ROME -- After more than half a century in exile, the male heirs to Italy's discredited throne finally got the go-ahead yesterday to return home.

The green light came from the country's highest court, which announced that a petition by antiroyalists to prolong the banishment had failed miserably, closing a troubled chapter in Italian history that dated back to the Second World War.

Prince Vittorio Emanuele, 64, and his son, Emanuele Filiberto, 30, celebrated the news of a possible return from their opulent lakeside residence in Geneva.

But after having waited so long, the pair are not in a rush to make their grand entrance, with the Prince still nursing a back injury he suffered during a recent car rally in Egypt.

"I think my father needs one good month of rest, so hopefully we'll be back in a month," Emanuele Filiberto said.

Italians voted to abolish the monarchy in 1946, punishing the family for first collaborating with fascist dictator Benito Mussolini and then ignominiously fleeing Rome in 1944 to avoid an invading German army.

More than 50 years after the ballot, and under pressure from the European Court of Human Rights, Italy's parliament voted last July to rewrite the constitution and allow the heirs back home as ordinary Italian citizens.

Outraged by the decision, a group of die-hard republicans tried to organize a referendum to halt the return.

They needed to raise an initial 500,000 signatures but when the deadline passed at midnight on Oct. 14, they had fewer than 30,000.