Franz I.

Francis I of Naples and Sicily, whose full name was Francesco Gennaro Giuseppe Saverio Giovanni Battista, was born on 19 August 1777 at the Royal Palace of Naples and died there on 8 November 1830. He was king of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies from 1825 until his death. Earlier, he held important regency offices: from 1812 to 1814 he governed Sicily as regent, and he remained there as the king’s lieutenant until 1820. After his death, his eldest son succeeded him as Ferdinand II. Francis was the second son of Ferdinand IV of Naples and his wife, Maria Carolina of Austria. After the premature death of his elder brother Carlo Tito in December 1778, he became heir to the thrones of Naples and Sicily and received the title Duke of Calabria. Unlike his father, he received a thorough education from distinguished tutors, including the natural scientist Giuseppe Saverio Poli and Cardinal Domenico Orsini d’Aragona. Francis was particularly interested in the natural sciences and botany, while he had little enthusiasm for Latin and other humanities subjects. According to the Neapolitan poet Giulio Genoino, he even wrote two treatises on plant cultivation. When Francis reached adulthood in 1795, he began attending meetings of the Council of State. Considered weak and indecisive, he rarely opposed his parents. At the urging of his strong-willed mother, he married Archduchess Maria Clementina of Austria on 25 June 1797 in Foggia. She was a daughter of Emperor Leopold II and Francis’s cousin. The marriage was intended to strengthen the alliance between Naples and the Viennese court as the consequences of the French Revolution spread across Europe. In 1798 Francis accompanied his father on a campaign against the Roman Republic, which was supported by French troops. The undertaking ended in military disaster. After French forces invaded, the royal family fled from Naples to Sicily in January 1799, while the Parthenopaean Republic was proclaimed in Naples. In Palermo, Francis largely avoided politics and preferred to devote himself to agriculture, nature, and his family. In 1801, within a few months, he lost both his wife and their firstborn son, Ferdinando. Despite appeals from his parents and Cardinal Fabrizio Ruffo, he did not take an active part in the reconquest of Naples. In 1801 Francis returned to Naples as his father’s lieutenant and remained there until 1802. After being widowed, he married Maria Isabella of Spain, a daughter of King Charles IV of Spain and also his cousin. The marriage was celebrated by proxy in Madrid in July 1802, while the personal ceremony took place in Barcelona in October. The union was intended to improve the strained relationship between the courts of Naples and Madrid. After the renewed French invasion of 1806, Francis was appointed his father’s representative. He initially remained on the mainland and tried to organize a popular uprising in Basilicata and Calabria. The attempt failed, and he was eventually forced to flee to Sicily. Joseph Bonaparte and Joachim Murat ruled in Naples in succession, while the Bourbons remained in exile. During this second period of exile, Francis established a model agricultural estate at Boccadifalco near Palermo. New methods of cultivation, irrigation, and livestock breeding were tested there. The political situation in Sicily was tense. The nobility and the population rejected additional taxes to finance the Bourbon court, while the British, under Lord William Bentinck, defended the island militarily and pressed for political reforms. In 1812 Ferdinand III transferred the government of Sicily to his son. Francis had to balance consideration for his father with dependence on the British allies. As regent, he promulgated Sicily’s first constitution on 12 July 1812. Inspired by the Constitution of Cádiz, it established a separation of powers and divided Parliament into a House of Peers and a House of Commons. In 1813 Francis was compelled, under British pressure, to accept the removal of his mother, Maria Carolina, from Palermo. She went to Vienna, where she died a few months later. After Ferdinand returned to Naples, Francis remained governor of Sicily until 1820. He did not meet the Sicilians’ expectations that he would restore the Constitution of 1812. Instead, he supported the union of Naples and Sicily into the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, which was established under Ferdinand I in 1816. During his tenure, he reformed the military command structure, improved institutions for female education, and expanded the road network around Palermo. Francis returned to Naples in 1820 and assumed the regency during the liberal uprisings. At first, he was accommodating toward the new constitution, appointed ministers, arranged elections, and prepared for the opening of Parliament. At the same time, a separatist uprising broke out in Palermo, demanding the restoration of the Constitution of 1812. The government suppressed it militarily. When Ferdinand I ultimately requested Austrian intervention against the constitutional movement at the Congress of Laibach, Francis tried to resist. The Neapolitan troops were defeated at Rieti on 7 March 1821. After the constitution was abolished, Francis largely withdrew from politics, although he continued to perform certain state duties. After his father’s death on 4 January 1825, Francis ascended the throne as Francis I. He ruled conservatively and left day-to-day administration largely to his prime minister, Luigi de’ Medici, who was also responsible for finance and foreign affairs. Harsh trials and special courts were established against the Carbonari and other political secret societies. At the same time, the king personally moderated some sentences. A decree issued in 1826 nevertheless intensified measures against disturbances of public order. In foreign policy, Francis secured the withdrawal in 1827 of the Austrian troops stationed in the kingdom since 1821. To restore the state finances, official salaries were cut and new consumption taxes were introduced. The 1828 uprising in Cilento was brutally suppressed. Notable measures of his reign included the creation of the Order of Francis I for Civil Merit in 1829 and the relocation of the music college, which thereafter became known as the San Pietro a Majella Conservatory. In 1829 Francis travelled to Spain for the wedding of his daughter Maria Cristina to King Ferdinand VII. During the visit, his long-serving minister de’ Medici died. After returning, the king’s health continued to deteriorate. Francis I died in Naples on 8 November 1830. His marriage to Maria Isabella produced numerous children whose marriages linked many European ruling houses. His son Ferdinand succeeded him as Ferdinand II, king of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.