For those of us born long after WWII ended, the House of Savoy was a name to be found in history books, an important detail that went hand in hand with the unification of Italy in 1861.

Our grandparents, and some of our parents, had vivid memories of the reigning monarchs, sometimes holding on to  faded sepia photographs. I remember fantastical stories told about Regina Margherita when I was taken to the park of the same name in the city where I grew up. It could all have been a fairy tale.