Le informazioni che circolano nella editoria e nella stampa estere ricalcano quelle diffuse in Italia durante la costruzione dello stato unitario, tutte tese a demonizzare i Borbone di Napoli e a cancellare la memoria stessa della monarchia borbonica e quanto di utile aveva fatto per l'ex-Regno delle Due Sicilie.
Ferdinand II of the Two Sicilies (?-May 22, 1856) was born in
Palermo.
In his early years he was credited with Liberal ideas and he was fairly
popular, his free and easy manners having endeared him to the
lazzaroni.
On succeeding his father in 1830, he published an edict in
which he promised to give his most anxious attention to the impartial
administration of justice, to reform the finances, and to use every
effort to heal the wounds which had afflicted the kingdom for so many
years; but these promises seem to have been meant only to lull
discontent to sleep, for although he did something for the economic
development of the kingdom, the existing burden of taxation was only
slightly lightened, corruption continued to flourish in all departments
of the administration, and an absolutism was finally established
harsher than that of all his predecessors, and supported by even more
extensive and arbitrary arrests.
Ferdinand was naturally shrewd, but badly educated, grossly superstitious and possessed of inordinate self-esteem. Though he kept the machinery of his kingdom fairly efficient, and was a patriot to the extent of brooking no foreign interference, he made little account of the wishes or welfare of his subjects.
After his marriage to Maria Theresa of Austria in 1837 the bonds of
despotism were more closely tightened, and the increasing discontent of
his subjects was manifested by various abortive attempts at
insurrection; in 1837 there was a rising in Sicily in consequence of
the outbreak of cholera, and in 1843 the Young Italy Society tried to
organize a general rising, which, however, only manifested itself in a
series of isolated outbreaks. The expedition of the Bandiera brothers
in 1844, although it had no practical result, aroused great ill-feeling
owing to the cruel sentences passed on the rebels.
In January 1848 a rising in Sicily was the signal for revolutions all over Italy and Europe; it was followed by a movement in Naples, and the king granted a constitution which he swore to observe. A dispute, however, arose as to the nature of the oath which should be taken by the members of the chamber of deputies, and as neither the king nor the deputies would yield, serious disturbances broke out in the streets of Naples on May 15; so the king, making these an excuse for withdrawing his promise, dissolved the national parliament on the March 13, 1849.
He retired to Gaeta to confer with various deposed despots, and when
the news of the Austrian victory at Novara (March 1849) reached him, he
determined to return to a reactionary policy. Sicily, whence the
Royalists had been expelled, was subjugated by General Filangieri, and
the chief cities were bombarded, an expedient which won for Ferdinand
the epithet of King Bomba.
During the last years of his reign espionage and arbitrary arrests
prevented all serious manifestations of discontent among his subjects.
In 1851 the political prisoners of Naples were calculated by Mr
Gladstone in his letters to Lord Aberdeen (1851) to number 15,000
(probably the real figure was nearer 40,000), and so great was the
scandal created by the prevailing reign of terror, and the abominable
treatment to which the prisoners were subjected, that in 1856 France
and England made diplomatic representations to induce the king to
mitigate his rigour and proclaim a general amnesty, but without success.
An attempt was made by a soldier to assassinate Ferdinand in 1856. He
died on May 22, 1856, just after the declaration of war by France and
Piedmont against Austria, which was to result in the collapse of his
kingdom and his dynasty. He was bigoted, cruel, mean, treacherous,
though not without a certain bonhomie; the only excuse that can be made
for him is that with his heredity and education a different result
could scarcely be expected.
He married first November 21, 1832 Maria Christina of Savoy, daughter
of King Victor Emmanuel I of Savoy. Their only child, Francesco,
succeeded his father as king.
He married second January 9, 1837 Maria Theresa of Austria, daughter of
Archduke Karl of Austria, son of Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor. They
were the parents of twelve children together.
This article is taken from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica
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