CHARLES III OF BOURBON, King of Spain. - Born in Madrid on 20 January 1716, died there on 14 December 1788. Third son of Philip V of Spain and firstborn of Elizabeth Farnese, destined for a throne in Italy, he accordingly received a predominantly Italian education. According to the Treaty of The Hague (1720), the successions of Parma and Piacenza and of the grand duchy of Tuscany were to fall to him. He did in fact manage to take possession of his paternal inheritance upon the death of his uncle Antonio Farnese (1731), but before Gian Gastone de' Medici, dying in 1737, could make way for him in Tuscany, he was able to wrest from Austria by force of arms, in the name of Spain, the kingdom of the Two Sicilies (1734), which was devolved upon him by his father, and to have himself crowned in Palermo in 1735. Having renounced Parma and Piacenza (1738), he attempted to retake them in 1742, sending an army into Lombardy on behalf of his brother, as his mother Elizabeth wished; but the threat of an English bombardment of Naples (17 Aug.) forced him to recall the army. In 1744, in defiance of the neutrality of Benedict XIV, Austria sent an army against him, which was defeated by C. at Velletri; from then until 1759 C. was able to lay down his arms and devote himself to works of peace.
His government was judged variously; nevertheless, apart from his almost total subjection to Spain, at least until the death of Philip V (1746), and his partial disinterest in the cares of the State, left to ministers imbued with Enlightenment principles, not always prudent and not always Neapolitan, he was able to set the country, finally independent, on the path of reforms, toward a better order, and to link his name to works deserving of much praise, such as the great constructions (the royal palace of Caserta), the excavations of Herculaneum, the library, the National Museum, etc.
In 1759, upon the death of his brother Ferdinand, he was called to succeed him in Spain, and, having had his son Philip, born feeble-minded, declared incapable, he left on the Neapolitan throne his third son Ferdinand, practically in the hands of his friend and adviser Bernardo Tanucci. His foreign policy was anti-English and pro-Austrian. C. III saw Spanish prestige decline in the badly administered American colonies, and for a long time had Portugal as an enemy. At home, untimely reforms, foreign ministers, and financial disorder unsettled the country and stirred up dangerous riots (1766). Liberal historians are wont to praise him for his ecclesiastical policy (intervention in the affairs of the Church, suppression and expulsion of the Jesuits) and for the "family compact": in reality, however, he derived no advantages from it.
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Luigi Berra