by Susan Flantzer
© Unofficial Royalty 2021

The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies was located in today’s southern Italy. It included the island of Sicily and all of the Italian peninsula south of the Papal States. Ferdinando I, the first King of the Two Sicilies, had previously reigned over two kingdoms, as Ferdinando IV of the Kingdom of Naples and Ferdinando III of the Kingdom of Sicily. He had been deposed twice from the throne of Naples: once by the revolutionary Parthenopean Republic for six months in 1799 and again by Napoleon in 1805, before being restored in 1816 after the defeat of Napoleon. After the 1816 restoration, the two kingdoms were united into the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.

Vittorio Emanuele II, King of Sardinia became a driving force behind the Italian unification movement along with Giuseppe Garibaldi, a general and nationalist, and Giuseppe Mazzini, a politician and journalist. Garibaldi conquered Naples and Sicily, the territories of the Kingdom of Two Sicilies. Francesco II, King of the Two Sicilies was deposed, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies ceased to exist, and its territory was incorporated into the Kingdom of Sardinia. Eventually, the Sardinian troops occupied the central territories of the Italian peninsula, except Rome and part of Papal States. With all the newly acquired land, Vittorio Emanuele II was proclaimed the first King of the new, united Kingdom of Italy in 1861.

********************

Born on January 12, 1810, in Palermo, Sicily in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, now in Italy, Ferdinando Carlo Maria was the eldest of the six sons and the third of the twelve children of Francesco I, King of the Two Sicilies and his second wife Maria Isabella of Spain. His paternal grandparents were Ferdinando I, King of the Two Sicilies and his first wife Maria Carolina of Austria, Queen of Naples and Sicily, who died before her husband became King of the Two Sicilies. His maternal grandparents were Carlos IV, King of Spain and Maria Luisa of Parma. Ferdinando I and Carols IV were brothers, both sons of Carlos III, King of Spain and Maria Amalia of Saxony.

Ferdinando II had eleven siblings. Unusual for the time, they all survived childhood.

• Luisa Carlotta of Bourbon-Two Sicilies (1804 – 1844), married her maternal uncle Francisco de Paula of Spain, had eleven children
• Maria Cristina of Bourbon-Two Sicilies (1806 – 1878), married (1) her maternal uncle Ferdinand VII, King of Spain, had two daughters including Queen Isabella II of Spain (2) Agustín Fernando Muñoz y Sánchez, 1st Duke of Riánsares, had eight children
• Carlo Ferdinando of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, Prince of Capua (1811 – 1862), married morganatically Penelope Smyth, had two children
• Leopoldo Beniamino of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, Count of Syracuse (1813 – 1860), Maria of Savoy-Carignan, had one daughter who died in infancy
• Maria Antonia of Bourbon-Two Sicilies (1814 – 1898), married Leopoldo II, Grand Duke of Tuscany, had ten children
• Antonio Pasquale of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, Count of Lecce (1816 – 1843), unmarried, clubbed to death by the husband of a married woman he had tried to seduce
• Maria Amalia of Bourbon-Two Sicilies (1818 – 1857), married Infante Sebastian of Portugal and Spain, no children
• Maria Carolina of Bourbon-Two Sicilies (1820 – 1861), married Carlos of Spain, Count of Montemolin, Carlist pretender to the Spanish throne, no children
• Teresa Cristina of Bourbon-Two Sicilies (1822 – 1889), married Emperor Pedro II of Brazil, had four children
• Luigi Carlo of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, Count of Aquila (1824 – 1897), married Januária, Princess Imperial of Brazil, had four children
• Francesco di Paola of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, Count of Trapani (1827 – 1892), married his niece Maria Isabella of Austria, Princess of Tuscany, had six children

Ferdinando had two half-siblings from his father’s first marriage to Archduchess Maria Clementina of Austria who died from tuberculosis in 1801:

• Maria Carolina of Bourbon-Two Sicilies (1798 – 1870), married (1) Charles Ferdinand d’Artois, Duke of Berry, had two surviving children (2) Ettore Carlo Lucchesi-Palli, 8th Duke della Grazia, had five children
• Fernando Francesco of Bourbon-Two Sicilies (1800 – 1801), died in infancy

Ferdinando was well-educated by Giuseppe Capocasale (link in Italian), an abbot known by the nickname of “the Christian Socrates“, who became his tutor in 1822. Ferdinando also received a political and military education in local academies. Twenty-year-old Ferdinando II succeeded to the throne of the Two Sicilies upon the death of his father on November 8, 1830. He quickly got to work on reorganizing the government, focused on reducing public debt, and calming the country still affected by the turbulence following the Napoleonic Wars.

On November 21, 1832, at the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Acquasanta in Genoa, Kingdom of Sardinia, now in Italy, Ferdinando married Maria Cristina of Savoy, the daughter of Vittorio Emanuele I, King of Sardinia and Maria Theresa of Austria-Este.

Ferdinando and Maria Cristina had one child:

• Francesco II, King of the Two Sicilies (1836-1894), married Maria Sophie in Bavaria; had one daughter who died in infancy

On January 21, 1836, five days after giving birth to her only child, 23-year-old Maria Cristina died from childbirth complications. She was buried at the Basilica of Santa Chiara in Naples, Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, now in Italy. Maria Cristina had been called “the Holy Queen” for her deep religious devotion. She was constantly ill which she patiently endured with her piety and was popular with the people for her charity, modesty, and humility.

