Summary

Charles Sebastian of Bourbon (Madrid, January 20, 1716 - Madrid, December 14, 1788) was Duke of Parma and Piacenza under the name Charles I from 1731 to 1735, King of Naples without using numbering from 1734 to 1759, King of Sicily under the name Charles III from 1735 to 1759, and from 1759 until his death King of Spain under the name Charles III.

The first-born son of the second marriage of Philip V of Spain to Elisabeth Farnese, he was during his childhood only third in the line of succession to the Spanish throne, so that his mother worked to give him a crown in Italy by claiming the inheritance of the Farnese and Medici families, two Italian dynasties close to extinction. Through an effective combination of diplomacy and armed intervention, the Farnese succeeded in getting the European powers to recognize Charles's dynastic rights to the Duchy of Parma and Piacenza, of which he became duke in 1731, and to the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, where he was declared grand prince (i.e., hereditary prince) the following year.

In 1734, during the War of Polish Succession, at the command of the Spanish armies he conquered the Kingdom of Naples and the following year the Kingdom of Sicily, taking them from Austrian rule. In 1735 he was crowned king of Sicily in Palermo, and in 1738 he was recognized as ruler of the two kingdoms by peace treaties, in exchange for renouncing the Farnese and Medici states in favor of the Habsburgs and Lorraine. The progenitor of the Bourbon dynasty of the Two Sicilies, he ushered in a new period of political revival, economic recovery and cultural development.

Upon the death of his half-brother Ferdinand VI in 1759, he was called to succeed him on the throne of Spain, where, with the aim of modernizing the country, he was the promoter of a reformist policy that earned him the reputation of an enlightened monarch. In foreign policy, however, he reaped several setbacks because of his alliance with France, sanctioned by the third Bourbon family pact, which led him to oppose with mixed fortunes the maritime power of Great Britain.

Spain's ambitions at the birth of Don Carlos

The Treaty of Utrecht, which helped conclude the War of the Spanish Succession in 1713, greatly reduced the political and military clout of Spain, whose empire remained the largest in existence, retaining the American colonies, but was greatly diminished by the loss of its many European dominions. The Southern Netherlands, the Kingdom of Naples, the Kingdom of Sardinia, the Duchy of Milan and the State of the Presidia passed to Austria; the Kingdom of Sicily was ceded to the Savoy; while the island of Menorca and the Rock of Gibraltar, lands of the Iberian motherland, were occupied by Britain.

King Philip V, who at the price of these territorial losses had obtained recognition of his rights to the throne, was intent on restoring Spain's lost prestige. In 1714, after the death of his first wife Maria Luisa of Savoy, the Piacenza prelate Giulio Alberoni arranged an advantageous marriage for him with another Italian princess: Elisabetta Farnese, niece and stepdaughter of the Duke of Parma and Piacenza Francesco Farnese. The new queen, an energetic, authoritarian and ambitious woman, quickly gained great influence over the court, and together with Alberoni, who was appointed prime minister in 1715, she was an advocate of an aggressive foreign policy aimed at regaining the former Spanish possessions in Italy.

In 1716, after little more than a year of marriage, Farnese gave birth to the infant Don Carlo, who seemed to have little chance of occupying the Spanish throne, since he was preceded in the line of succession by his half-brothers Louis and Ferdinand. On his mother's side, on the other hand, he could aspire to inherit the Duchy of Parma and Piacenza from the Farnese family, a dynasty that was now drawing to a close, because Duke Francis had no children, as did his only brother Antonio. As the great-granddaughter of Margaret de' Medici, Queen Elizabeth also handed down to her eldest son rights to the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, where the aging Grand Duke Cosimo III had as his only possible heir his son Gian Gastone, who had no descendants and was known for his homosexuality.

Treaties of London, The Hague, Vienna and Seville

Don Carlos' birth came at a time when the Spanish plan to challenge the order established at Utrecht posed the greatest threat to the European balance. To confront the expansionism of Bourbon Spain, Britain, France and the United Provinces in 1717 formed an anti-Spanish coalition called the Triple Alliance, but despite this Philip V and Alberoni decided on the occupation of Austrian Sardinia and Savoyard Sicily in an attempt to reannex the two islands to the Iberian crown.

