Francis II of the Two Sicilies

Francis II of the Two Sicilies, born Francesco d'Assisi Maria Leopoldo, was the last reigning Bourbon king of the realm that comprised southern Italy and Sicily. He was born in Naples on 16 January 1836, the only son of King Ferdinand II and Maria Cristina of Savoy. His mother died only days after his birth, and he was raised thereafter in the tightly Catholic and conservative atmosphere of the Neapolitan court. Ferdinand II married again in 1837, to Archduchess Maria Theresa of Austria, who became the dominant maternal figure of the household. The future king's education stressed religious observance, dynastic loyalty, and suspicion of the liberal and nationalist ideas then spreading through the Italian peninsula. Contemporaries described him as reserved, conscientious, and lacking the forceful political temperament of his father.

In February 1859 he married Duchess Maria Sophie in Bavaria, a member of the Wittelsbach family and a sister of Empress Elisabeth of Austria. A few months later, on 22 May 1859, Ferdinand II died and Francis ascended the throne. His accession came at a moment of acute danger for the Italian Bourbons. The war of 1859 had already weakened Austrian power in northern Italy, and in May 1860 Giuseppe Garibaldi landed in Sicily with the Expedition of the Thousand. Sicilian resistance collapsed, and Garibaldi crossed to the mainland. Facing the disintegration of his army and the advance of both Garibaldini and regular Piedmontese forces, Francis II left Naples in September 1860 and established his remaining government in the coastal fortress of Gaeta. Queen Maria Sophie became widely known for her courage during the ensuing siege. After months of bombardment, Gaeta capitulated in February 1861. The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies was shortly afterward incorporated into the new Kingdom of Italy. Francis II never signed an act of abdication and continued to claim his rights in exile.

The deposed king and queen took refuge in Rome, then still under papal rule, where Pope Pius IX received them. They remained in the city until the Italian capture of Rome in 1870. Subsequent years of exile were spent in France, Bavaria, and other parts of Europe. In December 1869 Maria Sophie gave birth in Rome to their only child, Princess Maria Cristina Pia, who died in infancy in March 1870. Francis maintained a modest court, issued protests against the annexation of his former kingdom, and refused to recognize the House of Savoy as lawful sovereigns of southern Italy. He lived quietly, devoted to religious practice, and took little part in the conspiratorial legitimist politics that some of his followers still pursued.

Francis II died at Arco in the Austrian Tyrol on 27 December 1894. He was buried in Rome at the church of the Santo Spirito dei Napoletani, a traditional place of Neapolitan exile devotion; in 1984 his remains were translated to the Basilica of Santa Chiara in Naples, where earlier Bourbon kings of the Two Sicilies are interred. Historical judgments of his reign have long been divided: Italian nationalist historiography portrayed him as weak and anachronistic, while legitimist and Catholic writers emphasized his personal virtue, fidelity to the Church, and the violence that accompanied the collapse of his state. In 2020 the Archdiocese of Naples opened a diocesan inquiry into his life and virtues, and in Catholic usage he is styled a Servant of God. He has not been beatified or canonized, and he is not the subject of an established liturgical feast or of formal patronages.