BALLO DI SAVOIA
Early December · A Private Club, New York · An Evening
2027: dates to follow
Ballo di Savoia, the Royal Savoy Ball, is the charity gala of the American Foundation of Savoy Orders, given on the first Saturday of December at a private club in Manhattan under the patronage of Prince Emanuele Filiberto of Savoy, Head of the House and Grand Master of its orders: a reception and a dinner, white tie, with orders and decorations worn, for more than three hundred guests, after a welcome reception the evening before. It welcomes the new knights and dames of the Savoy Orders, and it raises money for a chosen cause.
“In 1946, when the Kingdom of Italy came to an end, the House of Savoy was Europe’s oldest reigning dynasty.”
The House of Savoy
The House of Savoy reigned over Italy from the unification of 1861. On 2 June 1946 the country was asked whether it would keep the monarchy, and voted for a republic by 12,717,923 to 10,719,284. King Umberto II left the country of his own accord on 13 June, for Cascais.
The American Foundation of Savoy Orders, the charity linked to the dynastic orders of the House, was founded in the United States in 1993, and is supported by two hundred knights and dames in the country who belong to the American Delegation of Savoy Orders.
The ball is the Foundation’s annual charity gala. It describes the evening as “reminiscent of European Court Balls” and as “a welcome event for new knights and dames entering the Savoy Orders”. The ball of 2025 was the twenty-eighth.
The Gala
It is a weekend. A welcome reception is given on the Friday, at the Lotos Club in 2025, and the gala on the Saturday: in 2025 a reception at seven and dinner at eight, at a private club in midtown Manhattan, with more than three hundred guests expected.
The Head of the House is its patron. In 2025 the chairman of the ball was Prince Dimitri of Yugoslavia, the honourees were Robert and Francesca Agostinelli, and the beneficiary was the American-Italian Cancer Foundation.
The Foundation asked in 2025 for “White Tie or Black Tie, Long Evening Dress for Ladies, Orders and Decorations”; the 2026 listing gives “White Tie · Decorations”.
In 2026 the ball is listed for Saturday 5 December, from seven in the evening, at the University Club of New York, One West 54th Street; the Foundation has not yet confirmed the details.
What to Know
It falls on the first Saturday of December, with the reception on the Friday before: 6 December in 2025, 5 December in 2026. The 2027 date has not been announced.
Tickets are sold by the Foundation in tiers, Grand Sponsor, Sponsor and Individual, with an Associate ticket for those under forty-five; in 2025 the early rates ran to 30 September.
White tie, as the 2026 listing gives it, the highest of the codes the ball has published; orders and decorations are worn by those entitled to them, and ladies wear long evening dress.
The 2026 listing names the University Club, One West 54th Street.
The mistake is to under-dress. The Foundation asks for orders and decorations, and the 2026 listing gives white tie, not black.
The Court
Ballo di Savoia is not the Court’s own. Places at the gala, and at the reception the evening before, are sought on a member’s behalf, and the Court arranges the whole of it: getting there, where to stay in New York for a member coming from out of town, and the table afterward. The Court is at the Scandinavian Christmas Ball the night before.
How one becomes a member is set out under Admission.
Set down October MMXXVI