The Kingdom of Two Sicilies

Brief history

The "Kingdom of Two Sicilies", now known as Southern Italy, was the South of anything but an independent and the biggest state of the Italian peninsula.  

It was a rich and independent state for the past few centuries, ruled by the Royal House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies (134-1860) related to the Spanish crown. The kingdom was in relatively good shape economically when compared to the other states of the peninsula, including Piedmont. It did not have any debts and a bank reserve in gold of 443 million of the time.    

It had a good size army and fleet. The latter was not comparable to the British fleet in size but nevertheless, it was a respectable one. It had important shipyards, textile industries, and commercial relationships with the rest of the world, including the United States. Despite the slander, pumped by the interested Brits, that the kingdom was a negation of God, it could show many "supremacies" and accomplishments that all the other states of the peninsula did not have. This marks in a profound way the Southern civilization and society in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It also shows how positive and constructive the works of the Bourbon sovereigns were and how misleading and untruthful was the northern propaganda of a backward state whose people had to be freed from their bondage by their "generous brothers" coming downs from the north. Here is a brief synopsis:

Industry

In 1856, at the Paris International Exhibition, the Kingdom of Two Sicilies received the prize for the third industrially developed country in the world and first in Italy.  Thes are some examples:

First iron suspended bridge across the Garigliano river

First railroad and railway stations in Italy

One of Italy's biggest foundry and ironwork factories (Mongiana Calabria) 

Also an army manufacturing center (cannons and rifles)

First locomotive steam engine built in Italy (Pietrarsa Campania)

The largest engineering industry in Italy at Pietrarsa

The first gas-fueled lighting system

The first electric telegraph in function since 1852

The first network of lighthouses with lenses system

Naples shipyard had the first masonry dry dock in Italy

Role of England and France in the Birth of the Italian State

Was the Italian Unification an internal affair?

It is incorrect to believe that a couple of centuries ago Italy was born as an independent state on the volition of its own people, or because the king of the northern Kingdom of Sardinia (aka Kingdom of Piedmont or Kingdom of Savoy) decided to do so. 

In reality, there were powerful interests at play mainly of England and France, the powerhouses of 19th century Europe. To understand how the many independent states of the Italian peninsula were annexed under the umbrella of the Kingdom of Piedmont, we need to understand the role of France and mainly England.

This will help to explain the demise of the biggest and richest state of the peninsula called the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies then and now called Southern Italy (or Mezzogiorno).   

This provides the historical context, not addressed by the "official narrative",  for events whose effects reverberate to these days such as the economic gap between north and south, lack of infrastructures in the south. emigration by the millions from the south.  

This may take a while but bear with us we will learn a few things about Italy that will make your jaws drop. 

   

Work in Progress 

Watch 

England against the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies (Southern Italy) - Unification made in London

 

Italy as a Colony: how the British control Italians through information. After WWII, England doesn't give up. 

The unrest in the South begins

Inequity part of the DNA of the new nation

A critical look at the Italian unification (circa 1860).

Excerpt from Blood of My Blood of Richard Gambino, page 51 forward.  

Garibaldi’s scheme of Italian grandeur meant for the people of the Mezzogiorno (aka South) a worse political and economic deal than that suffered under the Bourbons. After a short time, they rose once again, this time against their “fellow-Italians” of Piedmont and Rome. 

The earliest eruption took place in Naples in 1862, where the Italian government had immediately reversed many of the reforms Garibaldi had initiated. 

With independence that still characterizes their Neapolitan-American descendants today, the people of the city and its surrounding region proudly proclaimed their equality with any Northerners. “Italian” at this time meant, for all practical purposes, Piedmontese. And the Neapolitans went as far as to declare in their newspapers that “we are Neapolitans first, and then Italians”.

The response of the Turin (Piedmont) government was harsh and rivaled that of the foreign oppressors of the past. 

During eighteen months, the police reported having summarily executed 1,038 people, most of whom were suspect merely because they were found carrying personal weapons, a common practice in Naples. 

Another 3,000 were imprisoned without any semblance of due process. A fight broke out in earnest. The government sent sixty battalions of bersaglieri (crack combat soldiers) to teach a lesson to the Southerners. Garibaldi appealed to Vittorio Emanuele II, king of Piedmont kingdom, now king of Italy, to moderate the repression, telling him that rulers from Piedmont were hated in Naples more than the Bourbons had been. In vain. 

The troops showed no effort at conciliation with the unyielding but poorly armed disorganized population. In about a year, they killed some 3,000 Neapolitan rebels. This severity merely escalated hostilities, and by 1865 the national government had a virtual army of occupation, 120,000 soldiers, in the Mezzogiorno.

Sicily, as all Southern Italy, was humiliated and mocked in that cursed 1861! It was not the date of Italian unification, but of military occupation by the northern Piedmont armies. This is a tragic history kept secret whose nefarious consequences reverberate until today.

Seeds of Inequality

Few of the leaders of the new nation cared to find out about the realities of the South

A critical look at the Italian unification (circa 1860).

