Editing House of Savoy (section)

=== Kingdom of Italy ===
[[File:Italy 1796.svg|thumbnail|left|A map of Italy in 1796]]
The crown of Sicily, the prestige of being [[King|kings]] at last, and the wealth of [[Palermo]] helped strengthen the House of Savoy further. In 1720, they were forced to exchange Sicily for the [[Kingdom of Sardinia]] as a result of the [[War of the Quadruple Alliance]]. On the mainland, the dynasty continued its expansionist policies as well. Through advantageous alliances during the [[War of the Polish Succession]] and [[War of the Austrian Succession]], King [[Charles Emmanuel III]] gained new lands at the expense of the [[Austrian Empire|Austrian]]-controlled [[Duchy of Milan]].

In 1792, Piedmont–Sardinia joined the [[First Coalition]] against the [[French First Republic]]. It was beaten in 1796 by [[Napoleon]] and forced to conclude the disadvantageous [[Treaty of Paris (1796)|Treaty of Paris]], giving the French army free passage through Piedmont. In 1798, [[Barthélemy Catherine Joubert]] occupied Turin and forced [[Charles Emmanuel IV]] to abdicate and leave for the island of [[Sardinia]]. In 1814, the kingdom was restored and enlarged with the addition of the former [[Republic of Genoa]] by the [[Congress of Vienna]].

[[File:Italia 1843-en.svg|thumb|left|A map of Italy in 1843]]
In the meantime, [[Italian nationalist]] figures like [[Giuseppe Mazzini]] were influencing popular opinion. Mazzini believed that [[Italian unification]] could only be achieved through a [[popular uprising]]. After the failure of the [[Revolutions of 1848 in the Italian states]], the nationalists began to look to the [[Kingdom of Sardinia (1720–1861)|Kingdom of Sardinia]] and its prime minister [[Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour]] as leaders of the unification movement. In 1848, King [[Charles Albert of Sardinia|Charles Albert]] conceded a constitution known as the ''[[Statuto Albertino]]'' to Piedmont–Sardinia, which remained the basis of the kingdom's legal system even after Italian unification was achieved and the Kingdom of Sardinia became the [[Kingdom of Italy]] in 1861.

The Kingdom of Italy was the first Italian state to include the Italian peninsula since the fall of the [[Roman Empire]]. When [[Victor Emmanuel II|Victor Emmanuel]] was crowned King of Italy in 1861, his realm did not include the [[Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia|Venetia]] region (subject to Habsburg governance), [[Lazio]] (with Rome), [[Umbria]], [[Marche]], and [[Romagna]] (with the [[Holy See|Papal]] town of [[Bologna]]). Yet the House of Savoy continued to rule Italy for several decades through the Italian independence wars as Italian unification proceeded and even as the [[First World War]] raged on in the early 20th century.