Every Inch a Queen

Margherita of Savoy, mother of the present King Victor Emmanuel III, Queen Mother of Italy, and darling of the Italian people, sold the Villa Aldobrandini, her historic residence in Rome to the Crown Prince Humbert, namesake of her assassinated husband.

The building was once offered to the U. S. Government as an Embassy, but Congress declined to appropriate the moderate amount asked, for reasons of "Jeffersonian simplicity," which balked at a Royal Palace to house the envoy of a Republic. During the war Queen Margherita turned her palace into a hospital for the wounded Italian soldiers.

Queen Margherita, who is 72 years old, and widowed since 1900, is endeared to the people of Italy by the charming tradition of the grande dame which she has ably maintained. Small, delicate, fragile, she is every inch a queen, gracious and feminine to the finger tips which she has so often waved and kissed to affectionate crowds.