Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies

Early life and regency (1751–1767)

Ferdinand was born on 12 January 1751 at the Royal Palace of Naples, the third son of King Charles VII of Naples and V of Sicily and Queen Maria Amalia of Saxony.^[1][2] He was the first monarch of his dynasty to be born in the kingdom.^[3][4][5] In August 1759, his uncle King Ferdinand VI of Spain died without children, and Charles succeeded to the Spanish throne as Charles III. Treaties governing European dynastic successions forbade the union of the Spanish and Italian crowns. On 6 October 1759, Charles abdicated the crowns of Naples and Sicily in favour of Ferdinand, because his eldest son Philip was excluded from succession due to an intellectual disability, while his second son Charles became heir to the Spanish throne.^[6][7]

Because Ferdinand was eight years old, Charles established a Council of Regency to govern the state and oversee his upbringing.^[7][8] The council was headed by Bernardo Tanucci and Prince Domenico Cattaneo della Volta of San Nicandro, who frequently clashed.^[8] San Nicandro was appointed royal tutor, and he prioritised physical exercise such as hunting, fishing, and horseback riding to overcome the child's initially frail constitution.^[1][9] Tanucci and San Nicandro neglected Ferdinand's academic and political education, keeping him ignorant of state administration.^[6][10][11] The young monarch grew up at the royal palaces of Portici, Caserta, and Capodimonte in an atmosphere of court intrigue, while Tanucci enforced strict financial austerity that reduced the state deficit.

In 1765, Tanucci arranged for the fourteen-year-old king to attend select sessions of the Council of Regency, followed in 1766 by attendance at councils dealing with economic and ecclesiastical affairs. On 12 January 1767, upon reaching his sixteenth birthday, Ferdinand attained his legal majority. Full royal authority was transferred to him, the Council of Regency was replaced by a consultative Council of State, and Tanucci was formally named prime minister in November 1767.^[9][12][13]

Personal rule and first marriage (1767–1778)

Ferdinand's first major act as an adult monarch was the expulsion of the Jesuits from the realm on 31 October 1767.^[10] This measure was coordinated by Tanucci and the ecclesiastical secretary Carlo De Marco within the regalist program of the Bourbon courts. It met with protests from Pope Clement XIII, and in 1768 Neapolitan troops occupied the papal enclaves of Benevento and Pontecorvo, opening a prolonged conflict between Naples and the Holy See.

Charles III pursued a diplomatic alliance with the Habsburgs of Austria. Ferdinand had been betrothed successively to Archduchess Maria Johanna, who died of smallpox in 1762, and to Archduchess Maria Josepha, who died of the same disease in October 1767.^[14][15][16] Maria Josepha was replaced by her younger sister, the sixteen-year-old Archduchess Maria Carolina.^[14][17] The marriage was celebrated by proxy in Vienna on 7 April 1768, and the couple entered Naples on 22 May 1768.^[18] Under the marriage contract, the queen was entitled to a seat in the Council of State upon the birth of her first male heir.^[10]

Maria Carolina gave birth to Maria Teresa in 1772 and Luisa in 1773.^[19] A male heir, Carlo Tito, followed in 1775. Gaining admission to the Council of State, Maria Carolina opposed Tanucci's pro-Spanish policy and his enforcement of laws against Freemasonry, an organisation with which she and various Neapolitan intellectuals sympathised. On 27 October 1776, Ferdinand dismissed Tanucci from his principal posts, appointing Giuseppe Beccadelli di Bologna, Marquess della Sambuca, as his successor in December.

Reforms and foreign realignment (1778–1789)

The ten-year ministry of Sambuca and the subsequent administration of Domenico Caracciolo formed the principal reformist period of Ferdinand's reign, influenced by Neapolitan thinkers from the circle of Antonio Genovesi.^[9][12][13] In 1777, outdated academic chairs at the University of Naples were replaced with modern disciplines.^[9][12][13] Urban projects in the capital included the construction of the Teatro del Fondo, the remodelling of the Villa di Chiaia, and the erection of the Granili granary to designs by Ferdinando Fuga.^[9][12][13] The Supreme Council of Finances was instituted in 1782, followed in 1783 by a new commercial and maritime tribunal.^[9][12][13] Earlier, in 1772, a royal porcelain manufactory had been established at the Royal Palace of Naples.

