Maria Vittoria of Savoy  Maria Vittoria of Savoy (Maria Vittoria Francesca; 9 February 1690 – 8 July 1766) was a legitimated daughter of Victor Amadeus II of Sardinia, first king of the House of Savoy. Married to the head of a cadet branch of the House of Savoy, she is an ancestor of the kings of Sardinia and of the Savoy kings of Italy. Maria Vittoria Francesca di Savoia was the child of Victor Amadeus II of Sardinia and his "maîtresse-en-titre", Jeanne Baptiste d'Albert de Luynes. Born in Turin on 9 February 1690 while her father was reigning Duke of Savoy, her parents' affair had begun in early 1689. Daughter of a French duke of distinguished ancestry and wife of a prominent Savoyard nobleman, initially she sought to avoid becoming a mistress of Victor Amadeus, then reigning Duke of Savoy. But ambition prompted her husband's family and even the Duke's wife, Anne Marie d'Orléans, to encourage the liaison. Her mother's popularity made her unpopular at the Savoyard court. Maria Vittoria's father, jealous and obsessed with Jeanne Baptiste, eventually had her shut up from view of the court. Jeanne Baptiste decided to flee Savoy in 1700 and sought refuge in France from Louis XIV. When her mother fled Savoy in 1700, Maria Vittoria and her brother, Vittorio Francesco di Savoia, remained in the duchy under the care of their father. Her father legitimated Maria Vittoria and her brother Vittorio Francesco, making him the Marchese di Susa (he died childless in 1762, aged 68) and granting her the feminine version of that title, "Marchesa di Susa". In 1713 Victor Emmanuel acquired royal dignity, becoming King of Sicily (although he would be compelled to exchange that realm for Sardinia by the European Powers in 1720, while retaining the title of king). Betrothed in mid-1714 in an arrangement which imitated Louis XIV's practice of marrying his legitimated offspring to his royal kinsmen, the "princes du sang", Maria Vittoria married Victor Amadeus of Savoy, Prince of Carignan at the Castle of Moncalieri on 7 November, aged 23. Her father gave her husband an annual income of 400,000 livres, partly to assuage injury to the princely dignity of the Carignans for acquiescing to a marital alliance with a lady born out of wedlock.