Kingdom of Italy

17 March 1861, at Turin

At Turin on 17 March 1861, Victor Emmanuel II sanctioned and promulgated Law No. 4671 of the Kingdom of Sardinia. Its single operative article said that he assumed, for himself and his successors, the title King of Italy.

Parliament had already finished voting. The Senate approved the bill on 26 February, 129 to 2, and the Chamber of Deputies unanimously on 14 March; the 17th was the day of royal sanction and promulgation.

Continuity, on purpose

The law created no new constitution. The Sardinian Statuto Albertino, the legislature's numbering and the royal numeral all carried over — Victor Emmanuel stayed "the Second" rather than beginning again as a first king of Italy.

Issue No. 67 of the official gazette, dated 17 March, preserved the public record. Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour, who had introduced the single-article measure in the Senate, countersigned the promulgated law.

Announced to London the same day

Cavour wrote that day to Emanuele Tapparelli D'Azeglio at the Italian legation in London: Parliament had voted, the king had approved, and Italy was proclaiming its existence to the world.

What the new kingdom left out was substantial — Rome and the surviving Papal State, Austrian-ruled Veneto and Mantua, other Italian-speaking Habsburg territories, and independent San Marino.

Sardinian Law No. 4671 was later renumbered as Law No. 1 in the Kingdom of Italy's collection of laws, effective 21 April 1861.