Our Italian Legacy: 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