The Queen first visited Italy as Princess Elizabeth in 1951.
Queen Elizabeth II, who died on Thursday on the age of 96, visited Italy on 5 events, 4 of which had been state visits throughout her 70-year reign.
Her first go to to Italy was in April 1951, as Princess Elizabeth, 4 years after she married Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh.
The royal couple flew from Malta to Rome the place the longer term queen had lunch on the Quirinale with Italy’s then president Luigi Einaudi. She additionally had a personal dialog with Pope John XXIII on the Vatican.
She visited the Colosseum, attended a horse race on the Appian Method and had a twenty fifth celebration at Hadrian’s Villa in Tivoli earlier than travelling on to Florence.
The next February, on the demise of her father King George VI, Princess Elizabeth grew to become queen. The following time she visited Italy, in Could 1961, it was a state go to as Queen Elizabeth II.
She was welcomed by Italy’s then head of state Giovanni Gronchi and the royal go to began off in Sardinia, Sicily and Naples. In Rome she was visitor of honour at a state banquet attended by 3,000 members of Italian excessive society.
Then Rome mayor Luigi Petroselli welcomed her to the Campidoglio the place she visited the Capitoline Museums and laid a wreath on the tomb of the Unknown Soldier – accompanied by then defence minister Giulio Andreotti.
She additionally visited the Rome Battle Cemetery in Testaccio, final resting place of Commonwealth troops killed in Italy, in addition to taking within the Piazza di Siena horse present and having fun with Verdi’s Falstaff at Rome’s opera home.
The Queen met Pope John XXIII on the Vatican earlier than travelling on to Florence and Turin – the place she attended the Expo ’61 and met Fiat head Gianni Agnelli – and Venice the place she took a visit in a gondola.
It was 20 years earlier than the Queen returned to Italy, in October 1981, when she was welcomed by President Sandro Pertini and had an viewers with Pope John Paul II.
20 years later nonetheless, in 2000, she returned to Italy on a state go to. The Queen was welcomed by President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi on the Quirinale and he or she met the Polish pontiff as soon as once more, in the course of the Vatican’s Jubilee 12 months.
The Queen’s ultimate go to to Italy was in April 2014 when she met President Giorgio Napolitano and the newly-installed Pope Francis who offered her with a lapis lazuli and silver orb as a present for her great-grandson, Prince George.
Queen Elizabeth reciprocated by gifting the pontiff a hamper of meals, together with a bottle of whiskey, produced on her Scottish property at Balmoral the place – eight years later – she died peacefully on Thursday afternoon.
Picture Rai Information – Carlo Riccardi
