Multimedia film director and artist Yi Zhou is set to mint the first-ever royal nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, based on the story of Italy's House of Savoy. The digital works are made in collaboration with the House of Savoy's (non reigning) descendent, Emanuele Filiberto di Savoia, Prince of Venice.
The House of Savoy is known for playing a pivotal role in the Unification of Italy, or the "Risorgimento", over 150 years prior. Its then king, Victor Emmanuel II, acted as a symbol of the movement. Together with the Sardinia-Piedmont premier Camillo Benso, known as the Count of Cavour, revolutionary activist Giuseppe Mazzini, and general Giuseppe Garibaldi — the "brain," "heart," and "sword" of the Risorgimento, the four men led the creation of a modern, unitary Italian state in 1871. This ended the division of the Italian Peninsula into many independent city-states and papal states since the Middle Ages.