When Vittorio Emanuele was laid to rest in the Italian city of Turin earlier this month, he was remembered as the king that never was.
The so-called prince of Naples belonged to the 1,000-year-old House of Savoia and was groomed from birth to one day take over Italy's fledgling monarchy.
But the scourge of fascism and his grandfather's failure to put a stop to dictator Benito Mussolini meant Vittorio never realised his birthright.
In the aftermath of World War II, Italy joined other European and Middle Eastern nations in casting off their hereditary rulers in favour of electing a head of state.
At just nine years old, Vittorio, along with his parents, Umberto and Maria Jose, and sisters were toppled from the throne and forced into exile.
Italians rebuilt their nation anew, as the House of Savoia packed up their bags, shipped their crown jewels to the Bank of Italy for safekeeping and briefly faded from the spotlight.
But Vittorio was not content to remain in the shadows for long.
From his new home in Switzerland, the king's son parlayed his defunct title as the prince of Naples into a career in business and was embroiled in a succession of scandals.
First there were the rumours his father was looking for another heir to his defunct throne, prompting the snubbed son to declare himself king of Italy.
Vittorio then went on to defy Umberto's wishes by marrying a non-noble, Marina Ricolfi-Doria, a Swiss water skier and heir to a biscuit fortune.
But it was his scrapes with the law — over the shooting of a German tourist in the 1970s and a separate incident involving a corruption and prostitution scandal in the 2000s — which most troubled his former subjects.
Despite open questions over his character, Vittorio was allowed to return to Italy after 56 years in exile, when a law barring the family from coming home was lifted in 2002.
His homecoming was not sweet, nor was it particularly welcomed by the Italian public.
"I can't summon any interest. They are citizens like everyone else," one minister remarked at the time.
Unlike in Britain, where the royal family is seen as a symbol of national identity, there is little support in Italy for the monarchy.
The same cannot be said for the House of Savoia, which lobbied for years to be permitted to enter Italy before calling for the return of the precious crown jewels they left behind.
The monarchs without thrones have also been locked in a decades-long family squabble with the House of Aosta — descendants of the last Italian king's second cousin — over who is the rightful ruler to Italy.
If the two branches were to eventually reconcile, they would face an even bigger hurdle: claiming a crown that no longer exists.
The troubled prince of Naples
If there were any doubts about the prince of Naples' royal lineage, one need only look at his name.
There were 12 of them.
Vittorio Emmanuele Alberto Carlo Teodoro Umberto Bonifaction Amadeo Damiano Bernadino Gennaro Maria was born on February 12, 1937, in the southern Italian city of Naples.
He was the only son among the four children born to Umberto II and his wife, Belgian Princess Marie-Jose.
The prince of Naples may have won the birth lottery but within a few short years, a devastating war and the actions of his grandfather would rob him of his destiny.
On May 9, 1946, Vittorio's grandfather, King Vittorio Emanuele III abdicated, hoping to appease furious Italians and deflect attention away from the part he played in enabling Mussolini's rise to power.
Umberto II was more popular than his predecessor, but only reigned for 34 days before he was toppled to pave the way for a republic.
The exiled House of Savoia scattered around Europe — Vittorio Emanuele III went to Egypt and the defunct king, Umberto, travelled to Portugal with his wife and children — including little Vittorio — before taking up residence in Switzerland.
Without a crown, Vittorio Emanuele had to make his own way in the world.
He pursued a career in business and forged a friendship with the Shah of Iran, though the relationship would later come under scrutiny over rumours of arms dealing.
It wasn't the only allegation of impropriety associated with the prince.
One of his most high-profile scandals involved a rifle, a rubber dinghy and a German tourist who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
On the night of August 17, 1978, Vittorio was heading back to his yacht after a dinner on the island of Cavallo, which lies just off the coast of southern Corsica, when he spotted his rowboat moored to another yacht.
Annoyed that his property had been "borrowed", the Savoia heir made his way back to his boat and grabbed a gun.
He sailed over to the other yacht under the cover of darkness to confront the passenger and at some point, fired one shot in the air, missing the man.
A second bullet hit German Dirk Hamer, who had been sleeping below deck. He died nearly four months later.
The prince accepted civil liability over the death and was charged and indicted, but he was ultimately acquitted of fatal wounding and unintentional homicide by a court in Paris 13 years later.
The scandal was reignited in 2011 by Beatrice Borromeo, a documentary filmmaker and journalist who is married to Pierre Casiraghi, the youngest son of Princess Caroline of Monaco.
Borromeo had spent years investigating Vittorio and released an alleged video of the former prince confessing to the killing.
Vittorio sued Borromeo for defamation, but she ultimately won the case against him and made the incident the centrepiece of a Netflix series titled The King Who Never Was.
Among Vittorio's other controversies was his membership of the right-wing, masonic lodge P2, which was governed by a conspiratorial ex-fascist.
