On 10 August 1759, Charles succeeded his elder brother, Ferdinand VI, but treaty provisions made Charles ineligible to hold all three crowns. He was deposed twice from the throne of Two Sicilies: once by the revolutionary Parthenopean Republic for six months in 1799 and again by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1805.įerdinand was the third son of King Charles III of Spain, Naples and Sicily by his wife, Maria Amalia of Saxony. Before that he had been, since 1759, Ferdinand IV of the Kingdom of Naples and Ferdinand III of the Kingdom of Sicily.
The kingdom was heavily agricultural, like the other Italian states the church owned 50–65% of the land by 1750.įerdinand I was the King of the Two Sicilies from 1816, after his restoration following victory in the Napoleonic Wars.
Jordan Lancaster notes that the integration of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies into the Kingdom of Italy changed the status of Naples forever: "Abject poverty meant that, throughout Naples and Southern Italy, thousands decided to leave in search of a better future." Many went to the United States, Australia and Argentina. The kingdom extended over the Mezzogiorno (the southern part of mainland Italy) and the island of Sicily. The capitals of the Two Sicilies were in Naples and in Palermo. The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies lasted from 1816 until 1860, when it was annexed by the Kingdom of Sardinia, which shortly would become the Kingdom of Italy in 1861. The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies was the largest of the states of Italy before the Italian unification.It was formed as a union of the Kingdom of Sicily and the Kingdom of Naples, which collectively had long been called the "Two Sicilies" (Utraque Sicilia, literally "both Sicilies").
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