Robert I was the last sovereign Duke of Parma and Piacenza from 1854 to 1859, when the duchy was annexed to Sardinia-Piedmont during the unification of Italy.
Background
He was a member of the House of Bourbon, descended from Philip, Duke of Parma the third son of King Philip V of Spain and Elizabeth Farnese. Born in Florence, Robert was the son of Charles III, Duke of Parma and Louise Marie Thérèse d"Artois, daughter of Charles Ferdinand, duc de Berry and granddaughter of King Charles X of France. He succeeded his father to the ducal throne in 1854 upon the latter"s assassination, when he was only six, while his mother stood as regent.
Career
When Duke Robert was eleven years old he was deposed, as Piedmontese troops annexed other Italian states, ultimately to form the Kingdom of Italy. Despite losing his throne, Robert and his family enjoyed considerable wealth, traveling in a private train of more than a dozen cars from his castles at Schwarzau am Steinfeld near Vienna, to Villa Pianore in northwest Italy, and the magnificent château de Chambord in France. Elias also became the legal guardian of his six elder siblings.
Although the eldest half-brothers, Sixte and Xavier, eventually sued their half-brother Elias for trying to obtain a greater share of the ducal fortune, they lost in the French courts, leaving the issue of Robert"s second marriage with modest prospects.
After his first wife"s death in childbirth, he remarried in 1884 to Maria Antonia of Portugal, daughter of the deposed Miguel I of Portugal and Adelaide of Löwenstein-Wertheim-Rosenberg. She bore him another 12 children:
Patrilineal descent.