The kingdom of the Two Sicilies In 1713, with the signature of the peace of Utrecht, Spanish Sicily was surrendered, with title of kingdom, to Vittorio Amedeo II of Savoia. After a first moment of satisfaction for this investiture from the Sicilians, hopeful to see transformed the kingdom in point of political reference for the Italian unification, the nomination went as wake up again the hostility of the barons because of an undesirable impartiality in the application of the laws. It was returned so to nostalgically look at the Spanish government to the point that when, in 1718, Spain again attached the island, it found ample consent among the noble; in that occasion
two huge armies were met for one whole year in that that passed to the history as the greatest battle had been fighting in the island for the times of the Romans: the battle of Francavilla. The dream of a Spanish return was broken however by the intervention of the Fourfold Alliance (England, Austria, United Provinces and France) that decided the transfer of the island to the asburgic's empire . Later sixteen years of Austrian dependence, acute international tensions brought to the War of Polish Succession: Mr. Carlos (Charles of Borbone, duke of Parma) it won on the Austrians in the 1734 Bitonto battle, gathering so the fates of Sicily to those of Naples. Become a king with the title of Charles III, Mr. Carlos was greeted with great honors; it reopened the royal building in Palermo and it introduced in the kingdom you mark of the Spanish culture as the bullfights that were developed for all the 700 and 800 part. Under the child of Charles, Ferdinando, climbed to the throne of Sicily in 1759 with the title of Ferdinando III and to that Naples with the title of Ferdinando IV, Sicily was tied more and more to Italy. For the whole century XVIII the barons kept on maintaining a strong influence on the political power. The greatest part of the Sicilians lived under their direct jurisdiction; around about twenty families it possessed an overwhelming economic power and those more important they lived in the princely buildings. Nevertheless the general administration was conducted to the insignia of the ineptitude with some important exceptions,: the prince of Niscemi was an asset man of business; the prince Biscari in Catania was earned the reputation of benevolent and dynamic man, available to the contacts with the world of the art, having beautiful museums to build and launching the industry of the flax and the rum. Many gods noble surnames, also being often full of debts, used to invest huge sums in the eases and in the construction of courtly residences: it is for instance said that the principles of Valguarnera and Palagonia had respectively paid 180.000 and 200.000 shields for their villas to Bagheria.
One century of reforms The 700 was the century when every change in the field of the art and the politics was destined to abort because of the conservative schemes that governed in the Sicilian society. The genius of the most original minds was suffocated and it pushed artists to look for abroad job; this was the destiny of illustrious artists what the architect Filippo Juvara, the composer Alexander Scarlatti and Cagliostro. Many were those that were made to help from the barons folding up himself/herself/itself so to the constituted order. The hope of a reform in social field was concretized in the ecclesiastical world: in 1767 the order of the Jesuits was expelled and the forfeited land possessions, with the pretext of corruption, to be distributed to the farmers; even if at the end these latifondis went to already magnify the existing secular possessions. Some residences gesuite was transformed in the technical schools for the boys more poor men. Nevertheless the reforms there were, even if rather isolated; one of these interested the world of the art: the charm that the island received through the literary pages of illuminated writers, slowly dissolved the isolation in which the country falls. It was above all thanks to the adventures of trip told in the pages of Patrick Brydone (1773), that Sicily was fixed in the imaginary collective as an earth to explore. The charm of the Enlightenment europero started to be evoked from the forbidden readings of the enciclopedistis and from the translations of character works philosophical and scientific, as those of Hume and Locke.