On August 2, 1718, through the Treaty of London, the Holy Roman Empire also joined the coalition against Spain, which then took the name of the Quadruple Alliance. As a condition of peace, the four powers required Philip V to adhere to the Treaty of London, which included his renunciation of all claims on the Italian states; but the Spanish ruler refused, thus beginning the War of the Quadruple Alliance. The conflict ended in a new Spanish defeat, and those who paid the political consequences were mainly Alberoni, who was deposed and expelled from Spain. Finally, with the Peace of the Hague in 1720, Philip V was forced to accept the provisions of the Treaty of London.

Regarding Don Carlo's dynastic rights to the Grand Duchy of Tuscany and the Duchy of Parma and Piacenza, the treaty stipulated that in the event of the extinction of the male Medici and Farnese lines, since both Elisabeth Farnese and Emperor Charles VI of Habsburg claimed them, these would be considered male fiefdoms of the Holy Roman Empire, but in the event that the male line of the imperial house also became extinct, the succession would fall to the eldest son of the queen of Spain as feudal lord of the emperor, who undertook to grant him investiture.

After the war, Spain approached France through three engagements: the 11-year-old French king Louis XV was betrothed to his cousin, the three-year-old infanta Marianne Victoria; the prince of Asturias Louis, heir to the Spanish throne, and the infante Don Carlos, heir to the Italian duchies, would instead marry two daughters of the regent Philip II of Orleans, Luisa Elisabeth and Philippa Elisabeth, respectively. Prince Louis did in fact marry Louise Elizabeth in 1722, and two years later Philip V abdicated in her favor, but just seven months into his reign the new king of Spain died of smallpox, forcing his father to resume the crown. Elizabeth Farnese, once again the queen consort, became even more influential during this period because her husband, burdened with severe depression, left her de facto mistress of the Spanish court.

In 1725 the French broke off Louis XV's engagement to the infanta Marianne Victoria, and in retaliation the Spanish also dissolved the engagement between Don Charles and Philippa Elizabeth, who was sent back to France along with the widowed queen his sister.

The Farnese then decided to deal with Austria, which, having become thanks to the Treaty of Utrecht the new hegemonic power in Italy, was the main obstacle to Spanish expansion in the peninsula.

Peace between the two powers was concluded with the Treaty of Vienna in 1725, which sanctioned Emperor Charles VI's final renunciation of the Spanish throne, while Philip V renounced his rights to former Spanish possessions in Italy and the Netherlands. Spain's plenipotentiary, Johan Willem Ripperda, went so far as to ask for the hand of Archduchess Maria Theresa, eldest daughter of Charles VI, on behalf of Don Charles.

This understanding broke down following the Anglo-Spanish War (1727-1729), when the emperor denied his consent to the engagement, prompting Philip V to break pacts with Austria and enter into the Treaty of Seville with Britain and France. The latter agreement guaranteed Don Charles the right to occupy Parma and Piacenza even by force of arms.

End of the Farnese and arrival in Italy

Upon the death of Duke Antonio Farnese on January 20, 1731, Count Daun, the Austrian governor of Milan, ordered the occupation of the Farnese duchy in the name of Don Carlo, feudatory of the emperor under the Treaty of London. However, the late duke of Parma in his will had named as heir the "pregnant belly" of his wife Enrichetta d'Este, whom he mistakenly believed to be pregnant, and established a regency council, which protested the occupation of the duchy because, if the widowed duchess had given birth to a son, he would have bypassed Elisabetta Farnese's eldest son in the line of succession to the ducal throne. Examined by a group of doctors and midwives, Enrichetta was declared seven months pregnant, but many, including the queen of Spain, considered her pregnant state a sham.

Pope Clement XII sought in turn to assert the Holy See's ancient feudal rights over the duchy, and to this end he ordered its occupation by his army, which was, however, preceded by the imperial army. The pontiff then wrote letters of protest to the major Catholic courts of Europe to make his case, and sent Monsignor Giacomo Oddi as apostolic commissioner to Parma to claim the duchy if the widowed duchess' pregnancy proved nonexistent. As the imperial court remained unresponsive to Rome's protests, the pope recalled Cardinal Grimaldi, his apostolic nuncio to Austria, from Vienna.

On July 22 Spain acceded to the Second Treaty of Vienna, by which it obtained the emperor's assent for the infant's arrival in Italy, and in return recognized the Prammatica Sanzione of 1713, a document that would allow Archduchess Maria Theresa to succeed her father on the Habsburg throne. On October 20, in Seville, after a solemn ceremony in which his father Philip V presented him with a precious sword that had belonged to Louis XIV, Don Charles finally left for Italy. He traveled overland to Antibes on the French coast, from there embarked for Tuscany, and arrived in Livorno on December 27, 1731.

