Kingdom of the Two Sicilies
Kingdom of the Two Sicilies | |||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1816–1861 | |||||||||||
Anthem: Francis II | |||||||||||
History | |||||||||||
• Founded | 1816 | ||||||||||
1815 | |||||||||||
1860 | |||||||||||
• Annexed by the Kingdom of Italy | 20 March 1861 | ||||||||||
Currency | Two Sicilies ducat | ||||||||||
| |||||||||||
Today part of | Italy, Croatia[a] |
The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies (
The kingdom was formed when the
The Two Sicilies were heavily agricultural, like other Italian states.[3]
Name
The name "Two Sicilies" originated from the partition of the medieval
Background
Origins of the two kingdoms
In 1130 the
During the reign of
Aragonese and Spanish direct rule
Only with the
Alfonso V called his kingdom in
After the French lost the
History
1816–1848
The Treaty of Casalanza restored Ferdinand IV of Bourbon to the throne of Naples and the island of Sicily (where the constitution of 1812 virtually had disempowered him) was returned to him. In 1816 he annulled the constitution and Sicily became fully reintegrated into the new state, which was now officially called the Regno delle Due Sicilie (Kingdom of Two Sicilies).[26] Ferdinand IV became Ferdinand I.
A number of accomplishments under the administration of Kings
The
As open political activity was suppressed, liberals organized themselves in secret societies, such as the Carbonari, an organization whose origins date back into the French period and which had been outlawed in 1816. In 1820 a revolution planned by Carbonari and their supporters, aimed at obtaining a written constitution (the Spanish constitution of 1812), did not work out as planned. Nevertheless, King Ferdinand felt compelled to grant the constitution sought by the liberals (13 July). That same month, a revolution broke out in Palermo, Sicily, but was quickly suppressed.[26] Rebels from Naples occupied Benevento and Pontecorvo, two enclaves belonging to the Papal States. At the Congress of Troppau (Nov. 19th), the Holy Alliance (Metternich being the driving force) decided to intervene. On 23 February 1821, in front of 50,000 Austrian troops paraded outside his capital, King Ferdinand cancelled the constitution. An attempt at Neapolitan resistance to the Austrians by regular forces under General Guglielmo Pepe, as well as by irregular rebel forces (Carbonari), was smashed and on 24 March 1821 Austrian forces entered the city of Naples.
Political repression then only intensified. Lawlessness in the countryside was aggravated by the problem of administrative corruption. A coup attempted in 1828 and aimed at forcing the promulgation of a constitution was suppressed by Neapolitan troops (the Austrian troops had left the previous year). King Francis I (1825–1830) died after having visited Paris, where he witnessed the 1830 revolution. In 1829 he had created the Royal Order of Merit (Royal Order of Francis I of the Two Sicilies).[28] His successor Ferdinand II declared a political amnesty and undertook steps to stimulate the economy, including reduction of taxation. Eventually the city of Naples would be equipped with street lighting and in 1839 the railroad from Naples to Portici was put into operation, measures that were visible signs of progress. However, as to the railroad, the Church still objected to the construction of tunnels, because of their 'obscenity'.
In 1836 the kingdom was struck by a cholera epidemic which killed 65,000 in Sicily alone. In the following years the Neapolitan countryside saw sporadic local insurrections. In the 1840s, clandestine political pamphlets circulated, evading censorship. Moreover, in September 1847 an uprising saw insurrectionists crossing from mainland Calabria over to Sicily before government forces were able to suppress them. On 12 January 1848, an open rebellion began in Palermo and demands were made for the reintroduction of the 1812 constitution.[29] King Ferdinand II appointed a liberal prime minister, broke off diplomatic relations with Austria and even declared war on the latter (7 April). Although revolutionaries who had risen in several mainland cities outside Naples shortly after the Sicilians approved of the new measures (April 1848), Sicily continued with her revolution. Faced with these differing reactions to his moves, King Ferdinand, using the Swiss Guard, took the initiative and ordered the suppression of the revolution in Naples (15 May) and by July the mainland was again under royal control and by September, also Messina. Palermo, the revolutionaries' capital and last stronghold, fell to the government some months later on 15 May 1849.
1848–1861
The Kingdom of Two Sicilies, over the course of 1848–1849, had been able to suppress the revolution and the attempt of Sicilian secession with their own forces, hired Swiss Guards included. The war declared on Austria in April 1848, under pressure of public sentiment, had been an event on paper only.
