skilled mechanics earned as much as one dollar (lire) per day.

Work

Agriculture dominated the Italian workforce

In 1911, the vast majority of the Italian population, 58 percent of the active workforce, was employed in agriculture.

Grueling working hours for laborers

Factory workers often toiled between 12 and 16 hours a day, with start times as early as 3:00 a.m. in the summer.

During their lifetime

  1. 1918

    Spanish flu pandemic, 1918

    During the Spanish influenza pandemic of 1918–1919, 600,000 Italians lost their lives.

  2. 1921

    Public radio broadcasting starts in 1921

    Public radio broadcasting officially began in France in 1921, with regular programs transmitted from an antenna atop the Eiffel Tower.

  3. 1927

    Economic crisis, 1927-1935

    Following the Great Depression, the poorer classes in Italy suffered a fall in nominal wages of up to 70 percent between 1927 and 1935.

  4. 1944

    Women gain voting rights in 1944

    In October 1944, a government ordinance finally granted women the right to vote in France.

  5. 1946

    Italy becomes a Republic

    In 1946, Italian voters chose to abolish the monarchy in a referendum, leading to the birth of the Republic.

  6. 1950

    Creation of the minimum wage

    In 1950, the government established the minimum wage (SMIG) to improve workers' purchasing power.

Family

Parents

Spouses

Children

Ancestors and children

Open the full tree

Four generations back to the right, the children to the left. The number beside a child counts the generations of descendants known after them.