Sunday, March 18, 2012

Royal Yacht Jela

Royal Yacht Jela, Porto Mediceo, LivornoThe Royal Yacht “Jela” moored inside the “Porto Mediceo” in Livorno. The 47-meter boat was built in 1891 in Port Glasgow, at the D.J. Dunlop shipyard, with the name of “Mira”. In 1896 the yacht was used for the honeymoon of Prince Vittorio Emanuele of Savoy and Elena of Montenegro (Jelena Petrović-Njegoš). “Jela” was the short for Jelena.
On 29 July 1900, king Umberto I was shot to death in Monza by the Italian-American anarchist Gaetano Bresci. Vittorio Emanuele was on a cruise on board the “Jela” when he received the news of the death of his father, becoming king himself. The yacht was sunk in the port of Bari during the Second World War by RAF aircraft.
(Postcard dated around 1901, digitized from the collection of Antonio Cantelli)

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14 comments:

Stefan Jansson said...

Interesting story.

Michelle said...

A great old postcard and such an interesting story.

Anonymous said...

may peaceful water govern your city.

please have a good sunday ahead.

Luis Gomez said...

Great postcard, wonderful story VP.

Randy said...

I love old postcards and this one is wonderful.

Jack said...

The old photo postcard helps to tell your story, VP.

PerthDailyPhoto said...

Well this ship certainly had an interesting life before it was sunk VP. It looked like a very elegant vessel.

Cezar and Léia said...

These postcards that you show us here are precious!
God bless you!
Cezar

Dina said...

A shame they had to sink a nice yacht.

Karl said...

Great old postcard, precious also because it is personalized by the greetings from the brother!

cieldequimper said...

A celebrity yacht....

joo said...

I love the postcard and the story.

Lois Evensen said...

Another wonderful post card! I love your series of old images with their stories. :)

Sunday greetings,
Lois

Traveling Hawk said...

Old postcards are always interesting. About the Njegos family I learned a lot last year, when I visited Montenegro but I didn't know this.