In 1849 King Ferdinand II was 39 years old.[30] He had begun as a reformer; the early death of his wife (1836), the frequency of political unrest, the extent and range of political expectations on the side of various groups that made up public opinion, had caused him to pursue a cautious, yet authoritarian policy aiming at the prevention of the occurrence of yet another rebellion. Over half of the delegates elected to parliament in the liberal atmosphere of 1848 were arrested or fled the country. The administration, in their treatment of political prisoners, in their observation of 'suspicious elements', violated the rights of the individual guaranteed by the constitution. Conditions were so bad that they caused international attention; in 1856 Britain and France demanded the release of the political prisoners. When this was rejected, both countries broke off diplomatic relations. The Kingdom pursued an economic policy of protectionism; the country's economy was mainly based on agriculture, the cities, especially Naples – with over 400,000 inhabitants, Italy's largest – "a center of consumption rather than of production" (Santore p. 163) and home to poverty most expressed by the masses of Lazzaroni, the poorest class.[31]
After visiting Naples in 1850, Gladstone began to support Neapolitan opponents of the Bourbon rulers: his "support" consisted of a couple of letters that he sent from Naples to the Parliament in London, describing the "awful conditions" of the Kingdom of Southern Italy and claiming that "it is the negation of God erected to a system of government". Gladstone's letters provoked sensitive reactions in the whole of Europe and helped to cause its diplomatic isolation before the invasion and annexation of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies by the Kingdom of Sardinia, with the following foundation of modern Italy. Administratively, Naples and Sicily remained separate units; in 1858 the Neapolitan Postal Service issued her first postage stamps; that of Sicily followed in 1859.[32]
Until 1849, the political movement among the bourgeoisie, at times revolutionary, had been Neapolitan respectively Sicilian rather than Italian in its tendency; Sicily in 1848–1849 had striven for a higher degree of independence from
Arts patronage
The Real Teatro di San Carlo was commissioned by the Bourbon King Charles VII of Naples who wanted to grant Naples a new and larger theatre to replace the old, dilapidated, and too-small Teatro San Bartolomeo of 1621. Which had served the city well, especially after Scarlatti had moved there in 1682 and had begun to create an important opera centre which existed well into the 1700s.[36] Thus, the San Carlo was inaugurated on 4 November 1737, the king's name day, with the performance of Domenico Sarro's opera Achille in Sciro and much admired for its architecture the San Carlo was now the biggest opera house in the world.[37]
On 13 February 1816[38] a fire broke out during a dress-rehearsal for a ballet performance and quickly spread to destroy a part of building. On the orders of King Ferdinand I, who used the services of Antonio Niccolini, to rebuild the opera house within ten months as a traditional horseshoe-shaped auditorium with 1,444 seats, and a proscenium, 33.5m wide and 30m high. The stage was 34.5m deep. Niccolini embellished in the inner of the bas-relief depicting "Time and the Hour". Stendhal attended the second night of the inauguration and wrote: "There is nothing in all Europe, I won't say comparable to this theatre, but which gives the slightest idea of what it is like..., it dazzles the eyes, it enraptures the soul...".
From 1815 to 1822,
Historical population
Year | Kingdom of Naples | Kingdom of Sicily | Total | Ref(s) |
---|---|---|---|---|
1819 | 5,733,430 | –
|
–
|
[41] |
1827 | –
|
–
|
~7,420,000 | [42] |
1828 | 6,177,598 | –
|
–
|
[41] |
1832 | –
|
1,906,033 | –
|
[41] |
1839 | 6,113,259 | –
|
~8,000,000 | [41][43] |
1840 | 6,117,598 | ~<1,800,000 (est.) | 7,917,598 | [44] |
1848 | 6,382,706 | 2,046,610 | 8,429,316 | [43] |
1851 | 6,612,892 | 2,041,583 | 8,704,472 | [45] |
1856 | 6,886,030 | 2,231,020 | 9,117,050 | [46] |
1859/60 | 6,986,906 | 2,294,373 | 9,281,279 | [47] |
The kingdom had a large population, its capital Naples being the biggest city in Italy, at least three times as large as any other contemporary
Because the kingdom did not establish a statistical department until after 1848,[52] most population statistics before that year are estimates and censuses that were thought by contemporaries to be inaccurate.[41]
Military
The Army of the Two Sicilies was the land forces of the Kingdom, it was created by the settlement of the Bourbon dynasty in Southern Italy following the events of the War of the Polish Succession. The army collapsed during the Expedition of the Thousand.
