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.

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Francesco II was the last King of the Two Sicilies. Francesco d’Assisi Maria Leopoldo was born in Naples, Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, now in Italy, on January 16, 1836. He was the only child of Ferdinando II, King of the Two Sicilies and his first wife Maria Cristina of Savoy. His paternal grandparents were Francesco I, King of the Two Sicilies and his second wife Maria Isabella of Spain.  Vittorio Emanuele I, King of Sardinia and Maria Theresa of Austria-Este were his maternal grandparents.

Sadly, Francesco’s mother Maria Cristina died from childbirth complications on January 21, 1836, five days after giving birth to him. Maria Cristina had been called “the Holy Queen” for her deep religious devotion. She was frequently ill which she patiently endured with her piety and was popular with the people for her charity, modesty, and humility.

In 1859, a cause for the canonization of Maria Cristina as a saint of the Roman Catholic Church was opened. 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. Her son Francesco may be following in her footsteps. In December 2020, Cardinal Sepe Crescenzio, Archbishop of Naples announced the opening of a cause for the beatification and canonization of Francesco II, King of the Two Sicilies, and Francesco was declared to be a Servant of God.

A year after his mother’s death, Francesco’s father Ferdinando II, King of the Two Sicilies married Maria Theresa of Austria, daughter of Archduke Karl of Austria, Duke of Teschen and Henrietta of Nassau-Weilburg. Francesco had a good relationship with his stepmother. He respected his stepmother, who was the only mother he had ever known, and Maria Theresa considered him her son.

Francesco had twelve half-siblings from his father’s second marriage:

• 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 five days after his mother Maria Theresa of Austria died from the same illness

In 1858, Francesco was betrothed to Maria Sophie of Bavaria, the daughter of Maximilian Joseph, Duke in Bavaria and Princess Ludovika of Bavaria, daughter of Maximilian I Joseph, King of Bavaria. Maria Sophie was the younger sister of the better-known Elisabeth of Bavaria (Sisi) who married Franz Joseph I, Emperor of Austria. On January 8, 1859, a proxy marriage was held at the Court Church of All Saints in the Munich Residenz, the royal palace of the Bavarian monarchs. The couple married in person on February 5, 1859, in Bari, Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, now in Italy.

Three months after the marriage, Francesco’s father Ferdinando II, King of the Two Sicilies died on May 22, 1859, aged 49 from a strangulated hernia after hesitating for months to have surgery. Francesco began his two-year reign as King of the Two Sicilies. During the reign of Francesco’s father, Ferdinando II, 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 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.

After the loss of the throne of the Two Sicilies, Francesco and Maria Sophia lived in Rome as guests of Pope Pius IX where Francesco maintained a government in exile recognized by some Catholic powers including France, Spain, Austria, and Bavaria. After the Third Italian War of Independence and the Austro-Prussian War weakened his allies, Francesco ended his government in exile. In 1870, the annexation of the Papal States to Italy, including Rome, forced Francesco and Maria Sophie to find refuge in Austria, France, and Bavaria.

Francesco had a congenital condition that prevented him from consummating his marriage. Maria Sophie, after having been patient for some time, began having affairs and she became pregnant. To avoid scandal, the pregnancy was kept secret by Maria Sophie’s mother and her brothers. On November 24, 1862, Maria Sophie gave birth to a daughter in St. Ursula’s Convent in Augsburg, Kingdom of Bavaria. The child was immediately given to the family of the father. A year later, on the advice of her family, Maria Sophie decided to confess the affair to her husband. In addition, Maria Sophie’s brother-in-law Franz Joseph, Emperor of Austria intervened. In a letter to Francesco, Franz Joseph attempted to persuade him to fulfill his marital duties. Nearly ten years after his marriage, Francesco finally had surgery that corrected the condition. A daughter was born to joyful parents but sadly, she lived for only three months.

• Maria Cristina Pia of Bourbon-Two Sicilies (December 24, 1869 – March 28, 1870)

In 1870, Maria Sophie purchased Garatshausen Castle on Lake Starnberg in the Kingdom of Bavaria, now in the German state of Bavaria from her brother Ludwig, and the castle became their home. The former Francesco II, King of the Two Sicilies died on December 27, 1894, aged 58, in Arco, where he spent winters, then in Austria-Hungary, now in Italy. He was originally buried with his daughter at the Church of the Holy Spirit of the Neapolitans (link in Italian) in Rome. Upon the death of Francesco, his half-brother Alfonso of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, Count of Caserta became the pretender to the throne of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.

Maria Sophie survived her husband by thirty-one years, dying at the age of 83 on January 19, 1925, in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. She was buried with her husband and daughter at the Church of the Holy Spirit of the Neapolitans in Rome. In 1984, their remains were transferred to the Basilica of Santa Chiara in Naples, Italy, the traditional burial site of the House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies in Naples, Italy.

Kingdom of the Two Sicilies Resources at Unofficial Royalty

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

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Works Cited

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• Flantzer, Susan, 2021. Ferdinando II, King of the Two Sicilies. [online] Unofficial Royalty. Available at: <https://www.unofficialroyalty.com/ferdinando-ii-king-of-the-two-sicilies/> [Accessed 16 August 2021].
• Flantzer, S., 2021. Maria Cristina of Savoy, Queen of the Two Sicilies. [online] Unofficial Royalty. Available at: <https://www.unofficialroyalty.com/maria-cristina-of-savoy-queen-of-the-two-sicilies/> [Accessed 16 August 2021].
• It.wikipedia.org. 2021. Francesco II delle Due Sicilie – Wikipedia. [online] Available at: <https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francesco_II_delle_Due_Sicilie> [Accessed 16 August 2021].
• It.wikipedia.org. 2021. Maria Cristina Pia di Borbone-Due Sicilie – Wikipedia. [online] Available at: <https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Cristina_Pia_di_Borbone-Due_Sicilie> [Accessed 16 August 2021].