Chapter III
Old Sicily
The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies · 1816–1860
The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies
For centuries, Sicily was not part of Italy. It belonged to the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies — a sovereign state that comprised the southern half of the Italian peninsula and the island of Sicily itself. The “Two Sicilies” were the kingdom of Sicily (the island) and the kingdom of Naples (the mainland), united under a single crown. It was the largest and most populous state in Italy, with a population of nearly 9 million in 1860 — more than Piedmont, Tuscany, and the Papal States combined.
The capital was Naples, one of the great cities of Europe — larger than Rome, Florence, or Milan. It had a royal palace, an opera house (the San Carlo, the oldest active opera house in the world), and a thriving intellectual culture. But Sicily itself — the island — was a different story. It was rural, feudal, and poor, governed from Naples by officials who rarely visited and never understood it.
The Bourbon Monarchy
The Kingdom was ruled by the House of Bourbon, a branch of the same royal family that ruled Spain and France. The Bourbon kings of Naples were:
Ferdinand I
1816–1825Also known as "Ferdinand IV of Naples" and "Ferdinand III of Sicily" before the two kingdoms were formally merged in 1816. A coarse but popular king who spoke Neapolitan dialect, hunted in the streets, and had little use for Enlightenment ideas. He was restored to the throne after Napoleon's defeat by the Congress of Vienna (1815).
Francis I
1825–1830Ferdinand's son. A timid, repressive ruler who kept a harem and ruled through spies and secret police. His reign was marked by political stagnation.
Ferdinand II
1830–1859Francis's son. He began as a reformer — building railways (the first in Italy, the Naples-Portici line of 1839), promoting industry, and initially granting a constitution during the revolutions of 1848. But when the constitution was revoked, he became a symbol of reaction. His soldiers fired on protesting crowds, earning him the nickname "King Bomba." He died in 1859, just as the storm of unification was gathering.
Francis II
1859–1861The last Bourbon king. Shy, inexperienced, and only 23 when he ascended the throne. He faced Garibaldi's invasion in 1860 and fled Naples without a fight. His last stronghold was the fortress of Gaeta, which held out until February 1861. He died in exile in 1894, the last king of a state that had existed for centuries.
Sicilian Society
Sicilian society in the 1850s was essentially feudal — a pyramid with a tiny aristocracy at the top, a thin layer of professionals and merchants in the middle, and a vast peasantry at the base. The social structure that Lampedusa describes in The Leopard was real:
The Aristocracy
Families like the fictional Salinas owned vast estates (latifundia) covering tens of thousands of hectares. They lived in palazzi in Palermo, spent summers at country estates, and controlled local politics through patronage. But many were land-rich and cash-poor, burdened by debt and unable to modernize their estates. The Prince of Salina's financial worries were typical.
The New Middle Class
Lawyers, notaries, merchants, and local officials — like Don Calogero Sedara — were rising. They were often better educated, more financially savvy, and more politically flexible than the aristocrats they were displacing. The Risorgimento would accelerate their ascent.
The Peasantry
The vast majority of Sicilians were landless peasants who worked the great estates for subsistence wages. They were illiterate, malnourished, and desperate. Banditry was endemic — many peasants lived as outlaws part of the year. The gap between peasant and aristocrat was not just economic but almost civilizational.
The Church
The Catholic Church was enormously powerful in Sicily — it owned vast lands, ran schools and hospitals, and influenced every aspect of daily life. The secularization of Church lands after unification was one of the few real changes the Risorgimento brought.
The Bandits
Brigandage was a way of life in the Sicilian interior. Bandits (briganti) were often former soldiers or desperate peasants who lived in the mountains and lived off extortion and robbery. After unification, brigandage exploded into full-scale guerrilla warfare against the new Italian state.
A Stagnant Economy
The economy of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies was overwhelmingly agricultural. Sicily produced grain, olives, wine, citrus fruits, and sulfur — but the wealth flowed upward. There was little industry, few railways, and high illiteracy (estimated at 90% in Sicily, compared to around 50% in Piedmont). The Bourbon government was chronically short of money, burdened by debt, and corrupt.
This is the Sicily that Garibaldi encountered when he landed in 1860 — a beautiful, impoverished, ancient land that had been governed badly for centuries and would be governed badly for centuries more, under different flags.
“Sicily is not Italy. Sicily is Sicily. It has its own history, its own pride, its own despair. The Risorgimento did not change that; it simply gave Sicily a new set of masters who spoke a slightly different dialect.”
— A common Sicilian sentiment, echoed in the novel