In foreign policy, Maria Carolina favoured closer ties with Austria and Great Britain. In August 1778, John Acton was summoned from Tuscany to reorganise the armed forces.^[10] Appointed head of the navy and war departments between 1779 and 1780, Acton founded the Nunziatella military academy in 1787 and expanded the fleet and the shipyards at Castellammare di Stabia.^{[9][12][13][20]} When Charles III urged his son in 1784 to dismiss Acton, Ferdinand refused. Sambuca was dismissed in early 1786 following court intrigues, and Ferdinand replaced him with the viceroy of Sicily, Domenico Caracciolo.

Caracciolo pursued a policy of neutrality in the 1787 war between the Ottoman Empire and the Austro-Russian alliance, while concluding navigation treaties with Piedmont, Genoa, and Russia.^[9][12][13] He reduced internal tolls, liberalised the olive oil trade, and promoted normal schools and an institute for the deaf.^[9][12][13] In 1789, Ferdinand established an industrial colony for silk manufacture at San Leucio near Caserta, operating under egalitarian social regulations.^[9][12][13] Negotiations with the Holy See, in which Ferdinand insisted on the royal appointment of bishops, broke off in 1789, and at the same time he abolished the traditional homage of the chinea. Following Caracciolo's death in July 1789, Acton and De Marco assumed the leading roles in the ministry.^[9][12][13]

Impact of the French Revolution (1789–1798)

The outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789 led Ferdinand to end his openness to Enlightenment ideas. Between 1789 and 1790, he moved against Freemasonry and expelled part of the French residents of Naples, whom he held guilty of stirring up the population with revolutionary ideas. Ties with Vienna were strengthened in August 1790 by two marriages. Princess Maria Teresa married Francis of Austria, the future emperor, and Princess Luisa married Ferdinand III of Tuscany.^[19] Returning from Vienna in April 1791, Ferdinand and Maria Carolina stopped in the Papal States to visit Pope Pius VI, and the king reached a partial agreement allowing him, as an exception, to fill vacant bishoprics; as a consequence, De Marco was removed from the ecclesiastical ministry in a reshuffle in August 1791.

In December 1792, a French naval squadron arrived in the Bay of Naples to compel the kingdom to recognise the French Republic and accept its ambassador. Acton and Ferdinand yielded, promised neutrality, and dispatched Fabrizio Ruffo of Castelcicala to Paris. After the execution of King Louis XVI in January 1793 and Queen Marie Antoinette in October 1793, Ferdinand and Maria Carolina abandoned neutrality and joined the First Coalition against France.^[21][22] Naples concluded a secret alliance with Britain, imposed an embargo on French shipping, and sent troops to the Siege of Toulon, where they suffered heavy casualties before withdrawing in February 1794.^[21][22]

The government then ordered a levy of 16,000 men, set contributions to meet war costs, began arranging the sale of church silver not needed for worship, and imposed extraordinary taxes, measures that weakened an economy already strained by the famine of 1793. Domestic police surveillance intensified under Luigi de' Medici and a newly created Giunta di Stato. In 1794, authorities suppressed the Società Patriotica Napoletana, a clandestine network founded by Carlo Lauberg.^[9][12][13] The resulting trials concluded with three executions and fifty deportations.^[9][12][13] In February 1795, Medici was arrested on charges of complicity with Jacobins.^[9][12][13] During Napoleon Bonaparte's campaign in northern Italy, the Neapolitan forces were compelled to accept the Armistice of Brescia on 5 June 1796. Peace was made with France in 1796.^[10][23]

War of the Second Coalition and the Parthenopean Republic (1798–1799)

Following Horatio Nelson's victory at the Battle of the Nile and the French occupation of Rome, Ferdinand took advantage of Napoleon's absence in Egypt to enter the War of the Second Coalition.^[10][23] Command of a 70,000-man Neapolitan army was given to Austrian General Karl Mack von Leiberich. Ferdinand entered Rome on 29 November 1798.^[10][24] A French counter-offensive under General Jean-Étienne Championnet routed Neapolitan forces at Civita Castellana, forcing Ferdinand to retreat to Naples.^[10][25]

