FRANCESCO II, king of the Two Sicilies. — Born in Naples on 16 January 1856, he died at Arco (Trento) on 27 December 1894; he was the son of Ferdinando II and of the ven. Maria Cristina di Savoia. Never well regarded by his stepmother Maria Teresa d’Austria, he grew up timid, reserved, and melancholic. Although not lacking in intelligence and culture, diligent and ready to fulfill his duty, he was deliberately kept away from knowledge of and practical involvement in the affairs of the Kingdom, despite being crown prince. Nor was he able to find understanding and comfort in his marriage to Maria Sofia di Baviera (1858), who was too far removed from him in temperament and inclinations.
Having lost his father prematurely (2 May 1859), scarcely more than twenty years old and inexperienced, he had to assume the government precisely on the eve of radical upheavals in the Peninsula, while the Kingdom, strong and respected in appearance, was without alliances, enclosed in a shortsightedly conservative and reactionary policy, and undermined in its social, administrative, and military structure by the persistent and astute activity of currents all directed toward the ideals of unity and liberty. Suddenly forced to choose between Austria and France—that is, between the traditional conservative policy, by then in decline, and innovative tendencies skillfully guided by Piedmont—F. failed to gain a full understanding of his true situation. Turning first to Austria, which could give him nothing more, he was later compelled, belatedly, under the weight of Villafranca and the pressure of Garibaldi’s active campaign in Sicily, to make liberal concessions that could no longer benefit him. Despite the repeated failures and the many misfortunes that descended upon his banners, F., even amid general abandonment and nobly assisted by his consort, was able to demonstrate—as the recent studies of Battaglini also show—military insight, dauntless pride, and a fighting spirit. Sharing with the queen and the loyal troops the hardships of a cause by then desperate, he commanded the respectful admiration even of his adversaries. Thus it is now calmly acknowledged 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 and glorious kingdom.
Received as a refugee in Rome by Pius IX (February 1861), who appreciated his uncommon virtues as an exemplary Christian, he remained there in resigned and silent seclusion, losing to a sudden illness his only little daughter, and distancing himself from the inept restorationist maneuvers of relatives and followers, until the events of 1870. He then moved between Trieste, Geneva, and Paris, leading a withdrawn 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 December 1938, also through the efforts of the crown prince Umberto di Savoia at the time, definitively 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 the much-lamented little princess Maria Cristina Pia.