Royals return to Italy after 56 years of exile

The descendants of the last king of Italy paid a first, lightning return yesterday to the land from which they have been exiled for 56 years. Vittorio Emanuele, 65, and his son, Emanuele Filiberto, 30, flew to Rome in a private aircraft, travelled by car to the Vatican for a 20-minute audience with the Pope, then flew straight home again.

This was not the return as Emanuel Filiberto had publicly imagined it – eating pizza in view of Naples harbour, paying respects to the spirits of the family's ancestors in the Pantheon in Rome – but as they flew back to Switzerland, Vittorio Emanuele promised: "We will be back again within a month."

Vittorio Emanuele di Savoia was nine in 1946 when he sailed out of Naples harbour with his father, King Umberto. In 1948, the family's banishment was enshrined in the constitution of the new Italian republic. Symbol of Italian unification in the 19th century, the Savoys fell fatally from popular favour in 1943 when they fled from Rome after the rout of Mussolini and sought protection from the advancing Allied forces.

They set up home by the lake-shore in Geneva and for years have been lobbying the Italian government to lift their exile, which Vittorio Emanuele described as "cruel and unusual punishment out of place in modern Europe". After repeated snubs, in March 2000 he took his case to the European Court of Justice, citing the Amsterdam Treaty, which states: "No one can be exiled from a country following individual or collective measures by the state of which he is a citizen."

The European Court leant on the Italian government to lift the restrictions and in October, after Parliament passed a bill allowing the Savoys to return (anti-monarchists failing to get enough signatures to mandate a referendum on the issue), President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi signed the bill into law.

But beyond the tiny, eccentric circle of avowed royalists there is little enthusiasm for their return. One reason is lingering bad feeling over their behaviour in the war. In 1997, Mr Ciampi spoke out against a bill ending their exile, saying that his distaste for the royal family derived from "a painful and dramatic event" in his own life. After the flight of the royals, he said, "I found myself with so many others, abandoned and bewildered ... These are feelings that stay with you for your whole life." The other, less palpable misgiving about the return of the Savoys is that, in Italy's chronically weak and fragmented polity, which has experienced many short-lived governments, the Savoys could, if they returned to Italy to settle, set up another pole of power and influence. This might further deplete the elected government's ability to act forcefully in the nation's interest.

But yesterday's flying visit by the two men and Marina Doria, wife of Vittorio Eman-uele and mother of Emanuel Filiberto, was essentially a trip to Vatican City. The Savoys did not even pay a courtesy call on the President or Silvio Berlusconi, the Prime Minister.

In October, Rome newspapers said the family were insisting on treatment appropriate to their former status when they arrived back on Italian soil, a state plane and a chauffeured limousine with motorcycle outriders. The family denied they had made any such demand, but yesterday's minimalistic visit left observers speculating that, behind the scenes, haggling is continuing over whether they should be received with the pomp and circumstance they might believe they deserve, or as plain citizens of the Republic.