Two Sicilies

The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies was a sovereign state in Southern Europe that existed from December 1816 to February 1861, or rather to the unification of Italy. Before the French Revolution of 1789 and subsequent Napoleonic campaigns, the Bourbon dynasty had reigned over the same territories since 1734, but they were divided into two distinct realms: the kingdom of Naples and the kingdom of Sicily. One year after the Congress of Vienna and following the Treaty of Casalanza, the sovereign Ferdinando di Borbone, who before then assumed the Neapolitan crown (on this side of the Faro) as Ferdinand IV and the Sicilian one (beyond the Faro ) as Ferdinand III, united the two realms into a single state entity, through the Basic Law of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies of 8 December 1816, almost 400 years after the first proclamation of the Utriusque Siciliae Kingdom by Alfonso the Magnanimous. Initially the capital was Palermo, the secular seat of the Sicilian Parliament, but already the following year (1817) it was moved to Naples. Palermo continued to be considered the “capital city” of the island of Sicily The reign ended with the expedition of the Thousand, the signing of the armistice and the surrender of Francis II on February 17, 1861, and the proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy on March 17 of the same year.