Excerpt from Blood of My Blood of Richard Gambino, page 51 forward.  

The long-standing antipathy between "Alta Italia" and the South rapidly boiled to active enmity. 

The new liberators from the Northern province of Piedmont were irked when reminded that Sardinia, which had been ruled for 150 years not by foreigners but their own government in Turin, was one of the poorest areas of the South, in fact economically in worse shape than some of the poorest areas of the old Bourbon kingdom. 

Thirty years after unification, the average Piedmontese had a standard of living twice as high as the average Sicilian. The economic result was that the Southern contadini (peasants) sent taxes north and the tax rate jumped at once 30 percent over the rate under the Bourbons.

Having virtually no national debt under the Bourbons (Kingdom of Two Sicilies rulers), the Mezzogiorno (aka Southern Italy) was soon caught in a spiral of ever-increasing debts followed by higher taxes. By merely re-establishing their unholy alliance of corruption with outsiders, this time with Piedmontese politicians and bureaucrats, the latifondisti (landowners) evaded the burden of taxation, and it fell squarely upon the contadini. 

To benefit the industry of the North, protective industrial tariffs were instituted.  The result was the closing of most of the factories in the Mezzogiorno, especially around Naples which had functioned under the free trade policy of Bourbons.

Garibaldi and the Italian Unification What it meant for the South

Garibaldi a real hero?

Mr. Garibaldi has always been portrayed as the hero that single-handedly brought freedom and progress to Southern Italy, then an independent nation called the "Kingdom of two Sicilies". 

What the official history books do not say is the fact that nobody asked the southerners if they felt to be enslaved and if they wanted to be freed. They also say that the great Garibaldi with 1000 volunteers (the red shirts) defeated a very well-organized army and navy of the southern state. 

They fail to say that England played a crucial role by supporting what amounted to be an invasion, without a declaration of war, on the part of Garibaldi's mercenaries and by the kingdom of Piedmont, behind all this. 

England had all the interest to remove the "Kingdom of two Sicilies" because it was interfering with its economic interests in the Mediterranean Sea due also to the opening of the Suez Canal. Why do you think England occupied Gibraltar and Malta, before that?

This was the beginning of huge problems for the southern regions of Italy. It suffices to say, after the unification of Italy, a civil war ensued that lasted 10 years with the burning of towns, mass executions, and incarcerations of many southerners, some labeled “briganti”, on the part of Piedmont’s army that imposed in many cases the martial law.  

This was the beginning of the big economic gap between the north and the south that still persists today due to precise political choices made by the central government in Rome that has always favored the northern regions. Also, this was the beginning of the emigration exodus by millions from the South. Think about this. Before the unification, not many emigrated from the South, twenty years after the unification millions emigrated!!   

This is the historical context that forced many of our ancestors to emigrate to the US and to many other countries.

Recovery of the Historical Memory

The Recovery of the Historical Memory in the interest not only of the South but of the whole Italian nation. In this context, we can understand the roots of the problems that afflict Italy and not just the South.

Only this can lead to a national reconciliation that passes through the abandonment of "historical amnesia" by many, and by calling things with their own name: racism, apartheid, and organized theft against the South.

Reaching out back to the actual history of Italy as a national entity is not a sterile exercise for the following reasons:

• It is a crucial step in grasping the truth about the creation of Italy as a nation about two centuries ago.
• It is a step to understand the tears and blood it costed to an entire people living in the South, at the hands of an invasion army descended from the northern state of Piedmont.
• You will understand how all this set the stage for a bloody civil war that lasted about 10 years (1860-1870), mass emigration by the millions from the South, many directed to the US, and policies and behaviors based on racism, and apartheid that in different forms still exist today.
• This gives the truth that will set people free. Only then a process of reconciliation can take place.

Truth and reconciliation are the way. But reconciliation can only happen if all the honest Italians are willing to embrace their actual history.

Next, read  Garibaldi and the Italian Unification. What it meant for the South
See also this: Truth and Reconciliation (South Africa).

About

Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness - United States Declaration of Independence. 

This blog wants to foster a better understanding of Southern Italy not only for those Italian Americans that can trace their roots to this area but for anyone else interested in the rich and millennial culture of this ancient land once called Magna Grecia (Greater Greece). 

 

We are the descendants of those brave people that were forced to emigrate by the millions. Some of us live in Southern Italy while others live in the United States. Come with us on this journey of learning and fun. For the Italian Americans, it will be a (re)discovery of their roots, beyond myths and stereotypes, reinforcing their identity as an important ethnic group of the American society. For the Italians of the motherland, it will mean reconnecting and finding their lost families on the other side of the pond. 

See the related Facebook group Our Italian Roots group is inspired by the “Equita’ Territoriale” (territorial equity) which is a grass-roots movement born in Southern Italy in 2019. 

Watch 

Ancient Greek Cities in Italy - Magna Graecia part 1     

Ancient Greek Cities in Italy - Magna Graecia part 2