The Roman Catholic Church opened a cause for Maria Cristina’s possible canonization as a saint. On July 10, 1872, Maria Cristina was declared to be a Servant of God and on May 6, 1937, she was declared a Venerable Servant of God. On May 3, 2013, Pope Francis authorized a decree recognizing a miracle due to her intercession and approved Maria Cristina’s beatification. Her beatification took place on January 25, 2014, at the Basilica of Santa Chiara where she is buried. She is known in the Roman Catholic Church as Blessed Maria Cristina of Savoy and is one step away from canonization as a saint.

A year after Maria Cristina’s death, Ferdinando married Maria Theresa of Austria, daughter of Archduke Karl of Austria, Duke of Teschen and Henrietta of Nassau-Weilburg. He had met Maria Theresa during his stay in Vienna, Austria in July 1836, and they married on January 9, 1837, at the Augustinian Church in Vienna, Austria.

Ferdinando and Maria Theresa of Austria had twelve children:

• Luigi of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, Count of Trani (1838 – 1886), married Mathilde Ludovika in Bavaria, had one daughter
• Alberto of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, Count of Castrogiovanni (1839 – 1844), died in childhood
• Alfonso of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, Count of Caserta (1841 – 1934), married his first cousin Maria Antonia of the Two Sicilies, had twelve children, the Heads of the House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies descend from Alfonso
• Maria Annunciata of Bourbon-Two Sicilies (1843 – 1871), married Archduke Karl Ludwig of Austria, had four children including Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir presumptive to the throne of Austria-Hungary whose assassination in 1914 sparked the start of World War I
• Maria Immaculata Clementina of Bourbon-Two Sicilies (1844 – 1899), married Archduke Karl Salvator of Austria, had ten children
• Gaetano of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, Count of Girgenti (1846 – 1871), married Infanta Isabel of Spain, no children, suffered from epilepsy and poor health, died by suicide
• Giuseppe of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, Count of Lucera (1848 – 1851), died in childhood
• Maria Pia of Bourbon-Two Sicilies (1849 – 1882), married Roberto I, Duke of Parma, had twelve children, six of them were mentally disabled, died in childbirth
• Vincenzo of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, Count of Melazzo (1851 – 1854), died in childhood
• Pasquale of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, Count of Bari (1852 – 1904), morganatically married to Blanche Marconnay, no issue
• Maria Luisa of Bourbon-Two Sicilies (1855 – 1874), married Prince Enrico of Bourbon-Parma, Count of Bardi, no children, died one year after her marriage
• Gennaro of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, Count of Caltagirone (1857 – 1867), died in childhood from cholera

The Revolutions of 1848 reached the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and Ferdinando II was forced to grant a constitution of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. The goodwill created by the constitution did not last long. Between 1849 and 1851, Ferdinando returned to repressive policies causing many who opposed him to go into exile. An estimated 2,000 suspected revolutionaries or dissidents were jailed.

On December 8, 1856, the feast of the Immaculate Conception, Ferdinando II attended mass in Naples with his family, government officials, and nobles. After the mass, Ferdinando reviewed the troops. During the military review, Agesilao Milano (link in Italian), a soldier who had accused Ferdinando of being a “tyrant from whom the nation had to free itself” wounded the king with a bayonet in an assassination attempt. Milano was arrested and sentenced to death and was hanged five days later.

Ferdinando II, King of the Two Sicilies died at the Royal Palace of Caserta in Caserta, Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, now in Italy on May 22, 1859, aged 49 from a strangulated hernia after hesitating for months to have surgery. There is some speculation that his condition could have been related to the assassination attempt. He was buried at the Basilica of Santa Chiara in Naples, Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, now in Italy. His second wife Maria Theresa survived her husband by eight years, dying at the age of 51 from cholera on August 8, 1867, just days before her youngest child also died from cholera. She was buried with her husband at the Basilica of Santa Chiara in Naples.

During Ferdinando II’s reign, the Italian unification movement led by Vittorio Emanuele II, King of Sardinia , later Vittorio Emanuele I, King of Italy, and Giuseppe Garibaldi, a noted general and politician, began. Shortly before Ferdinando II’s death, the Second War of Italian Independence began. During the reign of Ferdinando’s son Francesco II, Giuseppe Garibaldi’s 1860-1861 invasion called the Expedition of the Thousand led to the fall of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, which then was annexed to the new Kingdom of Italy in 1861.

This article is the intellectual property of Unofficial Royalty and is NOT TO BE COPIED, EDITED, OR POSTED IN ANY FORM ON ANOTHER WEBSITE under any circumstances. It is permissible to use a link that directs to Unofficial Royalty.

Kingdom of the Two Sicilies Resources at Unofficial Royalty

• Kingdom of the Two Sicilies Index
• Kingdom of the Two Sicilies Royal Burial Sites

Works Cited

• De.wikipedia.org. 2021. Ferdinand II. (Sizilien) – Wikipedia. [online] Available at: <https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_II._(Sizilien)> [Accessed 12 August 2021].
• En.wikipedia.org. 2021. Ferdinand II of the Two Sicilies – Wikipedia. [online] Available at: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_II_of_the_Two_Sicilies> [Accessed 12 August 2021].
• Flantzer, Susan, 2021. Francesco I, King of the Two Sicilies. [online] Unofficial Royalty. Available at: <https://www.unofficialroyalty.com/francesco-i-king-of-the-two-sicilies/> [Accessed 12 August 2021].
• Flantzer, Susan, 2021. Kingdom of the Two Sicilies Royal Burial Sites. [online] Unofficial Royalty. Available at: <https://www.unofficialroyalty.com/royal-burial-sites/kingdom-of-the-two-sicilies-royal-burial-sites/> [Accessed 12 August 2021].
• It.wikipedia.org. 2021. Ferdinando II delle Due Sicilie – Wikipedia. [online] Available at: <https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinando_II_delle_Due_Sicilie> [Accessed 12 August 2021].