FRANCIS II, King of the Two Sicilies. - Born in Naples on 16 Jan. 1856, died at Arco (Trento) on 27 Dec. 1894, he was the son of Ferdinand II and of the ven. Maria Christina of Savoy. Never well regarded by his stepmother Maria Theresa of Austria, he grew up timid, shy and melancholy. Although not lacking in intelligence and culture, diligent and ready to do his duty, he was deliberately kept away from knowledge and practice of the affairs of the Kingdom, even though he was crown prince. Nor could he find understanding and comfort in his marriage to Maria Sophia of Bavaria (1858), too far removed from him in temperament and inclinations.
Having prematurely lost his father (2 May 1859), little more than twenty years old and inexperienced, he had to assume the government on the very eve of radical upheavals in the Peninsula, while the Kingdom, strong and respected in appearance, was devoid of alliances, locked into a short-sightedly conservative and backward policy, undermined in its social, administrative and military fabric by the persistent and shrewd work of currents wholly devoted to the ideals of unity and liberty. Compelled then suddenly to choose between Austria and France, that is, between a traditional conservative course now in decline and innovating tendencies, skillfully steered by Piedmont, F. failed to gain a full understanding of his true situation, and, having turned first to Austria, which could give him nothing more, he then had to make, belatedly, under the weight of Villafranca and under Garibaldian pressure then active in Sicily, liberal concessions that could no longer avail him anything. Despite the repeated failures and the many misfortunes that fell upon his banners, F., even amid general abandonment, nobly assisted by his consort, knew how to give proof, as the recent studies of Battaglini also show, of military intuition, of dauntless pride, of a combative spirit, sharing with the queen and with the loyal troops the hardships of an already desperate cause, commanding the respectful admiration of his very adversaries. So that it must today be serenely acknowledged that the operations on the Volturno, and the strenuous, prolonged resistance of S. Benedetto del Tronto, of Messina and especially of Gaeta marked pages truly worthy of the end of a centuries-old and glorious realm.
Received as a refugee in Rome by Pius IX (Feb. 1861), who appreciated his uncommon virtues as an exemplary Christian, he remained there in resigned and silent recollection, losing there, to a sudden illness, his only little daughter, and holding himself aloof from the clumsy restorationist machinations of relatives and adherents, until the events of 1870. He then wandered between Trieste, Geneva and Paris, leading a retired life devoted to works of piety and charity, always mindful of and deeply attached to his distant homeland. Buried in the Cathedral of Arco, he was then, on 9 Dec. 1938, also through the good offices of the then crown prince Umberto of Savoy, definitively entombed, in accordance with his wishes, together with Queen Maria Sophia in Rome in the church of S. Spirito dei Napoletani, beside the tomb of the much mourned little princess Maria Cristina Pia.
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Paolo Dalla Torre