CARLOS III of Bourbon, King of Spain. — Born in Madrid on 20 Jan. 1716, died there on 14 Dec. 1788. Third son of Philip V of Spain and eldest son of Elizabeth Farnese, destined for a throne in Italy, he consequently received a predominantly Italian education. According to the Treaty of The Hague (1720), Parma and Piacenza and the Grand Duchy of Tuscany were to fall to him. He did indeed come into possession of his father’s inheritance upon the death of his uncle Antonio Farnese (1731), but before Gian Gastone de’ Medici’s death in 1737 could make room for him in Tuscany, he was able to wrest the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies from Austria in the name of Spain by force of arms (1734), which was then devolved to him by his father, and to be crowned in Palermo in 1735. Having renounced Parma and Piacenza (1738), he attempted to reclaim them in 1742 by sending an army into Lombardy on behalf of his brother, as his mother Elizabeth wished; but the threat of an English bombardment of Naples on 17 Aug. forced him to recall the army. In 1744, despite 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 attend to works of peace.
His rule was variously judged; however, apart from his almost total subjection to Spain, at least until the death of Philip V (1746), and his partial neglect of the cares of state, left to ministers steeped in Enlightenment principles, not always prudent and not always Neapolitan, he was able to set the country, now finally independent, on the path of reform, toward a better future, and to link his name to works worthy of great praise, such as the grand constructions (the Reggia of Caserta), the excavations at Herculaneum, the National Library, the National Museum, and so on.
In 1759, upon the death of his brother Ferdinand, he was called to succeed him in Spain, and, having declared his son Philip, born an idiot, unfit to rule, he left the Neapolitan throne to his third son Ferdinand, effectively in the hands of his friend and advisor Bernardo Tanucci. His foreign policy was anti-English and pro-Austrian. C. III saw Spanish prestige diminish in the poorly administered American colonies and long had Portugal as an enemy. At home, untimely reforms, foreign ministers, and financial disorder undermined the country and provoked dangerous uprisings (1766). Liberal historians are wont to praise his ecclesiastical policy (interference in Church affairs, suppression and expulsion of the Jesuits) and the “Family Pact”: in reality, however, he reaped no benefits from them.