page_title: Umberto I of Italy
section_title: Assassination
hierarchical_section_title: Umberto I of Italy / Assassination
context_page_description: Umberto I, nicknamed the Good, was the King of Italy from 9 January 1878 until his assassination on 29 July 1900.
  Umberto's reign saw Italy attempt colonial expansion into the Horn of Africa, successfully gaining Eritrea and Somalia despite being defeated by Abyssinia at the Battle of Adwa in 1896. In 1882, he approved the Triple Alliance with the German Empire and Austria-Hungary.
  He was deeply loathed in leftist circles because of his conservatism and support of the Bava Beccaris massacre in Milan. He was especially hated by anarchists, who attempted to assassinate him during the first year of his reign. He was killed by another anarchist, Gaetano Bresci, two years after the Bava-Beccaris massacre.
context_section_description: On the evening of 29 July 1900, Umberto was assassinated in Monza. The king was shot four times by the Italian-American anarchist Gaetano Bresci. Bresci claimed he wanted to avenge the people killed in Milan during the suppression of the riots of May 1898. Commenting about the 1969 book Killing No Murder by Edward Hyams, the Canadian critic George Fetherling in The Book of Assassins wrote that the description by Hyams of Umberto I "is so harsh that one is left to marvel that only three people tried to kill him".
  Umberto was buried in the Pantheon in Rome, by the side of his father Victor Emmanuel II, on 9 August 1900. He was the last Savoy to be buried there, as his son and successor Victor Emmanuel III died in exile and was buried in Egypt until his remains were transferred to Vicoforte near Cuneo in 2017.
  American anarchist Leon F. Czolgosz claimed that the assassination of Umberto I was his inspiration to kill U. S. President William McKinley in September 1901.
caption: Gaetano Bresci, the killer of Umberto I
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