The Real Marina was the naval forces of the Kingdom. It was the most important of the pre-unification Italian navies.
Economy
A major problem in the Kingdom was the distribution of land property – most of it concentrated in the hands of a few families, the landed nobility.[53] The villages housed a large rural proletariat, desperately poor and dependent on the landlords for work.[53] The Kingdom's few cities had little industry,[54] thus not providing the outlet excess rural population found in northern Italy, France or Germany. The figures above show that the population of the countryside rose at a faster rate than that of the city of Naples herself, a rather odd phenomenon in a time when much of Europe experienced the Industrial Revolution.
Agriculture
As registered in the 1827
Industry
One of the most important industrial complexes in the kingdom was the
In Calabria, the Fonderia Ferdinandea was a large foundry where cast iron was produced. The Reali ferriere ed Officine di Mongiana was an iron foundry and weapons factory. Founded in 1770, it employed 1600 workers in 1860 and closed in 1880. In Sicily (near Catania and Agrigento), sulfur was mined to make gunpowder. The Sicilian mines were able to satisfy most of the global demand for sulfur. Silk cloth production was focused in San Leucio (near Caserta). The region of Basilicata also had several mills in Potenza and San Chirico Raparo, where cotton, wool and silk were processed. Food processing was widespread, especially near Naples (Torre Annunziata and Gragnano).
Sulfur
The kingdom maintained a large sulfur mining industry. In the increasingly industrialized Great Britain, with the repeal of tariffs on salt in 1824, demand for sulfur from Sicily surged. The growing British control and exploitation of the mining, refining, and transportation of sulfur, combined with the failure of this lucrative export to transform Sicily's backward and impoverished economy, led to the 'Sulfur Crisis' of 1840. This was precipitated when King Ferdinand II granted a monopoly of the sulfur industry to a French company, in violation of an 1816 trade agreement with Britain. A peaceful solution was eventually negotiated by France.[58][59]
Transport
With all of its major cities boasting ports,[60] transport and trade in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies was most efficiently conducted by sea. The kingdom possessed the largest merchant fleet in the Mediterranean. Urban road conditions, compared to Northern Italy, did not comply with the best European standards;[61] by 1839, the main streets of Naples were gas-lit. Efforts were made to tackle the tough mountainous terrain; Ferdinand II built the cliff-top road along the Sorrentine peninsula. Road conditions in the interior and hinterland areas of the kingdom made internal trade difficult.
Technological and scientific achievements
The kingdom achieved several scientific and technological accomplishments, such as the first steamboat in the Mediterranean Sea (1818),
Education
The kingdom was home to three universities namely those in
Social spending and public hygiene
The situation of the time in terms of social expenditure and public hygiene is mainly known today thanks to the writings of the historian and journalist Raffaele De Cesare. It is well known that public hygiene conditions in the regions of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies are very poor and especially in the central and rural regions. Most small municipalities do not have sewers and have a low water supply due to the lack of public investment in the construction of pipes, which also means that most private houses do not have toilets. Paved roads are rare, except in the area around Naples or on the main roads of the country, and they are often flooded and have many potholes.
Moreover, most rural inhabitants often live in small old towns which, due to lack of social expenditure, become unhealthy, allowing many infectious diseases to spread rapidly. While the municipal administration has few economic means to remedy the situation, the gentlemen often have whole sections of streets paved in front of the entrance of their home.
Geography
Departments
The peninsula was divided into fifteen departments[72][73] and Sicily was divided into seven departments.[74] In 1860, when the Two Sicilies were conquered by the Kingdom of Sardinia, the departments became provinces of Italy, according to the Urbano Rattazzi law. [75]
Peninsula departments
- Province of Naples – Naples
- Terra di Lavoro – Capua / Caserta from 1818
- Principato Citra – Salerno
- Principato Ultra – Avellino
- Basilicata – Potenza
- Capitanata – originally San Severo, then Foggia
- Terra di Bari – Bari
- Terra d'Otranto – Lecce
- Calabria Citra – Cosenza
- Calabria Ultra I – Reggio
- Calabria Ultra II – Catanzaro
- Contado di Molise – Campobasso
- Abruzzo Citra – Chieti
- Abruzzo Ultra I – Teramo
- Abruzzo Ultra II – Aquila
Insular departments
- Province of Caltanissetta – Caltanissetta
- Province of Catania – Catania
- Province of Girgenti – Girgenti
- Province of Messina – Messina
- Province of Noto – Noto
- Province of Palermo – Palermo
- Province of Trapani – Trapani
Monarchs
-
Ferdinand I, 1816–1825
-
Francis I, 1825–1830
-
Ferdinand II, 1830–1859
-
Francis II, 1859–1861
In 1860–61 with influence from Great Britain and William Ewart Gladstone's propaganda, the kingdom was absorbed into the Kingdom of Sardinia, and the title dropped. It is still claimed by the head of the House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies.