With French forces approaching, Ferdinand and his court boarded Nelson's flagship HMS Vanguard on 21–23 December 1798, carrying state banking funds, and sailed for Palermo.^[10][23][26] During a storm on the voyage, his six-year-old son Prince Alberto died.^[27][28] Naples fell into chaos. Francesco Pignatelli, appointed vicar general, signed the Armistice of Sparanise with Championnet on 11 January 1799 and ordered the Neapolitan fleet burned.^[26] French forces entered Naples despite resistance by the local lazzaroni, and local republicans proclaimed the Parthenopean Republic in January 1799.^[10][29]

From Palermo, Ferdinand commissioned Cardinal Fabrizio Ruffo to organise a royalist uprising in Calabria. Supported by British artillery, the Catholic clergy, and pro-Bourbon landowners, Ruffo's irregular Army of the Holy Faith advanced through the mainland and reached Naples in 1799.^[10][29] Although Ruffo negotiated a capitulation granting republican leaders safe departure to France, Nelson and Ferdinand repudiated the agreement.^[10] Arriving in the Bay of Naples on 8 July 1799, the king ratified the arrests of the republicans. Trials under Sicilian criminal procedures resulted in roughly 200 executions, including Eleonora Fonseca Pimentel, Domenico Cirillo, Francesco Mario Pagano, and court theologian Francesco Conforti, along with thousands of imprisonments and exiles.^{[9][12][13][29]}

War of the Third Coalition and flight to Sicily (1799–1806)

Upon his return to Naples, Ferdinand abolished the elected municipal administration, replacing it with an appointed Senate of eight members. Giuseppe Zurlo was assigned to finances and Acton retained foreign affairs. The republican abolition of feudalism was rescinded, and the clergy was restored to royal favour. Neapolitan troops occupied Rome in September 1799, but in January 1801 a Neapolitan army was defeated in Tuscany by French forces, and Joachim Murat advanced toward the border. Maria Carolina, then in Vienna, concluded the Armistice of Foligno and the subsequent Peace of Florence, which closed Neapolitan ports to British ships, allowed French occupation of some forts on the Adriatic, and ceded the Tuscan Presidi. Ferdinand returned to Naples in June 1802 following the Peace of Amiens.

Ties with Spain were reinforced by a double marriage. In 1802, Prince Francis married Maria Isabella of Spain, daughter of Charles IV, and Princess Maria Antonia married Ferdinand, Prince of Asturias.^[19] In March 1803, Luigi de' Medici succeeded Zurlo as minister of finance, and in 1804 Acton was dismissed. In July 1804 the Society of Jesus was recalled to the kingdom, and responsibility for public education was delegated to the clergy.

When the Anglo-French war resumed in 1803, French forces reoccupied Apulia. In September 1805, Maria Carolina disavowed the promises of neutrality made in Paris by Marzio Mastrilli, through which he had obtained the evacuation of French troops from the kingdom. Simultaneously, Ferdinand joined the Third Coalition and allowed an Anglo-Russian expeditionary force to land at Naples.^[10] Following the French victory at Austerlitz on 2 December 1805, Napoleon ordered an invasion of southern Italy. Ferdinand fled to Palermo on 23 January 1806, leaving Francis as vicar.^{[9][10][12][13]} French forces entered Naples on 14 February. Napoleon declared the Bourbon dynasty deposed, creating his brother Joseph Bonaparte King of Naples, who was succeeded in 1808 by Joachim Murat.^[10][30][31]

Sicilian exile and the Constitution of 1812 (1806–1815)

Ferdinand governed Sicily under British military protection, living at the Royal Palace of Palermo and his hunting estate at Ficuzza.^{[9][10][12][13][32]} An Anglo-Sicilian naval expedition to the Gulf of Naples failed at the Battle of the Procida Channel in 1809. In January 1810, the Sicilian Parliament resisted new taxes proposed by the crown. Ferdinand ordered the arrest and deportation of five prominent nobles: the princes of Belmonte, Castelnuovo, Villafranca, and Aci, and the Duke of Angiò.^[33][34]

Lord William Bentinck arrived in July 1811 as British envoy and commander.^[33][34][35] Threatening to suspend British subsidies, Bentinck compelled Ferdinand to recall the exiled barons, appoint Prince Francis as vicar general on 16 January 1812, and grant the Sicilian Constitution of 1812, which transformed the feudal parliament along British parliamentary lines.^{[33][34][36][37][38]} Maria Carolina, discovered to be conducting secret correspondence with Murat, was forced by Bentinck into exile in Austria in June 1813. She died at Schloss Hetzendorf on 8 September 1814.^[9][12][13]

