Kingdom of the Two Sicilies
state formed from the kingdoms of Sicily and Naples (1815–1861)
The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies (Italian: Regno delle Due Sicilie) was a kingdom in Southern Italy from 1816 to 1861 under the control of the House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, a cadet branch of the Bourbons. The kingdom was the largest sovereign state by population and land area in Italy before the Italian unification, comprising Sicily and most of the area of today's Mezzogiorno (southern Italy) and covering virtually all of the Italian peninsula south of the Papal States.
The kingdom was formed when the Kingdom of Sicily merged with the Kingdom of Naples, which was officially also known as the Kingdom of Sicily. Since both kingdoms were named after Sicily, they were collectively known as the "Two Sicilies" (Utraque Sicilia, meaning "both Sicilies"), and the unified kingdom adopted this name. The king of the Two Sicilies was overthrown by Giuseppe Garibaldi in 1860, after which the people voted in a plebiscite to join the Kingdom of Sardinia. The annexation of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies completed the first phase of Italian unification, and the new Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed in 1861 after uniting with other Italian states.
Name
The name "Two Sicilies" originated from the partition of the medieval Kingdom of Sicily. Until 1285, the island of Sicily and the Mezzogiorno were constituent parts of the Kingdom of Sicily. As a result of the War of the Sicilian Vespers (1282–1302), the King of Sicily lost the Island of Sicily (also called Trinacria) to the Crown of Aragon, but remained ruler over the peninsular part of the realm.
Although his territory became known unofficially as the Kingdom of Naples, he and his successors never renounced the title King of Sicily and still officially referred to their realm as the Kingdom of Sicily.
The public source identifies “Kingdom of the Two Sicilies” as state formed from the kingdoms of Sicily and Naples (1815–1861). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Kingdom, Sicilies and state.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q180393. VIAF identifies the subject as 168221750. The Library of Congress control number is no89019307. Authority coordinates are 40.833, 14.250. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1816, 1861, 1860 and 1285.
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This entry incorporates text from “Kingdom of the Two Sicilies” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.