The Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus has its origin from the reunion of two ancient orders that took place in 1572:

The Hospital Order of St. Lazarus, named after St. Lazarus, the Patron of Lepers, whose Knights devoted their efforts to aiding the victims of leprosy that appeared in the Holy Land from 1095, and the Order of St. Maurice, named after Saint Maurice who had previously been adopted as a patron saint of the Savoy dynasty.

The Chapter of the Order of Saint Maurice, 1453 (Andrea Mantegna - Manuscript on vellum)

Legend has it that St. Maurice, an officer of the Roman Empire’s Theban Legion in Alpine Gaul, was martyred (c. 300 AD) near what is today the Swiss town of Saint Maurice d’Agaune, south east of Lake Geneva, then Savoy territory.

Over a century after the death of Amadeus VIII, the Order of St. Maurice, under the leadership of Emmanuel Philibert (lived 1528 - 1580), fourth Duke of Savoy and great-grandson of Amadeus VIII, was revived in 1571 with a military and religious character, by Pope Pius V. The following year it was united to the Order of St. Lazarus by Pope Gregory XIII. The hereditary Grand Mastership of the newly combined Order of St. Maurice and St. Lazarus was conferred upon the Dukes of Savoy in perpetuity.

The Order of St. Lazarus had a longer though more episodic history. It had been founded as a hospitaller order, in the form of a military and religious community, at the time of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem. Its primary object was assisting lepers, many of whom were among its members. Popes, princes and nobles endowed it with estates and privileges, including that of administering and succeeding to the property of lepers. However, with the advance of the Saracens the knights of St. Lazarus left the Holy Land and Egypt and eventually migrated to France (1291) and Naples (1311), where they founded leper hospitals. (A confinement house for patients suffering from communicable diseases is still known in Italy as a "lazaretto.")

The Order of St. Lazarus in Naples, which alone was afterwards recognized by The Holy See as the legitimate descendant of the Jerusalem community, was empowered to seize and confine anyone suspected of leprosy. In the 15th and 16th centuries dissensions broke out among the knights and the order declined until following Giannotto Castiglioni, the position of Grand Master went to Duke Emmanuel Philibert of Savoy in 1571.

A year later, the orders of St. Lazarus and St. Maurice were incorporated by Pope Gregory XIII into one community, the members of which were to devote themselves to the defense of the Holy See and to fight its enemies as well as to continue assisting lepers. The galleys of the order subsequently took part in various expeditions against the Turks and the Barbary pirates.

Leprosy, which had almost disappeared in the 17th century, broke out once more in the 18th, and in 1773 a hospital was established by the Order of St. Maurice and St. Lazarus at Aosta, made famous by Xavier de Maistre’s tale, Le Lépreux de la cité d’Aoste. By the time that statutes were published in 1816, the order had lost its military character. It was reformed first by Charles Albert of Savoy, King of Piedmont, in 1831; and later by Victor Emmanuel II of Savoy, King of Italy, in 1868 and by Prince Victor Emmanuel IV of Savoy in 1996 and again in 1999.

After the unification of Italy in 1861 and the proclamation of the Italian Kingdom under the Savoy dynasty, the knighthood of St. Maurice and St. Lazarus became a state dignity conferred by the King, as hereditary Grand Master, on persons distinguished in the public service, science, arts and letters, trade, and above all in charitable works, to which its income was devoted.

The Italian throne was formally abolished by referendum in 1946 and a republic was instituted in its place.

Today the order is conferred by its 17th Grand Master, H.R.H. Prince Victor Emmanuel, Duke of Savoy, to recognize those who support philanthropic causes and have contributed to the benefit of mankind through good works, the arts and letters, sciences and humanitarian disciplines. The Holy See recognizes it as a Dynastic Order, although recipients need not be Roman Catholics. The Chancellery of the Order is based in Geneva. In 2001, the Grand Master appointed his son, H.R.H. Prince Emmanuel Philibert of Savoy, whose ancestral namesake had been the first Grand Master of the Order, to serve as Grand Chancellor.