Once the non-existence of Enrichetta d'Este's pregnancy was verified, the apostolic commissioner Oddi took possession of the duchy on behalf of the Holy See, while the imperial plenipotentiary in Italy, Count Carlo Borromeo Arese, did the same on behalf of Don Carlo. Eventually imperial and Spanish reasons prevailed, so that on December 29 the regency of Parma in the name of the infante was entrusted to Dorothea Sophie of Neuburg, his maternal grandmother and contutant (the other contutant was the Grand Duke of Tuscany Gian Gastone de' Medici), in whose hands the representatives of Parma and Piacenza swore, and the deputies of the communities of Cortemaggiore, Fiorenzuola, Borgo Val di Taro, Bardi, Compiano, Castell'Arquato, Castel San Giovanni and the Val Nure. Oddi had a protest against the oath printed in Bologna, while Bishop Marazzani was sent by the regent Dorotea to see to it that, in exchange for papal investiture, the infant recognized the Church's feudal rights and paid an annual tribute to Rome; but these negotiations were unsuccessful.

Meanwhile, Don Carlo, on his way to Florence, was struck down by smallpox in a rather mild form in Pisa; the disease, however, forced him to stay in bed for some time and left him with a few scars on his face. He entered the Medici capital in triumph on March 9, 1732, with a retinue of more than 250 people, later joined by many Italians. Although the Spanish infante had been imposed on him as his successor by the European powers, Gian Gastone de' Medici welcomed him warmly, and hosted him in the grand ducal residence of Palazzo Pitti.

Upon his arrival in the peninsula, the young infant was not yet sixteen years old. According to contemporaries, the strict education he had been given in Spain had not played an important role in his formation. Alvise Mocenigo, ambassador of the Venetian Republic in Naples, said years later that "he always kept an education far removed from all study and application in order to become by himself capable of government." Of the same opinion was Count Ludovico Solaro di Monasterolo, Savoy ambassador, who in 1742 described him thus to his king:

In return he studied painting and engraving and practiced various physical activities, fishing and hunting above all. Sir Horace Mann, a British diplomat in Florence, recounts that his passion for hunting was such that at the Pitti Palace "he amused himself by shooting with bow and arrow at the tapestries that hung on the walls of his rooms, and he had become so skillful in this, that it was rare that he did not hit the eye at which he aimed." Very religious and particularly respectful of his mother's authority, however, Don Carlo had a cheerful and exuberant disposition. His appearance was characterized by a very pronounced nose: in fact, he was described as "a swarthy boy, thin in the face, with a lot of nose, and as ungainly as ever."

On June 24, the feast day of Florence's patron saint St. John the Baptist, Gian Gastone named him grand crown prince of Tuscany, allowing him to receive the homage of the Florentine Senate, which according to tradition took an oath of allegiance in the hands of the heir to the grand ducal throne. Charles VI reacted angrily to the appointment, objecting that he had not yet been granted imperial investiture, but heedless of Austrian protests his parents sent him to take possession of the Farnese duchy as well. The new duke entered Parma in October 1732, greeted by great festivities. Parma resurget (Parma will rise again) was written on the pediment of the ducal palace, and the drama La venuta di Ascanio in Italia, composed for the occasion by Carlo Innocenzo Frugoni, was performed at the Teatro Farnese.

In 1733 Don Carlo's decision to renew the ancient Farnese claims to the Latium territories of Castro and Ronciglione, taken from the Farnese and annexed to the Papal States by Pope Innocent X in 1649, provoked new tensions with the Holy See.

Conquest of the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily

In 1733, the death of Augustus II of Poland triggered a succession crisis that broke the already precarious European balance, and the ensuing war saw on the Italian front France and Spain, allied under the first Bourbon family pact, facing Austria with the support of the Savoy.

The Spanish were given a marginal role in northern Italy, but Elisabeth Farnese's main goal was to win for her son the largest of the territories that the Treaty of Utrecht had taken from Spain: the kingdom of Naples and the kingdom of Sicily. These territories now all belonged to Austria since, in 1720, with the Treaty of the Hague, Emperor Charles VI of Hapsburg, already ruler of Naples, had obtained Sicily from the Savoy and ceded Sardinia to them.

