Princess Maria Pia of Bourbon-Parma

In 2003, Maria Pia was married to Prince Michel of Bourbon-Parma (1926–2018), son of Prince René of Bourbon-Parma and Princess Margaret of Denmark, whose marriage with Princess Yolande de Broglie-Revel had been annulled and with whom he has five dynastic children, also being the father of a child born out of wedlock in 1977, Amélie de Bourbon de Parme (wed in 2009 to Igor Bogdanoff). Through him she was a sister-in-law of Queen Anne of Romania. Maria Pia's ex-husband, Prince Alexander was also remarried, to Princess Barbara of Liechtenstein, a cousin of that principality's monarch, and they had one son, Prince Dušan Paul.

On the royal cruise of the yacht, Agamemnon, hosted by Queen Frederica of Greece on 22 August 1954, she met and later married Prince Alexander of Yugoslavia (1924–2016), son of Prince Paul of Yugoslavia and Princess Olga of Greece and Denmark. The two were married on 12 February 1955 at Cascais in Portugal, where Maria Pia's father was living in exile.

Maria Pia Elena Elisabetta Margherita Milena Mafalda Ludovica Tecla Gennara di Savoia was the first-born child of the Prince and Princess of Piedmont, born in Naples, Italy in 1934. Her parents, married since 1930, were unhappy together, as her mother confessed in an interview many years later (On n'a jamais été heureux, "We were never happy"), and separated after the Italian monarchy was abolished by plebiscite on 2 June 1946. Exiled, the family gathered briefly in Portugal, and she and her three younger siblings soon went with their mother to Switzerland while their father remained in the Portuguese Riviera.

Princess Maria Pia of Bourbon-Parma (born Princess Maria Pia of Savoy; 24 September 1934) is the eldest daughter of Umberto II of Italy and Marie-José of Belgium. She is the older sister of Princess Maria Gabriella of Savoy, Vittorio Emanuele, Prince of Naples, and Princess Maria Beatrice of Savoy.