Introduction

Summary

An eighteenth–century state, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies was constituted, developed, and died between 1734 and 1799. It was born as a monarchy in 1734, and ended as a revolutionary republic in June 1799. Conquered again by the Bourbons, after a phase of anarchy, it became a sort of Mediterranean despotism, a Catholic variant of Asian or Moslem despotic states. Its destiny – monarchy, republic, anarchy, despotism – could well have been taken from the pages of the Esprit des lois. But it was dramatic history.

At the time it takes a new form, a society should acquire again, according to Rousseau, ‘in this new age, all the vigour of a nation being born’. But for the Kingdom of Naples it was not as easy as it was for Corsica: perhaps it was not even a nation. The south of Italy lost its independence in 1503, and had been absorbed into the Spanish empire. Then, in 1707, it passed under the dominion of Austria. In 1734 Philip V recovered it for Spain, erected it as an autonomous monarchy and put his son Charles at its head. Sicily was also part of the new Kingdom. The capital was Naples, and for Sicily a viceroy was appointed.

It was the year in which Voltaire revealed to Europe the stupefying greatness of the English political system, in his Lettres philosophiques.