Flags of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies
-
1816–1848; 1849–1860 flag
-
1848–1849 flag
-
1860–1861 flag
-
Royal standard 1829–1861
Orders of knighthood
- Order of St. Januarius
- Sacred Military Constantinian Order of Saint George
- Order of Saint George and Reunion
- Order of Saint Ferdinand and Merit
- Royal Order of Francis I
See also
- Dictatorship of Garibaldi
- List of historic states of Italy
- List of monarchs of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies
- Southern Italy
- Southern Italy autonomist movements
Notes
References
- ^ Neapolitan: Regno dê Doje Sicilie; Sicilian: Regnu dî Dui Sicili; Spanish: Reino de las Dos Sicilias Swinburne, Henry (1790). Travels in the Two Sicilies (1790). British Library.
two sicilies.
- ^ De Sangro, Michele (2003). I Borboni nel Regno delle Due Sicilie (in Italian). Lecce: Edizioni Caponi.
- ^ Nicola Zitara. "La legge di Archimede: L'accumulazione selvaggia nell'Italia unificata e la nascita del colonialismo interno" (PDF) (in Italian). Eleaml-Fora!.[permanent dead link]
- ^ a b "Sicilian History". Dieli.net. 7 October 2007.
- (PDF) from the original on 27 April 2019.
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- ^ "Kingdom of the Two Sicilies | historical kingdom, Italy". Britannica.com. Retrieved 31 December 2019.
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- ^ JSTOR 24437629.
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- ^ Villari, Luigi (1911). . In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 10 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 263–264.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-61069-422-3.
- ^ "Italy – Renaissance, Papacy, Habsburgs | Britannica". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 6 February 2024.
- ^ Badger, George Percy (1838). Description of Malta and Gozo. M. Weiss. pp. 19–20.
- ^ Memoirs of the affairs of Europe from the Peace of Utrecht. Murray. 1824. p. 426.
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- ^ Williams, Henry Smith (1907). Italy. The Historians' History of the World. Vol. IX. p. 670.
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- ^ a b public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Ferdinand IV. of Naples". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 10 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 264–265. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the
- ISBN 978-0714545653. Retrieved 12 September 2023.
- ^ "The Royal Order of Francis I of the Two Sicilies". Archived from the original on 12 December 2006. Retrieved 12 September 2023.
- ^ "La Rivoluzione siciliana del 1848" (in Italian). Retrieved 12 September 2023.
- ^ Villari, Luigi (1911). . In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 10 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 268.
- ^ This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Wood, James, ed. (1907). "Lazzaroni". The Nuttall Encyclopædia. London and New York: Frederick Warne.
- ^ "Sicily 1859–1860" (PDF). p. 2. Retrieved 13 September 2023.
- ^ "Regno di Sardegna, Regno d'Italia, Repubblica Italiana" (in Italian). 19 March 2013. Retrieved 13 September 2023.
- ^ "The Theatre and its history" on the Teatro di San Carlo's official website. (In English). Retrieved 23 December 2013
- . Retrieved 11 August 2023.
- ^ Lynn 2005, p. 277
- ^ Beauvert 1985, p. 44
- ^ Gubler 2012, p. 55
- ^ a b Black 1982, p. 1
- ^ Weinstock 1971, pp. 30–34
- ^ a b c d e Macgregor, John (1850). Commercial Statistics: A Digest of the Productive Resources, Commercial Legislation, Customs Tariffs, of All Nations. Including All British Commercial Treaties with Foreign States. Whittaker and Company. p. 18.
- ^ Partington, Charles F. (1836). The british cyclopedia of literature, history, geography, law, and politics. Vol. 2. p. 553.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-521-07427-8.
- ^ Commercial Statistics: A Digest of the Productive Resources, Commercial Legislation, Customs Tariffs ... of All Nations ... C. Knight and Company. 1844. p. 18.