The group were declared a "criminal organisation" by a parliamentary committee and disbanded in 1982.
In 2006, Vittorio had another run-in with the law, when he was arrested and thrown in jail following an investigation over allegations of prostitution and corruption.
Italian media reported that investigators believed Vittorio to be linked with criminal clans and alleged he played a role in procuring prostitutes for clients of a casino near the Swiss border.
The prince was acquitted after a trial and appeared to be unfazed by the time he spent in prison.
"It really is true what they say: in Italy, you can eat well everywhere," he told a local politician who visited him during his brief stay.
Vittorio's tarnished reputation may not have bothered him , but it incensed other members of his family.
The scramble over a defunct throne
After they went into exile, the House of Savoia continued to mix in royal circles and among the rich and famous.
As a young man, Vittorio Emanuele was photographed with Hollywood's brightest stars and accepted invitations to royal events.
But there was one family whose door was closed to the son of Italy's former king.
For decades, Vittorio Emanuele IV was embroiled in a dispute with the House of Aosta, the two sides at loggerheads over who could lay claim to the nonexistent throne of Italy.
"There is a great rivalry between the two lines of the Italian monarchy, and maybe today relations are not very good," says Andrea Ungari, a historian and professor at Rome's Luiss Guido Carli University.
Prince Amedeo, Duke of Aosta, was close to Umberto, and had once been rumoured as his potential successor after his family disapproved of Vittorio's marriage to Marina Ricolfi-Doria.
It fuelled decades of tensions between the pair, which boiled over at a dinner on the eve of the elaborate wedding of Prince Felipe and Princess Letizia of Spain in 2004.
In one account of the event, Vittorio reportedly left the dinner early and punched the duke of Aosta twice on the face on the steps of the Spanish royal residence.
The duke would have fallen to the ground had he not been caught by another deposed royal, Queen Anne-Marie of Greece.
When news of the fray reached the ears of King Juan Carlos, the monarch was horrified by the disruption to his wedding.
"Nunca más (never again)," he reportedly cried, ending the prince of Naples' chances of attending another event.
Prince Amedeo passed away in 2021 but the Aostas's dispute with the Savoia branch did not die with him.
The family declared a 2019 decree allowing the ascension of the first woman to the line of succession — Vittorio's granddaughter, Vittoria — as "totally illegitimate".
In an effort to render the young woman's claim to the non-existent throne invalid, the Aosta branch cited old by-laws and approached an unsanctioned royal council for their opinion.
"Once my grandfather left Italy the Consulta died, so they recreated a fake Consulta with the same name to make believe," Vittorio's son Emanuele Filiberto told ABC America.
The matter does not appear to be settled in the eyes of either side, leaving some ambiguity over the heir to Italy's nonexistent throne.
The House of Savoia's forgotten crown jewels also remains something of an enigma.
The treasure trove was sent to the Bank of Italy in 1946, where the collection remained hidden from the public for nearly 80 years.
When the House of Savoia went into exile, the Italian state reclaimed the family's palaces and other assets, but the crown jewels were left untouched in a bank vault.
In 2021, the descendants of Italy's former king — including Vittorio, his son and three sisters — asked for the jewellery to be returned, claiming the items belonged to the family's private collection.
The government refused the request on the grounds the jewels belonged to the state.
The matter spiralled into a lawsuit when the family launched legal proceedings against both the government and the bank that had kept them safe all this time.
It drew the ire of Italians, who felt the crown jewels belonged to Italy.
“I would have liked to hear the former royal family say the jewels belong, with no ifs and buts, to the Italian people,” said Guido Germano Pettarin, a centrist member of Italy’s parliament.
Could Italy's royals make a comeback?
The House of Savoia is not the only former royal family that was once exiled from their homeland and scattered across Europe.
The continent is littered with dethroned and exiled royals after many heads of state lost their power in two big waves, following World War I and World War II.
Along with the House of Savoia, the proverbial axe fell on the Russian, German, and Austro Hungarian empires during a turbulent period.
By the turn of the century, only eight monarchies remained in Europe and it is unlikely their numbers will swell again.
"I can't think of an example of a monarch once he or she has abdicated, of being invited to resume the throne," says Robert Hazell, professor of government and the constitution at the University College of London.
As part of the agreement struck for their return to Italy in 2002, Vittorio Emanuele and his son, Emanuele Filiberto, had to pledge their allegiance to the republic.
"[We] hereby give a formal assurance regarding our loyalty to the republican constitution and to our president of the republic," they wrote in a signed letter.
Professor Ungari says there are some right-wing political party members who support the return of the monarchy but they are very few.
"It's very sensationalised," he said.
But one family member has hinted at a possible return.
In 2021, Vittorio's son Emanuele Filiberto, an Italian television personality who unsuccessfully ran for office, said there were people "who are seeing the family with a potential comeback".
"Never say never," he told the New York Times.