Bentinck permitted Ferdinand to resume royal authority in July 1814. On 27 November 1814 in Palermo, Ferdinand contracted a morganatic marriage with Lucia Migliaccio, widowed Princess of Partanna, whom he created Duchess of Floridia; the marriage produced no children.^[18][39][40]

Restoration and creation of the Two Sicilies (1815–1820)

After Napoleon's escape from Elba, Murat's military campaign of March 1815 failed.^[41][42] Following the Treaty of Casalanza on 20 May, Ferdinand returned to Naples on 17 June 1815.^[41] In October 1815, Murat landed in Calabria in an attempt to recover the throne, but was arrested, condemned by a military tribunal, and executed by firing squad at Pizzo on 13 October 1815.^[41]

Ferdinand formed a government under Tommaso di Somma, Marquess of Circello, with Luigi de' Medici in charge of finances and police, and Donato Tommasi directing justice.^[9][12][13] Medici implemented an amalgamation policy (politica dell'amalgama) that retained Napoleonic administrative structures and integrated former officials of Murat's government into the administration and army.^{[9][12][13][43][44]} Murat's civil code was retained with minor changes, such as the repeal of divorce.^{[9][12][13][43][44]} At the Congress of Vienna, Great Britain withdrew its protectorate over Sicily. In December 1816, Ferdinand issued a decree at Caserta formally merging the separate kingdoms of Naples and Sicily into the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, adopting the title of Ferdinand I.^{[10][13][45][46]} The 1812 Sicilian Constitution was revoked, and Sicily was reduced to a provincial administration.^[10][45][46]

Ferdinand was subservient to Austria, and an Austrian, Count Nugent, was made commander-in-chief of the army.^[10] An attempt to implement a reactionary police policy under Antonio Capece Minutolo, Prince of Canosa, ended with Canosa's dismissal in May 1816 after his ties to the ultra-royalist Calderari sect were uncovered.^[9][12][13] In 1818, Ferdinand concluded a concordat with Pope Pius VII that declared Catholicism the official religion of the state and restored ecclesiastical censorship, while preserving royal rights to nominate bishops.^[9][12][13]

Revolution of 1820 and Austrian intervention (1820–1821)

Economic stagnation, agrarian crises, and competition from British production weakened the economy, and discontent was strongest among army officers. The secret society of the Carbonari spread and in time affected a large part of the army.^[10][47][48] News of the Spanish Revolution of 1820 precipitated a mutiny at Nola on the night of 1–2 July 1820, led by cavalry lieutenants Michele Morelli and Giuseppe Silvati, joined by the abbot Luigi Minichini.^{[49][50][51][52][53][54]} They marched on Avellino, where a constitution based on the Spanish Constitution of 1812 was proclaimed. General Guglielmo Pepe assumed command of the revolt.^{[49][50][51][52][53][54]} The king was compelled to grant a constitution on 7 July 1820, and Prince Francis was named vicar general of the kingdom.^{[49][50][51][52][53][54]} On 13 July, the king swore to the constitution and promised to apply it throughout the kingdom.^{[49][50][51][52][53][54]}

In Sicily, an insurrection occurred with divergent aims. In the east, Messina and Catania endorsed the constitutional regime in Naples. In the west, Palermo and Agrigento sought a separate Sicilian kingdom and established a provisional government on 16 July 1820.^{[49][52][55][56][57][58]} The Neapolitan government dispatched General Florestano Pepe, who concluded the convention of Termini Imerese in September granting an elected assembly. The parliament in Naples rejected the agreement and replaced Pepe with General Pietro Colletta, who suppressed the separatist movement by military force in October.^{[49][52][55][56][57][58]}

The Holy Alliance powers signed the Troppau Protocol in October 1820, asserting the right to intervene against revolutionary governments.^[10][59][60] Ferdinand received permission from the Neapolitan parliament to attend the Congress of Laibach in January 1821 after promising to defend the constitution. Upon arriving outside the kingdom, he repudiated his oaths and requested Austrian military intervention to restore his absolute authority.^[10][59] An Austrian army of 52,000 men under General Johann Maria Philipp Frimont crossed the Po River.^[59][60] On 6 March 1821, Ferdinand issued a royal edict ordering the dismissal of the constitutional army. On 7 March, Frimont defeated Pepe's forces at the Battle of Rieti.^[10][49][52] Austrian troops entered Naples on 23 March and occupied Palermo on 31 May 1821.^[49][52]

