#Umberto II

[hippography]

AK Famiglia Reale a Racconigi, Königsfamile von Italien zu Pferd

Alte Ansichtskarten.

[lordmartiya]

In 1946 there was a referendum in Italy to decide if to continue the monarchy, championed by king Umberto Il even during his regency from 1944 but stained by his father letting Mussolini take over, or create a republic, position supported by many of those who fought Fascism (there were also monarchists that fought Fascism, especially after the September 8 Armistice got most of the country occupied by the Germans and ruled by Mussolini with a puppet regime, but they were always outnumbered). The official result was 51% for the republic, though there were many hints and allegations it was rigged, enough for Umberto Il's advisors to suggest forcing the issue militarily. His answer, before freeing the troops from their oaths to the king?

"The republic can be sustained with 51 percent, but not the monarchy. [...] Monarchy is never a party. It's a mystical institution, irrational, capable of creating immense will of sacrifice in men, subjects, and princes... It can't be forced to defend daily from suspicions and accuses. It must be a beloved symbol, or it's nothing"

Let the Americans and MAGA beware: what they're trying to make is a monarchy in everything but name, but too many know the truth. And unless everyone or almost everyone buys it, MAGA is nothing.

[romanovsonelastdance]

OTMAA Contemporaries: The Italian Royal Children.

From left: Princess Mafalda (1902), Princess Yolanda (1901), Princess Giovanna (1907), and Prince Umberto (1904). They would eventually joined by Princess Maria Francesca (1914).

[roehenstart]

Postcard issued on the occasion of the engagement between Princes Umberto of Italy and Maria José of Belgium.

[tiny-librarian]

It's time for the return of the “Living People Related to Maria Theresa” game, started by @vivelareine

Here we have a descendant of hers through her daughter, Maria Carolina, the Queen of Naples and Sicily. (Though you can also trace her line of descent to other children of Maria Theresa, due to the amount of intermarriage among the Habsburg Dynasty). Her name is Vittoria of Savoy, and she's a 20 year old fashion model, who is studying art history and political science.

Vittoria of Savoy (Born December 29th, 2003)  –> Emanuele Filiberto of Savoy –> Vittorio Emanuele of Savoy  –> Umberto II –> Victor Emmanuel III –> Umberto I –> Victor Emmanuel II –> Maria Theresa of Austria –> Luisa of Naples and Sicily –> Maria Carolina of Austria –> Maria Theresa

[sculppp]

Philip de László (1869 – 1937) 

Prince Umberto of Savoy, Prince of Piedmont (King Umberto II of Italy)

[t3mp3r3dg1455]

Hétvégén volt szerencsém.

[nonstandardrepertoire]

so we finished watching season 2 of Picard last night, and just. whew, friends, what? a truly baffling array of choices. things i simply cannot get over:

the commitment to doing every Single joke from The Voyage Home while simultaneously Strenuously Avoiding doing anything campy or goofy

like, the reason TVH works is that the main cast are all just Buffoons — Kirk does not know how money works, Spock is dressed as a jogger in a bathrobe, Scottie tries to talk into a computer mouse, and it is all GREAT. in Picard S2, it's like, they say they don't know much about this period in history, but they all seem to click into place fairly seamlessly. in general watching this new era of Trek, it feels like the writers have simply forgotten the pleasure of a good silly camp romp, and constantly referencing one of the best silliest campiest romps in the canon is uh, not helping

the climax of the season revolves around?? Q's character development??? Q???? QUEUE?????? baffling

in general what was even Q's plan here. is he . . . trying to sabotage the Europa mission or not? why is All Of This necessary for Picard to forgive himself, if that's Q's real goal? just like generally this framing does not make sense to me and so resting the entire season on it is. a choice, i guess

also when have we ever been asked to care about Q's interiority before, when have we ever been asked to be On His Side as opposed to whatever human he's fucking with

how are we relating to canon here. h o w. there are some Real deep cuts, but then also some like, fairly prominent episodes that are just?? ignored???

like, ok:

Guinan and Picard have a fairly significant adventure together in 1800s San Francisco (in “Time’s Arrow”). it is canon then that she doesn't know Picard yet. this is an incident she will remember for 500+ years and reference on board the Enterprise D. but in this season of Picard, she appears not to know him at all and to once more be meeting him for the first time. these two first meetings are . . . difficult to reconcile

but we are apparently doubling down on “Wesley Crusher was just the super specialest boy and he managed to transcend the limits of physical reality because of his big special brain”

we are apparently pretending that Robert Picard just . . . doesn't exist? isn't around for Jean-Luc's childhood? this isn't really technically a continuity error but Robert and Jean-Luc's relationship felt real and specific and grounded in the particulars of their two characters whereas Yvette just feels like generic sexist “ooooooh his mother was ~crazy~” schlock, and losing the former for the latter is uh. not an improvement

we're doubling down on Gary Seven, tho! Gary fucking Seven!!!!! remember that beloved character from an episode that was definitely a good idea??? why

actually, specifically, tho: it feels like this is a continuation of Star Trek’s reluctance/inability to grapple with the less savory parts of Gene Roddenberry as a human being, particularly his misogyny. to stick only to the example at hand, he made the “Assignment: Earth” filming experience so miserable for Teri Garr (by, for example, relentlessly shortening the length of her skirt, even over the objections of the costume designer) that Garr has absolutely refused to talk about Star Trek in subsequent interviews. i was obviously not on set, but the vibe i get is extremely that filming that episode would clearly and unambiguously been a hostile workplace environment by contemporary standards of sexual harassment. so i, personally, have a hard time being like “ah yes, ‘Assignment: Earth’, what a fun bit of forgotten canon to incorporate wholesale into our new series without grappling with the specifics of its creation in any way!”. the vibes are just . . . rancid

anyway, moving on from continuity gripes,

it feels like a real missed opportunity to have not cast David Duchovny as the FBI agent. this is really not the showrunners’ fault, but i’m in a hating sort of mood, so i’m going to take off points anyway

