{"id":38121,"date":"2026-05-07T18:53:30","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T16:53:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.realcasadiborbone.it\/h-m-francis-i-king-of-the-two-sicilies\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T18:22:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T16:22:17","slug":"h-m-francis-i-king-of-the-two-sicilies","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/realcasadiborbone.it\/en\/h-m-francis-i-king-of-the-two-sicilies\/","title":{"rendered":"H.M. Francis I, King of the Two Sicilies"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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H.M. Francis I, King of the Two Sicilies<\/h1>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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H.M. Francis I,
King of the Two Sicilies\n\n<\/h1>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
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After the exceptionally long reign of Ferdinand, that of his son Francis was very brief, lasting only five years; perhaps, among the sovereigns of the House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, he was the least influential. Born in Naples on August 14, 1777, he died there on November 8, 1830. <\/p>

In 1778, following the death of his elder brother Carlo Tito, he inherited the title of Crown Prince and Duke of Calabria. In 1797, he married Archduchess Maria Clementina of Austria, daughter of Emperor Leopold II, with whom he had a daughter, Carolina. After Maria Clementina’s death in 1801, he married Maria Isabella of Spain, daughter of King Charles IV of Bourbon. With her, he had twelve more children, some of whom married reigning sovereigns. <\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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King Francis I<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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As a young man, he was certainly influenced by his mother’s powerful personality; it was only during the stay in Sicily, necessitated by Murat’s occupation of the mainland Kingdom, that he began to manifest his own character. Indeed, these were difficult years, and the Court was under the influence of British power, particularly through Lord Bentinck, whose policies directly conflicted with those of Maria Carolina. This reached a point where Bentinck succeeded in forcing Ferdinand to exile his wife and leave the government to his son Francis, who was appointed Vicar of the King. <\/p>

It was during these circumstances that the legend of Francis’s liberal sympathies was born. In fact, it was he who granted the 1812 Constitution in Sicily; however, the difficulty of the situation must be kept in mind: the British were dominant during these years, both because they assisted the Bourbons in the war against Murat and because they had the support of the autonomist Sicilian nobility. <\/p>

In November 1813, Bentinck left the island. Ferdinand, having returned to Palermo, resumed control of the situation but left Francis as Lieutenant, while he himself returned to Naples after the fall of the Napoleonics. The Duke of Calabria remained in Sicily until 1820, the year of the constitutionalist Carbonari uprising; his father recalled him to Naples to entrust him with the regency while he traveled to Ljubljana to seek aid from the Holy Alliance. <\/p>

Francis appeared to reach an understanding with the revolutionaries and accept the constitution, but he was always waiting for the general situation to evolve in favor of the Bourbon cause.<\/p>

Upon his father’s death in 1825, he ascended the Throne; he was 48 years old, and therefore no longer a young man.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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The brief reign<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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He was a fundamentally religious and quiet man. As soon as he ascended the Throne, he granted amnesty to deserting and felonious soldiers. He then commuted life sentences to hard labor and reduced prison sentences, except for those convicted of theft. He granted audience to everyone as much as possible and sought to provide for the many needs presented to him. <\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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H. M. Francis I<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
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He immediately wished to go to Milan with the Queen to ensure that the Austrian forces, present since 1820, finally left the Kingdom; this occurred in 1827, providing a great economic advantage for both the government and its subjects.<\/p>

At the birth of his son, the Count of Trapani, in 1827, he granted a full amnesty to all those under trial (including political prisoners: he reduced the death sentences imposed on several Carbonari and conspirators), also extending pardon to deserters and those who had resisted the draft.<\/p>

He expanded the fleet, established insurance companies to facilitate maritime trade, protected and improved industry (establishing prizes and biennial exhibitions), and encouraged the creation of a cloth factory that provided work for thousands of people in the Kingdom; he also employed prisoners there, allowing them to redeem their sentences through honest labor.<\/p>

He also signed a commercial treaty with Turkey to obtain transit through the Dardanelles for Neapolitan vessels.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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Despite the difficult economic situation, he encouraged agriculture, drained lakes, erected the Ponte de\u2019 Gigli near the Maddalena bridge, built the Town Hall with 800 rooms and 40 corridors, constructed roads, actively resumed the excavations at Pompeii, promoted measures for the study of the Herculaneum papyri and for schools of design and dance, opened hospitals, founded an orphanage in Palermo, and established the Chivalric Order of Francis I. This order was specifically meritocratic in nature, being conferred upon those who had acquired civil, military, and especially cultural merit.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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Unfortunately, he also had to face revolutionary attempts, particularly in Cilento, which were harshly and easily suppressed\u2014partly because, as was often the case, they lacked any serious popular following. Before his death, he restored the Sicilian economy. Giuseppe Coniglio comments: “It was a useful measure because it established tax levies and gave subjects the certainty that they would not be increased for at least a decade” [G. Coniglio, I Borboni di Napoli, Corbaccio, Milan 1999, p. 327]. <\/p>

He also tried to secure the Throne of Athens for his second son, but on the condition that the Greeks allowed him to maintain his Catholic faith, or otherwise with a special dispensation from the Pope. However, nothing came of it. <\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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Francis I and family, The Royal Palace of Capodimonte<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
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He passed away just as revolutions were breaking out again in Europe in 1830 (the year the French branch of the Bourbons lost their Throne); he left a difficult legacy to his young son, who was only twenty years old.<\/p>

But his son proved well able to rise to the occasion.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

H.M. Francis I, King of the Two Sicilies H.M. Francis I, King of the Two Sicilies After the exceptionally long reign of Ferdinand, that of his son Francis was very brief, lasting only five years; perhaps, among the sovereigns of the House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, he was the least influential. Born in Naples on August […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38122,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-38121","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nH.M. Francis I King of the Two Sicilies<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Discover the history of H.M. 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