Prince Luigi Amedeo, Duke of the Abruzzi, (29 January 1873 – 18 March 1933) was an Italian mountaineer and explorer, briefly Infante of Spain as son of Amadeo I of Spain, member of the royal House of Savoy and cousin of the Italian King Victor Emmanuel III.

He was born in Madrid, Spain as the third oldest son of Prince Amadeo of Savoy, Duke of Aosta and his first wife Donna Maria Vittoria dal Pozzo della Cisterna.

In September 1893, he traveled to Italian Somaliland to quell the unrest and stayed for a month to guard the port of Mogadishu, giving him his first contact with a land to which he would later devote the last years of his life and in which he would choose to die.

In the spring of 1899 he arrived in the Norwegian capital Christiania with ten companions and Stella Polare ("Pole Star") took the expedition through the frozen sea.

On 30 June Stella Polare dropped anchor in the docks of Arkhangelsk and the duke was solemnly received by Governor Engelhardt.

The same day, Prince Luigi Amedeo was invited to meet the local authorities and the present foreign diplomats.

During the whole journey we saw flags being hoisted to welcome us..." Twenty men took part in the expedition, among them Captain Umberto Cagni, Lieutenant F. Querini and Doctor A. Cavalli Molinelli.

They planned to go to Franz Joseph Land, in the Arctic wilderness, to establish a camp in which to stay during winter time and, afterwards, to reach the North Pole by dogsled across the frozen sea.

On 11 March 1900, Cagni left the camp and reached latitude 86° 34’ on 25 April, setting a new record by beating Nansen's result of 1895 by 35 to 40 kilometres (22 to 25 mi).

On 16 August Stella Polare left Rudolf Island heading south and the expedition returned to Norway.

In 1906, inspired by Henry Morton Stanley's last wishes, the Duke led an expedition to the Ruwenzori Range (5,125 m), in Uganda.

[citation needed] A vice-admiral in the Italian Royal Navy (Regia Marina), he was Inspector of Torpedo Craft from 1911 to 1912.

Abruzzi raised funds for a number of development projects in the town, including roads, dams, schools, hospitals, a church and a mosque.

The area around the "Villaggio Duca degli Abruzzi" was the most agriculturally developed of Somalia before World War II and had some important food industries.

[11] In the early years of the twentieth century, Abruzzi was in a relationship with Katherine Hallie "Kitty" Elkins, daughter of the wealthy American senator Stephen Benton Elkins, but Abruzzi's cousin King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy refused to grant him permission to marry a commoner.