“Dark Page” was not a great idea in 1993 and it isn’t any better now

circling back to “covering the hits without any understanding of what made them good”, Raffi’s encounter in a camp of unhoused people feels like a nod to “Past Tense” without any willingness to actually . . . engage with what “Past Tense” was saying. for all that i have some issues with some of its narrative choices, “Past Tense” devotes significant, sustained screen time to characters that society has decided to discard and is relentless in hammering home the message that “this is not just and it cannot be reformed into justness”. here, Raffi stumbles across an encampment, someone immediately tries to mug her at gun point, she beats him up, she shares a rueful quip about “gosh, wild that such a prosperous society can’t be assed to take care of people”, and then we just move on and never mention this again. like, we get Words saying that Homelessness Bad, but what we are shown is “unhoused people are scary and dangerous and it’s ok for our heroes to beat them up”

(i actually think that In General there is a lot of wasted potential with Raffi, altho mostly the fault here lies in season 1. “very competent Starfleet officer who is also dealing with paranoid delusions and falling apart at the seams about it” is an interesting premise for a Star Trek character if done well! and then S1 is just like “oh, nope, actually, she was right about everything, there was a massive, bizarre conspiracy that did exactly what she thought they did, she's fine and correct and everyone who ever doubted her is an ass”)

(i also think that the “love always ends in grief” sequence from Discovery S4, for all of that season’s considerable messiness, is a much tighter and more powerful expression of that theme than the wandering, haphazard approach to it here. i think these shows are meant to be watched in concert, but the back-to-back seldom does Picard any favors)

we continue to lean into Human Exceptionalism and i continue to roll around on the floor going “ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh” about it

more elaborate thoughts on that go in my “if i were making Enterprise” post, tho

THAT SAID

on the topic of exceptionalism, i hate the FUCK out of the bit in Crusher’s recruitment speech where he’s like “do you want to be ordinary, or do you want your life to have purpose and meaning?” as tho???? ordinary lives????? cannot have purpose and meaning???????????? look me in the eyes, writers. no, no, look me Directly in the eyes: fuck you, fuck that, i am doing cartoon violence to you. the mindset that only extraordinary lives are worth living is toxic bullshit that distorts so much of our mental, political, and artistic landscape. ordinary lives can have so much meaning and purpose, they can be so very beautiful and rich. ordinary lives can be very good to live. i think Star Trek, in general, focuses too much on elites as The Only People Who Really Matter, but to elevate that to the level of explicit text is just. fucking devastating. unspeakably bleak. absolute philosophical train wreck of a season finale, on a par with Discovery’s “a Starfleet admiral actively and deliberately planned and tried to carry out a genocide and faced zero career repercussions for it that we can see”. clown car nonsense

in conclusion: i have drunk the haterade, g-d this season sucked, i can’t wait to make April 13 “Jurati eating car batteries day” and take it away from the Homestucks

[bookjotter6865]

Winding Up the Week #402

An end of week recap “There are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before.” – Willa Cather (born 7th December 1873) Following a literary lull of sorts after ‘nonstop November’, it seems increasingly likely January 2025 will be a relatively busy month for those who like to participate in several reading events at once – in…

[monstrousdaughter]

[citation needed]

[elektroskopik]

In 2024, everyone should read Umberto Eco's essay on Ur-Fascism

[danikatze]

[ID in alt text]

I picked Tary for my pfp on Beacon and I really felt like drawing him <3 I used the painting of King Umberto II of Italy (under the cut) as reference - wanted it to look like a stately kinda portrait!

[portrait of King Umberto II of Italy by Philip de László - ID in alt text]

[klaus1964b]

Sylvia Kristel & Umberto Orsini in "Emmanuelle II", 1975

[romanovsonelastdance]

OTMAA Contemporaries: The Italian Royal Family.

From left: Yolanda (1901) with Maria Francesca (1914), Umberto (1904), Mafalda (1902) and Giovanna (1907). Like OTMAA, there were four sisters and only one brother; but in this case, the brother was the middle child. This generation of Italian royalty did have some Romanov connections, as their mother, Queen Elena, was born a princess of Montenegro, and her sisters Militza and Anastasia had married into the Romanov family. Therefor the young Italian royals were first cousins of Roman Petrovich and his sisters Marina and Nadejda. Another aunt, Zorka, had married into the Serbian royal family, and the Italians also counted King Alexander of Serbia/Yugoslavia and his sister, Elena Petrovna, who married Prince Ioann Konstantinovich, among their cousins.

[roehenstart]

Youth Portrait of Umberto II of Savoy. By Antonio Zoppi.

[tiny-librarian]

Royal Birthdays for today, November 20th:

Maximinus II, Emperor of Rome, 270

Taizong of Song, Emperor of China, 939

Fasilides, Emperor of Ethiopia, 1603

Tipu Sultan, Ruler of Mysore, 1750

Margherita of Savoy, Queen of Italy, 1851

Maria Letizia Bonaparte, Duchess of Aosta, 1866

Alexandra of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg, Countess of Pfeil, 1970

Sofia, Princess of Bulgaria, 1999

Umberto, Prince of Bulgaria, 1999

Theodora, Princess of Liechtenstein, 2004