MONARCHIA SICULA. — From the beginning of the 16th century, the name *Monarchia Sicula* was given to the right claimed by the kings of Sicily to exercise supreme ecclesiastical power in their kingdom as representatives of the Holy See.
This claim was based on a privilege granted by Pope Urban II to Count Roger I of Sicily and Calabria on 5 July 1098, in recognition of his merits in the struggle against the Saracens. In the bull, the Pope assured Roger and his successors that he would not send any legate to Sicily against their will and would use them, as legates *a latere*, to execute papal decrees, which were normally carried out through legates. Thus, they obtained the right of apostolic legation in their lands, though this did not in any way exclude the rights of the Holy See in any place.
This exceptional concession gave rise, from the outset, to conflicts of interpretation. Paschal II, who succeeded Urban II, confirmed it but sought to restrict it (1117); Adrian IV, however, had to recognize its broad scope in 1136. Innocent III (1198–1216), the great champion of papal authority, set it aside. It was the canonists of the Spanish court, at the time of state absolutism, who rediscovered the document and, on its basis, constructed a fanciful edifice of ecclesiastical privileges for their kings as successors to the rights of the Normans and the Hohenstaufens in Sicily. Baronius, Orsi, and other writers questioned its authenticity, but erroneously, as is now recognized. Thus, from the beginning of the 16th century, the king of Sicily considered himself, by virtue of the apostolic privilege, a *legatus natus* of the Supreme Pontiff and claimed full and exclusive jurisdiction over spiritual and ecclesiastical matters in the island; even acts of the Holy See could not take effect without the executive letters of the viceroy, and the internal discipline of the Church was subjected to royal authority. Ferdinand I the Catholic (d. 1516) also claimed jurisdiction in ecclesiastical matters for himself; Philip II sought, but in vain, in 1578, confirmation of the *Monarchia Sicula* from the Apostolic See and established (1579) a permanent tribunal called the *Judex monarchiae siculae*, to which he delegated the exercise of ecclesiastical jurisdiction derived from the *Monarchia Sicula*, forbidding appeals from this tribunal to the Holy See.
In the face of such open violations of apostolic rights and such a grave threat to the independence of Sicilian bishops, Rome could not remain inactive. The conflict was particularly violent during the pontificates of Pius V (1566–72), Gregory XIII (1572–85), and Clement VIII (1592–1605); the writing of Baronius against the *Monarchia Sicula* was prohibited by Philip III. The dispute grew even more heated under Urban VIII (1623–44); the tribunal of the royal monarchy, now fully dependent on the lieutenant, and the so-called letters of safeguard, whose holders were exempt from episcopal jurisdiction, threatened to annihilate what remained of the independence of the bishops of Sicily, who in 1629 lodged strong protests, demanding observance of the decrees of the Council of Trent. The Pope then established a Congregation of Cardinals to discuss remedies, and it nearly resorted to extreme measures against the *Monarchia Sicula*. This came to pass in 1687, when Innocent XI had the Neapolitan officials excommunicated by the nuncio in Spain; but the government of Madrid managed to have the penalty lifted. The fiercest battle subsided when King Victor Amadeus II of Savoy obtained the crown of Sicily in 1713 and was explicitly granted the privilege of the *Monarchia Sicula*. The Roman Curia was greatly alarmed, and Clement XI did not hesitate to suppress the tribunal of that monarchy with the constitution *Romanus Pontifex* of 20 February 1715. When the emperor Charles VI of Austria became king of Sicily, he strove through persistent pressure to obtain from Benedict XIII the revocation of Clement’s constitution, but in the face of the Pope’s resolute stance, he settled for a bull that would suitably regulate ecclesiastical matters in the island. After extremely laborious negotiations, in which Cardinal Prospero Lambertini, a trusted advisor to the Pope, played an important role, the bull *Fidelis* was issued on 30 August 1728. In it, Benedict XIII reserved to the Holy See the most important ecclesiastical affairs of Sicily but granted the sovereign, for the decision in third instance of other ecclesiastical causes, the establishment of a supreme judge who was to be considered as delegated by the Apostolic See.
As might have been expected, the absolutism of the kings of Sicily did not remain within these limits: the tribunal granted was constituted as a revival of the one suppressed by Clement XI, taking the name “tribunal of the royal monarchy and apostolic legation,” and the old claims to full legatine right were revived. Even Garibaldi in 1860 took advantage of the alleged privileges of the *Monarchia Sicula*; but shortly afterward, Pius IX put an end to the centuries-old dispute by definitively abolishing the apostolic legation with the bull *Suprema* of 28 January 1864, published on 10 October 1867. The Italian government did not fail to protest, but later, with the law of the Guaranties (art. 15), declared that it renounced that privilege.
Impartial authors such as P. Hinschius have acknowledged that in this centuries-long struggle “right was undoubtedly on the side of the Roman Curia” (*Kirchenrecht*, 1, Berlin 1869, p. 522).