Final years and death (1821–1825)

Following the entry of Austrian troops, Ferdinand dissolved parliament, revoked the constitution, and reinstated Canosa as police minister, initiating trials against constitutionalists and Carbonari.^{[9][12][13][52][61][62]} In 1822, Morelli and Silvati were executed by hanging in Naples, while Pepe fled abroad under a death sentence.^{[49][52][61][62]} An Austrian occupation force remained in the kingdom at Neapolitan expense until 1827.^[49][52] The Consulta di Stato advisory bodies designed at Laibach were delayed by Ferdinand and did not begin operating until 1824, under the restored ministry of Luigi de' Medici and Donato Tommasi.^[9][12][13]

Between October 1822 and August 1823, Ferdinand was absent from the kingdom, attending the Congress of Verona and travelling in Austria. In 1823 and 1824, his administration enacted protective customs tariffs to stimulate manufacturing and maritime trade. Ferdinand died of an apoplectic stroke in Naples on 4 January 1825 at the age of 73, having reigned for over sixty-five years.^[9][12][13] He was buried in the Basilica of Santa Chiara in Naples and was succeeded by his son Francis I.^[9][12][13]

Governance, culture, and public works

Ferdinand was known by popular epithets, including 'the king with the nose' (Il re nasone) due to his facial features, and 'the street-urchin king' (Il re lazzarone) due to his preference for the Neapolitan dialect and the company of the common people.^{[3][4][5][63]} Contemporary observers noted his habit of selling fish in city markets and eating pasta with his fingers.^[11][63] He commissioned sculptor Antonio Canova to carve a colossal statue portraying him in the guise of Athena.

In education and science, Ferdinand established free primary schools in each municipality in 1768, founded the Palermo Astronomical Observatory where Giuseppe Piazzi discovered the dwarf planet Ceres, and created the Museum of Mineralogy in Naples in 1801.^[64][65] He founded the Royal Academy of Sciences and Fine Arts in 1778, established the Royal Bourbon Museum to house the Farnese art collection and archaeological finds from Pompeii and Herculaneum, and ordered judges to publish the legal grounds for their sentences.

Ferdinand's public works program included the construction of the Palazzo dei Granili, the laying out of the Villa Reale (Villa Comunale), the building of the Teatro del Fondo and Teatro San Ferdinando, and the completion of the Royal Palace of Caserta.^[9][12][13] He also developed the botanical gardens of Palermo, founded the naval shipyard of Castellammare di Stabia, constructed over one thousand miles of roads connecting Naples to the provinces, and drained marshes in the Bay of Naples. In 1818, the first steamship in Italy crossed the Mediterranean from Naples. To mark his restoration, he initiated the construction of the basilica of San Francesco di Paola in Naples.^[66]

Marriages and issue

Ferdinand and Maria Carolina had eighteen children: Maria Teresa (1772–1807), wife of Holy Roman Emperor Francis II; Luisa Maria (1773–1802), wife of Grand Duke Ferdinand III of Tuscany; Carlo Tito (1775–1778), who died of smallpox; Maria Anna (1775–1780), who died of smallpox; Francis I of the Two Sicilies (1777–1830); Maria Cristina (1779–1849), wife of King Charles Felix of Sardinia; Maria Cristina Amelia (1779–1783), who died of smallpox; Gennaro Carlo (1780–1789), who died of smallpox; Giuseppe Carlo (1781–1783), who died of smallpox; Maria Amalia (1782–1866), wife of King Louis Philippe I of France; a stillborn daughter (1783); Maria Antonia (1784–1806), wife of King Ferdinand VII of Spain; Maria Clotilde (1786–1792), who died of smallpox; Maria Enrichetta (1787–1792), who died of smallpox; Carlo Gennaro (1788–1789), who died of smallpox; Leopold, Prince of Salerno (1790–1851), who married Archduchess Maria Clementina of Austria; Alberto (1792–1798); and Maria Isabella (1793–1801).^{[12][19][67][68]}

Following Maria Carolina's death in 1814, Ferdinand married Lucia Migliaccio, Duchess of Floridia, on 27 November 1814 in Palermo. The marriage was morganatic and produced no issue.^[18][39][40]

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