"Geneva, October 16, 2022
Dear Aimone,
I am forced in spite of myself to return to issues on which I have long remained silent and on which I would no longer be forced to intervene, especially in such a complex moment for our homeland, where the attention of all of us is rightly directed to very different urgencies .
However, if I am induced to do so, it is because, in the last few days, I have viewed some acts made public by you and which arouse my profound perplexity. Once again, they go in the direction of continuing in that senseless dynastic opposition which I hope will be overcome by the incontrovertible facts, common sense and also by a renewed spirit of family unity.
I therefore feel obliged to intervene with this letter which I wish to be made public, to clarify the responsibilities of each one in front of family, friends and those who respect our home.
As I also publicly manifested a few days ago, during the General Chapter of the Dynastic Orders of the House of Savoy held in Geneva, your statements made in July in an interview with a well-known Italian weekly, represented an important pacifying signal for me. A gesture that in no way meant that you would deny some disruptive paternal choices which, despite the respect and affection I have for the memory of Your Father Amedeo, obviously I could not in the past but stigmatize as damaging the unity of the House. Savoia and which have always represented the best weapon available to those who enjoy seeing our family in conflict. You declared in this interview: “Enough arguing with my cousin Vittorio Emanuele, let's defend the dynasty together”. I completely agree.
As you know and as I was able to express to you last year, during a telephone conversation, I have always shared this wish for unity. For my part and as you have been able to find out as a new Duke of Aosta, there has never been a hostile act, indeed our conversation a few months ago and your meeting with my son Emanuele Filiberto in Russia seemed to go to the direction to lead to an intelligent overcoming of this harmful contrast.
However, I have seen deeds, documents and web pages (including a new site) that seem to me to propose again sic et simpliciter the old pattern of the sterile opposition that has often been fueled by both parties not so much by us, but by people who have many cases jumped between the two branches of the family in the last forty years - depending on the moment - following only their own convenience in seeking personal interests.
In particular, I see with regret how an alleged private correspondence between myself and the King my Father, on which I have never intervened, is repeated at every turn. I do it reluctantly because I am tired of reading imaginative reconstructions by people that Umberto II has never even met. In this letter of 1960, moreover not concerning my wife, the King wrote: "[...] Such an irrevocable decision [a possible exclusion from the succession], which I should reach with pain, but firmly, would be communicated by me to the individual members of our house, to all the Sovereigns and the Heads of the Royal families, as well as brought to the attention of the Italians, also in relation to your forfeiture from the current title of Prince of Naples ". My Father was very scrupulous and precise about all this: being his son, more than any other I know the rigor (he defined it precisely as 'firmness') with which he would have followed up any measures in this regard; this condition, as you well know, has never occurred. Indeed, the baptism of my son, ten years before his death, was the occasion in which the family was able to truly find each other. A situation confirmed in the following years by some unequivocal gestures of Umberto II, above all public, visible and documented, not the result of suppositions or singular reconstructions, such as for example his last public speech in Beaulieu-sur-Mer, on 4 June 1978, and which many call your "testament to the Italians", where he also wanted my wife next to him.
Finally, as I have told several times, my Father, who I assisted with my Sisters in His painful last months of life between London and Geneva, entrusted me with this task shortly before dying: "Take care of our family, entrust my Collar of the Santissima Annunziata to Emanuele Filiberto and carries on the House of Savoy ”.
I do not intend to withdraw from this legacy that Umberto II passed on to me and which I have always tried to honor since 1983, despite many difficulties, as Head of the family, a role that was ratified by my Mother and my Sisters the next day. of the disappearance of the Sovereign and confirmed by Your Father, at least until 2006, in many circumstances.
Precisely because I understand the deep love you have for Your Father Amedeo, you can perfectly understand my feelings when I read these bizarre stories about the relationship between myself and my August Parent by people completely unknown to me who continue to look through the hole. of the lock, investigating family matters that only we - the Family - should be dealing with.
I am sure that it is the desire of all those who look with trust and affection at the House of Savoy to finally be able to make sense of what I have hoped for for years and of Your July words, but to do this it is appropriate and no longer postponable to finally put an end to certain trifles. which, in fact, represent the nourishment of this dynastic opposition.
It is right that everyone knows that on my part there is not only no hostility towards you, but a sincere affection: my arms will always be open to build something useful, in the custody of dynastic memory and in the right distinction of roles. But recalling the motto "Italy first" cannot be just a rhetorical exercise.
For example, our Dynastic Orders, scattered all over the world with dozens of Delegations, carry out many charitable works in the name of the House of Savoy, bringing a message of hope wherever it is needed, updating the great values of the knightly tradition. It is a tangible and concrete reality that I wanted to consolidate over time through a patient and demanding daily work, collecting it from the hands of the King my Father and whose work cannot be interrupted.
In 1973, on the occasion of the Chapter for the four hundred years since the establishment of the Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus, to which as Hereditary Prince I was next to my Parent (your Father was also present, along with other Princes of our House), the Sovereign he entrusted us Knights with the task of perpetuating the great Mauritian heritage. Moreover, it is a reality that even the late Amedeo knew very well, since in the following decades, Your Father was often present at the subsequent Chapters I called and in 1988 I was happy to grant his wife Silvia the Grand Cross of the Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus, exactly how I would be delighted to be able to welcome your wife and, when they are old, your children into our orders today.
Having reached eighty-five years and about forty years since I was called to succeed my August Parent, it is more than ever my precise duty today to make this last appeal to family unity.
I feel the need to ask you to accompany my son Emanuele Filiberto, also in view of the task that awaits him, because I believe that together you can do a lot for the future of the House of Savoy.
I believe it is possible to take steps forward together, but that everyone knows that peace is built in two and I cannot do it alone.
With love and consideration.
VITTORIO EMANUELE"
Interesting, thank you. 