The kingdom of the Two Sicilies From the beginning the dominion of the Borbonis withdrew ancient dignity of kingdom that Sicily had known how to conquer in the time reducing the island to anonymous territory of conquest. In this context it spread an I live popular resentment towards the viceroys, also when one of them, Domenico Caracciolo, (1781-1786) it operated important reforms as the abolition of the inquisition and the reduction of the powers baronali. Only under Ferdinando IV the noble Sicilians succeeded in getting, in 1812, also for the pressures of the Great Britain, under whose protection was set the king a constitution that strengthened their power widening some privileges,; when however to Ferdinando IV was granted to reenter to Naples with the Restoration, this constitution you/he/she was annulled and the king founded the kingdom of the Two Sicilies (1816) with the title of Ferdinando I. This fusion removed from the Sicilians the few privileges of which enjoyed still and every island prerogative; it derived a malcontent of it general that been expressed in the popular struggles of the Italian Risorgimento: Palermo, Catania and Syracuse were theater of bloody insurrections in the years from 1831 to 1837. Exasperated by the absolutism borbonico, the Sicilians they conquered liberty in 1848 when Roger Settimo, head of the revolution, he/she offered the kingdom to Ferdinando Maria Alberto, duke of Genoa and child of Charles Alberto, that however didn't accept. One year after the dream of independent Sicily was again broken for catching fire again in 1860 when the red coats of Garibaldi, that Sicily governed in name of Vittorio Emanuele II, according to the proclamation of Salemi, it contributed in conclusive way to the liberation of the Midday and the unity of Italy.
One century of reforms The 700 was the century when every change in the field of the art and the politics was destined to abort because of the conservative schemes that governed in the Sicilian society. The genius of the most original minds was suffocated and it pushed artists to look for abroad job; this was the destiny of illustrious artists what the architect Filippo Juvara, the composer Alexander Scarlatti and Cagliostro. Many were those that were made to help from the barons folding up himself/herself/itself so to the constituted order. The hope of a reform in social field was concretized in the ecclesiastical world: in 1767 the order of the Jesuits was expelled and the forfeited land possessions, with the pretext of corruption, to be distributed to the farmers; even if at the end these latifondis went to already magnify the existing secular possessions. Some residences gesuite was transformed in the technical schools for the boys more poor men. Nevertheless the reforms there were, even if rather isolated; one of these interested the world of the art: the charm that the island received through the literary pages of illuminated writers, slowly dissolved the isolation in which the country falls. It was above all thanks to the adventures of trip told in the pages of Patrick Brydone (1773), that Sicily was fixed in the imaginary collective as an earth to explore. The charm of the Enlightenment europero started to be evoked from the forbidden readings of the enciclopedistis and from the translations of character works philosophical and scientific, as those of Hume and Locke.
The kingdom of the Two Sicilies From the beginning the dominion of the Borbonis withdrew ancient dignity of kingdom that Sicily had known how to conquer in the time reducing the island to anonymous territory of conquest. In this context it spread an I live popular resentment towards the viceroys, also when one of them, Domenico Caracciolo, (1781-1786) it operated important reforms as the abolition of the inquisition and the reduction of the powers baronali. Only under Ferdinando IV the noble Sicilians succeeded in getting, in 1812, also for the pressures of the Great Britain, under whose protection was set the king a constitution that strengthened their power widening some privileges,; when however to Ferdinando IV was granted to reenter to Naples with the Restoration, this constitution you/he/she was annulled and the king founded the kingdom of the Two Sicilies (1816) with the title of Ferdinando I. This fusion removed from the Sicilians the few privileges of which enjoyed still and every island prerogative; it derived a malcontent of it general that been expressed in the popular struggles of the Italian Risorgimento: Palermo, Catania and Syracuse were theater of bloody insurrections in the years from 1831 to 1837. Exasperated by the absolutism borbonico, the Sicilians they conquered liberty in 1848 when Roger Settimo, head of the revolution, he/she offered the kingdom to Ferdinando Maria Alberto, duke of Genoa and child of Charles Alberto, that however didn't accept. One year after the dream of independent Sicily was again broken for catching fire again in 1860 when the red coats of Garibaldi, that Sicily governed in name of Vittorio Emanuele II, according to the proclamation of Salemi, it contributed in conclusive way to the liberation of the Midday and the unity of Italy.
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