Carignano, a town of Piedmont, Italy, in the province of Turin, 11 m. S. by steam tramway from the town of Turin. Pop. (1901) town, 4672, commune, 7104. It has a handsome church (S. Giovanni Battista) erected in 1756-1766 by the architect Benedetto Alfieri di Sostegno (1700-1767), uncle of the poet Alfieri. S. Maria delle Grazie contains the tomb of Bianca Palaeologus, wife of Duke Charles I. of Savoy, at whose court Bayard was brought up. The town passed into the hands of the counts of Savoy in 1418.
Carignano was erected by Charles Emmanuel I. of Savoy into a principality as an appanage for his third son, Thomas Francis (1596-1656), whose descendant, Charles Albert, prince of Carignano, became king of Sardinia on the extinction of the elder line of the house of Savoy with the death of Charles Felix in 1831. The house of Carignano developed two junior branches, those of Soissons and Villafranca. The first of these, which became extinct in 1734, was founded by Eugene Maurice, second son of Thomas, by his wife Marie de Condé, countess of Soissons, who received his mother’s countship as his appanage. In 1662 the town of Yvois in the Ardennes was raised by Louis XIV. into a duchy in his favour, its name being changed at the same time to Carignan. The famous Prince Eugene was the second son of the first duke of Carignan. The branch of Villafranca started with Eugene Marie Louis (d. 1785), second son of Louis Victor of Carignano, whose grandson Eugene (1816-1888), afterwards an admiral in the Italian navy, was created prince of Savoy-Carignano, by King Charles Albert in 1834. He had contracted a morganatic marriage, and in 1888, on the occasion of his silver wedding, the title of countess of Villafranca was bestowed upon his wife, his eldest son, Filiberto, being at the same time created count of Villafranca, and his younger son, Vittorio, count of Soissons.
