The biography of Maria José, the last queen of Italy, whose live memories the author has collected, enriched by unpublished documents and testimonies. Her marriage to Prince Umberto did not turn out to be as happy as she had dreamed, yet her understanding with her husband in the dramas they shared was profound. For the first time, this volume reconstructs the blackmail that Mussolini warped over Umberto’s alleged homosexuality. And Maria José’s fierce opposition to the Duce: in her diaries, confirmed by multiple contemporary sources, secret meetings with Croce, Montini – the future Paul VI -, Olivetti and other figures resurface; and the plan devised with her husband in 1938 to bring down the dictatorship. An authentic coup attempt, hitherto little known, also explored in depth in contributions by historians Francesco Perfetti and Donatella Bolech Cecchi. The war was experienced with particular sorrow by the Queen, already due to the invasion of her native Belgium since 1940. But, unbowed, she faced the Duce, Hitler, head-on and sought solace in many other figures, from D’Annunzio to Padre Pio, Evita Peron to Francisco Franco, Benedetti Michelangeli to Balthus. In 1944 he fell back to Switzerland to place his children in safety, but he wished he had joined the partisans. On her return to Italy she tried to bring aid, with the Red Cross, to devastated families, while she knocked the Church and the DC to support the Monarchy in the referendum. Even in exile Maria José responded by devoting herself to music, historical research, and travel. Shortly before her death she confided to the author that she “dreamed of being able to go to the moon.” Untamed Queen. The most charismatic figure of the House of Savoy in the extreme stretch of the Monarchy.