The war provided the Farnese with an opportunity to seize the two kingdoms of southern Italy for her son, so that in the years 1734-1735 Spain embarked on a victorious military campaign, taking the two kingdoms from the Austrians. The command of the Spanish army, nominally in the hands of Charles, was in fact exercised by José Carrillo de Albornoz, Count of Montemar, who achieved the decisive victory at Bitonto on May 25, 1734, and entered Naples where he was proclaimed king (rex Neapolis) on May 17, 1734.

The following year he occupied the kingdom of Sicily. Charles was then crowned rex utriusque Siciliae, as Charles III, on July 3, 1735 in Palermo Cathedral, after making a journey by land to Palmi and by sea from Palmi to Palermo.

At first, so as not to irritate Emperor Charles VI, Pope Clement XII refused to grant investiture to the new ruler.

Charles was proclaimed king of Naples in the bull of investiture as Charles VII, but this name was never used by the ruler, who preferred not to affix any numeral after his name, to mark a clear discontinuity between his reign and those of predecessors who reigned from a foreign throne. In Sicily he was instead called Charles III. On the matter the contemporary Pietro Giannone wrote:

For all these reasons the new ruler preferred to use a titling without numbering in each of his decrees:

Peace with Austria and marriage

Negotiations to end the conflict led to the signing of the preliminary peace treaties on October 3, 1735, the provisions of which were later confirmed on November 18, 1738 by the Third Treaty of Vienna. The Bourbon-Sabuda coalition won the war, but the Polish throne was occupied by the Austro-Russian candidate Augustus III, formerly prince-elector of Saxony, under the name Frederick Augustus II.

Charles of Bourbon was recognized by all the European powers as the legitimate ruler of the two kingdoms, and he was also ceded the State of the Presidia, on the condition that these states would always remain separate from the Spanish crown. Meanwhile, with the court in Naples, he maintained the figure of the viceroy in the kingdom of Sicily by sending Bartolomeo Corsini there in 1737, but also that of the Sicilian parliament.

In those years the hopes placed in Don Carlo were such that the belief that he would unify the entire peninsula and assume the title of king of Italy was widespread. This prospect was also hoped for outside the Neapolitan borders, so much so that, two years after the conquest of Naples, the Piedmontese count exiled in Holland Alberto Radicati di Passerano made this appeal to him:

He was obliged, however, to relinquish the Duchy of Parma and Piacenza, which he ceded to the emperor, and the right of succession over the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, which was transferred to Francis Stephen of Lorraine, husband of Archduchess Maria Theresa, who became grand duke on the death of Gian Gastone de' Medici in 1737. Charles nevertheless retained for himself and his successors the titles of duke of Parma, Piacenza and Castro and hereditary grand prince of Tuscany, and he also obtained the right to transfer from Parma to Naples all the property inherited by the Farnese family, constituting the Farnese collection.

At the same time as the peace talks, Elisabeth Farnese began negotiations to secure an advantageous marriage for her son. With the possibility of obtaining the hand of one of the Austrian archduchesses having evaporated due to opposition from Vienna, and despite the fact that France proposed its princesses, the queen of Spain's choice fell on Maria Amalia of Saxony, daughter of the new king of Poland Augustus III. Farnese was intent on consolidating peace with Austria, and Maria Amalia, being the daughter of a granddaughter of Emperor Charles VI, was a viable alternative to one of the archduchesses.

The wedding promise was ratified on October 31, 1737. Maria Amalia was barely 13 years old at the time, so a papal dispensation for her age was necessary, obtained by Neapolitan diplomats along with permission for the wedding procession to cross the Papal States. The ceremony was performed by proxy in Dresden on May 9 the following year (the Neapolitan ruler was represented by the bride's older brother Frederick Christian). The wedding facilitated the conclusion of the diplomatic dispute with the Holy See: the day after the wedding, in fact, the papal bull proclaiming Charles king of Naples was signed.

The meeting between the newlyweds took place on June 19, 1738, in Portella, a town on the border of the kingdom near Fondi, and during the festivities, on July 3, King Charles established the distinguished and royal order of San Gennaro, the most prestigious order of knighthood in the Two Sicilies. Later, to reward the soldiers who had helped him in the conquest of the kingdom, he established the Royal Military Order of St. Charles (Oct. 22, 1738).

