Ferdinand II of the Two Sicilies (12 January 1810-22 May 1859) was King of the Two Sicilies from 8 November 1830 to 22 May 1859, succeeding Francis I and preceding Francis II.
Biography[]
Ferdinand was born in Palermo, Sicily, the son of King Francis I of the Two Sicilies and Maria Isabella of Spain. He acceded to the throne of the Two Sicilies in 1830, and progressives initially praised him for his liberal reforms, which endeared him to the lower classes of Neapolitan society. Ferdinand cut taxes and expenditures, built the first railway in Italy, built the first steamship in Italy, and established telegraphic connections between Naples and Palermo. However, in 1837, he violently suppressed Sicilian demonstrators demanding a constitution and maintained strict police surveillance in his domains. Liberal uprisings in Reggio Calabria and Messina in 1847 and Palermo in 1848 were crushed, but Ferdinand was forced to grant a constitution modeled after France's 1830 constitution in order to prevent further insurrections. However, street riots continued due to the King's continued refusal to compromise with the Liberals, and he granted Pope Pius IX asylum at Gaeta during the Roman Republic's short-lived revolution in 1849. In May 1849, Ferdinand crushed the Sicilian Revolution, and 2,000 suspected revolutionaries were jailed, while many more fled abroad. Ferdinand was bayoneted by a mutinous soldier in 1856 and died of his wounds three years later.