di Calabria, but was immediately captured by the police and the
peasantry, court-martialled and shot.
Ferdinand to some extent maintained French legislation,
but otherwise reorganized the state with Metternich’s approval
on Bourbon lines; he proclaimed himself king of the Two Sicilies
at the congress of Vienna, incorporating Naples and Sicily into
one state, and abolished the Sicilian constitution (December
1816). In 1818 he concluded a Concordat with the Church,
by which the latter renounced its suzerainty over the kingdom,
but was given control over education, the censorship and many
other privileges. But there was much disaffection throughout
the country, and the Carbonarist lodges, founded in
Murat’s time with the object of freeing the country
The revolution
of 1820.
from foreign rule and obtaining a constitution, had
made much progress (see Carbonari). The army
indeed was honeycombed with Carbonari, and General Pepe,
himself a member of the society, organized them on a military
basis. In July 1820 a military mutiny broke out at Caserta,
led by two officers and a priest, the mutineers demanding a
constitution although professing loyalty to the king. Ferdinand,
feeling himself helpless to resist, acceded to the demand, appointed
a ministry composed of Murat’s old adherents, and entrusted
his authority to his son. The ultra-democratic single-chamber
Spanish constitution of 1812 was introduced, but proved utterly
unworkable. The new government’s first difficulty was Sicily,
where the people had risen in rebellion demanding their own
charter of 1812, and although the Neapolitan troops quelled
the outbreak with much bloodshed the division proved fatal
to the prospects of liberty.
The outbreak of the military rising in Naples, following so shortly on that in Spain, seriously alarmed the powers responsible for the preservation of the peace in Europe. The position was complicated by the somewhat enigmatic attitude of Russia; for the Neapolitan Liberals, with many of whom Count Capo d’Istria, the Russian minister of foreign affairs, had been on friendly terms, proclaimed that they had the “moral support” of the tsar. This idea, above all, it was necessary for Austria to destroy once for all. The diplomatic negotiations are discussed in the article on the history of Europe (q.v.). Here it suffices to say that these issued in the congress of Troppau (October 1820) and the proclamation of the famous Troppau protocol affirming the right of collective “Europe” to interfere to crush dangerous internal revolutions. Both France and Great Britain protested against the general principle laid down in this instrument; but neither of them approved of the Neapolitan revolution, and neither of them was opposed to an intervention in Naples, provided this were carried out, not on the ground of a supposed right of Europe to interfere, but by Austria for Austrian ends. By general consent King Ferdinand was invited to attend the adjourned congress, fixed to meet at Laibach in the spring of the following year. Under the new constitution, the permission of parliament was necessary before the king could leave Neapolitan territory; but this was weakly granted, after Ferdinand had sworn the most solemn oaths to maintain the constitution. He was scarcely beyond the frontiers, however, before he repudiated his engagements, as exacted by force, A cynicism so unblushing shocked even the seasoned diplomats of the congress, who would have preferred that the king should have made a decent show of yielding to force. The result was, however, that the powers authorized Austria to march an army into Naples to restore the autocratic monarchy. This decision was notified to the Neapolitan government by Russia, Prussia and Austria—Great Britain and France maintaining a strict neutrality. Meanwhile the regent, in spite of his declaration that he would lead the Neapolitan army against the invader, was secretly undermining the position of the government, and there were divisions of opinion in the ranks of the Liberals themselves. General Pepe was sent to the frontier at the head of 8000 men, but The Austrians in Naples. was completely defeated by the Austrians at Rieti on the 7th of March. On the 23rd the Austrians entered Naples, followed soon afterwards by the king; every vestige of freedom was suppressed, the reactionary Medici ministry appointed, and the inevitable state trials instituted with the usual harvest of executions and imprisonment. Pepe saved himself by flight. (See Ferdinand IV., king of Naples.)
Ferdinand died in 1825, and his son and successor, Francis I., an unbridled libertine, at once threw off the mask of Liberalism; the corruption of the administration under Medici assumed unheard-of proportions, and every office was openly sold. The Austrian occupation lasted until 1827, having cost the state 310,000,000 lire; but in the meanwhile the Francis I. Swiss Guard had been established as a further protection for autocracy, and the revolutionary outbreak at Bosco on the Cilento was suppressed with the usual cruelty. (See Francis I., king of the Two Sicilies.)
Francis died in 1830 and was succeeded by his son, Ferdinand
II., who at first awoke hopes that the conditions of the country
would be improved. He was not devoid of good
qualities, and took an interest in the material welfare
of the country, but he was narrow-minded, ignorant
and bigoted; he made the administration more efficient, and reorganized
Ferdinand II.
the army which became purged of Carbonarism, and
such Carbonarist plots as there were in the 'thirties were not
severely punished. Ferdinand was impatient of Austrian influence,
but on the death of his first wife, Cristina of Savoy, he
married Maria Theresa of Austria, who encouraged him in his
reactionary tendencies and brought him closer to Austria. An
outbreak of cholera in 1837 led to disorders in Sicily, which,
having assumed a political character, were repressed by Del
Caretto with great severity. The government tended to become
more and more autocratic and to rely wholly on the all-powerful
police, the spies and the priests; and, although the king showed
some independence in foreign affairs, his popularity waned; the
desire for a constitution was by no means dead, and the survivors
of the old Carbonari gathered round Carlo Poerio, while the
Giovane Italia society (independent of Mazzini), led by Benedetto
Musolino, took as its motto “Unity, Liberty and Independence.”
But as yet the idea of unity made but little headway, for southern
Italy was too widely separated by geographical conditions,
history, tradition and custom from the rest of the peninsula,
and the majority of the Liberals—themselves a minority of the
population—merely aspired to a constitutional Neapolitan
monarchy, possibly forming part of a confederation of Italian
states. The attempt of the Giovane Italia to bring about a
general revolution in 1843 only resulted in a few sporadic outbreaks
easily crushed. The following year the Venetian brothers
Bandiera, acting in concert with Mazzini, landed in
Calabria, believing the whole country to be in a state
of revolt; they met with little local support and were
The Bandiera attempt.
quickly captured and shot, but their death aroused
much sympathy, and the whole episode was highly significant
as being the first attempt made by north Italians to promote
revolution in the south. In 1847 a pamphlet by L. Settembrini,
entitled “A Protest of the People of the Two Sicilies,” appeared
anonymously and created a deep impression as a most scathing
indictment of the government; and at the same time the
election of Pius IX., a pope who was believed to be a Liberal,
caused widespread excitement throughout Italy. Conspiracy
was now rife both in Naples and Sicily, but as yet there was no
idea of deposing the king. Many persons were arrested, including
Carlo Poerio, who, however, continued to direct the agitation.
On the 12th of January 1848 a revolution under the leadership
of Ruggiero Settimo broke out at Palermo to the cry of “independence
or the 1812 constitution,” and by the end
of February the whole island, with the exception of
Messina, wasin the hands of the revolutionists. These
The revolution
in Sicily.
events were followed by demonstrations at Naples;
the king summoned a meeting of generals and members of his
family on the 27th of January, and on the advice of Filangieri
(q.v.), who said that the army was not to be relied upon, he
dismissed the Pietracatella ministry and Del Caretto, and
summoned the duke of Serracapriola to form another' administration.
On the 28th he granted the constitution, and the Liberals
Bozzelli and Carlo Poerio afterwards joined the cabinet. The
