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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Archduchess Maria Theresa of Austria was the second wife of Ferdinando II, King of the Two Sicilies. Maria Theresia Isabella was born at Weilburg Castle in Baden bei Wien, Austria, near Vienna, on July 31, 1816. She was the eldest of the seven children and the eldest of the two daughters of Archduke Karl of Austria, Duke of Teschen and Henrietta of Nassau-Weilburg. Her paternal grandparents were Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor and Maria Luisa of Spain. Her maternal grandparents were Friedrich Wilhelm, Prince of Nassau-Weilburg and Luise Isabelle of Kirchberg.

Maria Theresa had six younger siblings:

• Archduke Albrecht of Austria, Duke of Teschen (1817 – 1895), married Hildegard of Bavaria, had three children
• Archduke Karl Ferdinand of Austria (1818 – 1874), married Archduchess Elisabeth Franziska of Austria, had six children including Maria Christina of Austria who married King Alfonso XII of Spain
• Archduke Friedrich of Austria (1821 – 1847), unmarried
• Archduke Rudolf of Austria (born and died 1822), died in infancy
• Archduchess Maria Karoline of Austria (1825 – 1915), married her first cousin Archduke Rainer of Austria, no children
• Archduke Wilhelm Franz of Austria (1827 – 1894), unmarried, died in a horse accident

In 1829, Maria Theresa’s mother died at the age of 32 after contracting scarlet fever and pneumonia from her children. Maria Theresa, the eldest child, was thirteen years old and took over the child-rearing role for her siblings who ranged in age from two to twelve years old. With her father and her brother Albrecht, she served as a tutor for her four youngest siblings. From 1834 to 1835, she was abbess of the Theresian Institution of Noble Ladies in Prague, founded in 1755 by Empress Maria Theresa to serve as a religious order for impoverished noblewomen. The noblewomen were not required to take vows of celibacy and were allowed to leave to marry. The Theresian Institution was run by a Princess-Abbess selected by the Holy Roman Emperor and later the Emperor of Austria. By birth, each Princess-Abbess was an Archduchess of Austria.

In January 1836, Maria Cristina of Savoy, Queen of the Two Sicilies, wife of Ferdinando II, King of the Two Sicilies died at the age of 23 from childbirth complications after giving birth to a son. The widowed king met Maria Theresa during his stay in Vienna, Austria in July 1836, and they became engaged to strengthen the relations between Austria and the Two Sicilies. Maria Cristina and Ferdinando were married on January 9, 1837, at the Augustinian Church in Vienna, Austria.

Maria Theresa became the stepmother of Ferdinando’s one-year-old son:

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

Maria Theresa and Ferdinando II 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 court of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies considered Maria Theresa poorly dressed and not their idea of a queen. Maria Theresa disliked her public role as Queen of the Two Sicilies and her life at court. She preferred to spend time in her rooms with her children and doing needlework. Maria Theresa had a good relationship with her husband and her stepson Francesco. Francesco respected his stepmother, the only mother he had ever known, and Maria Theresa considered him her son. Despite not liking her public role, Maria Theresa was interested in politics and advised her husband on many matters.

Ferdinando II, King of the Two Sicilies had hesitated for months to have surgery for a strangulated hernia. His hesitancy probably caused his death. Maria Theresa nursed him until he died at the age of 49 at the Royal Palace of Caserta in Caserta, Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, now in Italy on May 22, 1859. He was buried at the Basilica of Santa Chiara in Naples, Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, now in Italy.

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. the Second War of Italian Independence began shortly before Ferdinando II’s death. 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. Maria Theresa and her children were among the first to leave Naples. She eventually made her way to Rome which was part of the Papal States and not the new Kingdom of Italy. Pope Pius IX placed the Quirinal Palace in Rome at her disposal.

In the summer of 1867, a cholera epidemic broke out in Rome. Maria Theresa and her family left the city and moved to a villa in Albano Laziale, outside of Rome but they did not escape the illness. Both Maria Theresa and her youngest son, ten-year-old Gennaro developed cholera. Maria Theresa survived her husband by eight years, dying at the age of 51 from cholera on August 8, 1867, just five days before her youngest child also died from cholera. Maria Theresa and her son Gennaro were buried at the Basilica of Santa Chiara in Naples, Italy.

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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. Maria Theresia von Österreich (1816–1867) – Wikipedia. [online] Available at: <https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Theresia_von_%C3%96sterreich_(1816%E2%80%931867)> [Accessed 16 August 2021].
• En.wikipedia.org. 2021. Archduke Charles, Duke of Teschen – Wikipedia. [online] Available at: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archduke_Charles,_Duke_of_Teschen> [Accessed 16 August 2021].
• En.wikipedia.org. 2021. Maria Theresa of Austria (1816–1867) – Wikipedia. [online] Available at: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Theresa_of_Austria_(1816%E2%80%931867)> [Accessed 16 August 2021].
• 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].
• It.wikipedia.org. 2021. Maria Teresa d’Asburgo-Teschen (1816-1867) – Wikipedia. [online] Available at: <https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Teresa_d%27Asburgo-Teschen_(1816-1867)> [Accessed 16 August 2021].