Bl. Marie Christine of Savoy

Born at Cagliari, Sardinia, 14 November, 1812; died at Naples, 31 January, 1836. She was the daughter of Victor Emanuel I, King of Sardinia, and of Maria Teresa of Austria, niece of the Emperor Joseph II. She lost her father in 1824 and her mother at the beginning of the year 1832. Charles Albert, who succeeded to the throne of Sardinia, insisted upon her appearing at the court of Turin, and she married Ferdinand II, King of the Two Sicilies (21 November, 1832). She died at the age of twenty-three, after having given birth fifteen days before to a son, Francesco-Maria-Leopold, Duke of Calabria. The renown of her virtues had been so great during her brief life, and after her death the graces obtained by her intercession were so numerous, that the Italian episcopate and many Catholic sovereigns obtained from Pius IX the signature, on 9 February, 1859, of the decree by which the process of her canonization was introduced before the Congregation of Rites. This resulted in her name being inscribed, in 1872 in the list of the Blessed. Vie de la vénérable de Dieu Marie-Christine de Savoie, reine des Deux-Siciles (Paris, 1872); GUÉRIN, Les Petits Bollandistes , XV (Bar-le-Duc, 1874), 37-51.