- ^ The Popular Encyclopedia: Or, Conversations Lexicon. Blackie. 1862. p. 246.
- ^ Russell, John (1870). Selections from Speeches of Earl Russell 1817 to 1841 and from Despatches 1859 to 1865: With Introductions. In 2 Volumes. Longmans, Green, and Company. p. 223.
- ^ Mezzogiorno d'Europa. 1983. p. 473.
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kingdom of the two sicilies population.
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- ^ House Documents. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. 1870. p. 19.
- ^ a b "Latifondo e povertà nelle Due Sicilie" (in Italian). Retrieved 13 September 2023.
- ^ "L'economia del Regno Siculo-Partenopeo" (in Italian). Retrieved 13 September 2023.
- ^ MacGregor, John (1844). Commercial Statistics Vol.I. London.
- ^ "Nell'800 il più grande nucleo industriale italiano era a Napoli, a Pietrarsa: oggi è il grande Museo Ferroviario Italiano" (in Italian). 25 November 2020. Retrieved 13 September 2023.
- ^ "Regno delle due Sicilie" (PDF) (in Italian). p. 5. Retrieved 13 September 2023.
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- ^ "L'economia italiana dal regno delle due sicilie ad oggi" (PDF) (in Italian). Luiss. p. 11. Archived (PDF) from the original on 6 February 2024. Retrieved 14 September 2023.
- ^ "L'economia italiana dal regno delle due sicilie ad oggi" (PDF) (in Italian). Luiss. p. 26. Archived (PDF) from the original on 6 February 2024. Retrieved 14 September 2023.
- ^ The Economist. Economist Newspaper Limited. 1975.
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- ^ "La Ferdinando I, Storia della prima nave a vapore nel Mediterraneo" (in Italian). 13 July 2020. Retrieved 14 September 2023.
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- JSTOR 2337950.
- Napoli: Stabilimento Migliaccio. p. 1.
- Napoli: Stabilimento Migliaccio. p. 4.
- ^ "History of Italian Unity". 15 April 2021.
Further reading
- Alio, Jacqueline. Sicilian Studies: A Guide and Syllabus for Educators (2018), 250 pp.
- Boeri, Giancarlo; Crociani, Piero (1995). L'esercito borbonico dal 1815 al 1830 (in Italian). Illustrated by Andrea Viotti. Rome: OCLC 879782467– via issuu.com.
- Eckaus, Richard S. "The North-South differential in Italian economic development." Journal of Economic History (1961) 21#3 pp: 285–317.
- Finley, M. I., Denis Mack Smith and Christopher Duggan, A History of Sicily (1987) abridged one-volume version of 3-volume set of 1969)
- Imbruglia, Girolamo, ed. Naples in the eighteenth century: The birth and death of a nation state (Cambridge University Press, 2000)
- Mendola, Louis. The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies 1734–1861 (2019)
- Petrusewicz, Marta. "Before the Southern Question: 'Native' Ideas on Backwardness and Remedies in the Kingdom of Two Sicilies, 1815–1849." in Italy's 'Southern Question' (Oxford: Berg, 1998) pp: 27–50.
- Pinto, Carmine. "The 1860 disciplined Revolution. The Collapse of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies." Contemporanea (2013) 16#1 pp: 39–68.
- Riall, Lucy. Sicily and the Unification of Italy: Liberal Policy & Local Power, 1859–1866 (1998), 252pp
- Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 10 (11th ed.). 1911. p. 936. .
- Villari, Luigi (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 10 (11th ed.). p. 268.
- Villari, Luigi (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 10 (11th ed.). p. 936.
- Zamagni, Vera. The economic history of Italy 1860–1990 (Oxford University Press, 1993)
External links
- Media related to Kingdom of the Two Sicilies at Wikimedia Commons
- (in Italian) Brigantino – Il portale del Sud, a massive Italian-language site dedicated to the history, culture and arts of southern Italy
- (in Italian) Casa Editoriale Il Giglio, an Italian publisher that focuses on history, culture and the arts in the Two Sicilies
- (in Italian) La Voce di Megaride, a website by Marina Salvadore dedicated to Napoli and Southern Italy
- (in Italian) Associazione culturale "Amici di Angelo Manna", dedicated to the work of Angelo Manna, historian, poet and deputy
- (in Italian) Fora! The e-journal of Nicola Zitara, professor; includes many articles about southern Italy's culture and history
- Regalis, a website on Italian dynastic history, with sections on the House of the Two Sicilies