FRANCESCO II, King of the Two Sicilies. - Born in Naples on 16 Jan. 1836, died at Arco (Trento) on 27 Dec. 1894, he was the son of Ferdinand II and the Venerable Maria Christina of Savoy. Never well regarded by his stepmother Maria Theresa of Austria, he grew up proud, reserved and melancholic. Though not lacking in intelligence and culture, diligent and quick to duty, he was deliberately kept away from any knowledge of the affairs of the Kingdom, even as heir apparent. Nor did he find understanding or comfort in his marriage to Maria Sofia of Bavaria (1858), who was too unlike him in temperament and inclinations.
Having prematurely lost his father (in May 1859), barely twenty years old and inexperienced, he was forced to assume the government on the eve of radical upheavals in the Peninsula, while the Kingdom, outwardly strong and respected, lacked allies, was trapped in an ill-suited conservative and backward-looking policy, and was riven within by social, administrative and military tensions nurtured by currents all bent on the ideals of unity and freedom. Compelled then suddenly to choose between Austria and France, that is between the traditional conservative course now in decline and the innovating tendencies adroitly steered by Piedmont, FRANCESCO failed fully to grasp his true situation, and, having first thrown in his lot with Austria which could give him nothing more, was later forced, under the weight of Villafranca and the spreading Garibaldi revolt in Sicily, to make liberal concessions that could avail him nothing. Despite repeated setbacks and manifold disasters that befell his banners, FRANCESCO, even amid the general abandonment, nobly aided by his consort, gave proof— as recent studies by Battaglini also show— of military insight, intrepid pride and combative spirit, sharing with the queen and the loyal troops the hardships of a cause now desperate, and imposing himself on the respectful admiration of his very adversaries. Thus it may serenely be acknowledged today that the operations on the Volturno and the strenuous, prolonged resistances at S. Benedetto del Tronto, Messina and especially Gaeta marked pages truly worthy of the end of a centuries-old glorious realm.
Received as an exile in Rome by Pius IX (Feb. 1861), who appreciated his uncommon virtues as an exemplary Christian, he remained there in resigned and silent retirement, losing to a sudden illness his only little daughter, and withdrawing from the ill-starred restoration schemes of relatives and adherents until the events of 1870. Wandering then between Trieste, Geneva and Paris, leading a secluded life devoted to works of piety and charity, ever mindful and deeply attached to his distant homeland. Buried in the Cathedral of Arco, on 9 Dec. 1938, also thanks to the then Prince of Piedmont Umberto of Savoy, he was finally laid to rest, according to his wishes, together with Queen Maria Sofia in Rome in the church of S. Spirito dei Napoletani, beside the tomb of their much-lamented little princess Maria Cristina Pia.