Early years of government

The beginnings of Charles of Bourbon's reign were marked by a strong dependence on the court in Madrid, where Elizabeth Farnese exerted her influence over Naples through two Spanish nobles to whom she had entrusted her son before sending him to Italy: the Count of Santisteban, prime minister and guardian of the king, and the Marquis of Montealegre, secretary of state. Santisteban in particular was for the first four years of Charles's reign the most powerful man in the Neapolitan court, so much so that he chose the king's acquaintances and friendships, making sure that no one assumed greater influence with the young ruler than his own. An authority that would last much longer than that of the two Spaniards was then gradually obtained by the jurist Bernardo Tanucci, who was able to establish himself as one of the most influential men in the court.

In 1738, Charles and Maria Amalia determined the downfall of the Count of Santisteban, whose intrusive tutelage they ill tolerated, and urged his recall to Spain. He was succeeded in the post of prime minister by another Spaniard, the Marquis of Montealegre, who was unable to gain any greater popularity at court than his predecessor, but whose position was firmly secured by the favor of Elisabeth Farnese, who through close epistolary contact with him exercised her control over her son.

War of Austrian Succession

The peace sanctioned in Vienna was short-lived: in 1740, upon the death of Charles VI of Habsburg, the disavowal of the Prammatica Sanzione triggered the last major war of succession. Spain, along with France and Prussia, opposed Maria Theresa's Austria and the coalition supporting it, which was joined by Britain and the Kingdom of Sardinia, among other states.

Charles proclaimed himself neutral, but when his father urged him to send troops to central Italy in support of Spanish troops, he sent twelve thousand men to the front, under the command of the Duke of Castropignano. Spain, while having Neapolitan troops in battle, hoped to take advantage of the neutrality of the Two Sicilies. However, Charles was forced to retrace his steps in August 1742, when British Commodore Martin, commanding a naval squadron that had entered the Gulf of Naples, threatened to bombard the city if he did not withdraw from the conflict. Montealegre, despite having been warned months earlier of the danger of a British naval incursion, convinced as he was that Naples was protected by its formal neutrality, was taken by surprise, and persuaded the king to give in to Britain's demands.

The King of Naples' declaration of neutrality was strongly blamed by the governments of France and Spain, which considered it proof of weakness, and on the other hand it was not taken into consideration by the enemy powers, who by the Treaty of Worms in September 1743 decided that Naples and the Presidia would revert to Austria and Sicily to the Savoy. The following November, Maria Theresa addressed the subjects of the kingdom of Naples with a proclamation, drafted by Neapolitan exiles in Vienna, in which she promised (in addition to the expulsion of the Jews introduced by Charles) pardons and various benefits, in the hope of an anti-Bourbon rebellion. The impending Austrian invasion rekindled the hopes of the pro-Habsburg party, which Tanucci repressed by ordering the arrest of more than eight hundred people.

From the court in Madrid, Charles' parents encouraged him to take up arms, pointing him to the example of his younger brother, the infant Philip, who had already distinguished himself on numerous battlefields. Risking losing the kingdom he had won just 10 years earlier, on March 25, 1744, after issuing a proclamation to reassure his subjects, King Charles finally took command of his army to counter the Austrian armies of the Prince of Lobkowitz, which were marching toward the Neapolitan border.

The participation of the Two Sicilies in the conflict culminated on August 11 in the decisive battle of Velletri, in which the Neapolitan troops, led by the king himself, the Duke of Modena Francesco III d'Este and the Duke of Castropignano, together with Spanish troops under the orders of the Count of Gages, decisively defeated Lobkowitz's Austrians, inflicting heavy losses. The courage shown by the Neapolitan sovereign in battle prompted the King of Sardinia Charles Emmanuel III, his enemy, to write that "he had revealed a constancy worthy of his blood and had behaved gloriously."

The victory of Velletri definitively assured King Charles of possession of the Two Sicilies. In addition, the Treaty of Aachen, concluded in 1748, assigned to his brother Philip the Duchy of Parma and Piacenza, united with the Duchy of Guastalla, thus increasing the Bourbon presence in Italy.

Emancipation from Spanish influence

The marquis of Montealegre, whose reputation suffered from his behavior during the English incursion of 1742, having attracted the dislike of Queen Maria Amalia, was recalled to his homeland in 1746. He was succeeded as prime minister by Giovanni Fogliani Sforza d'Aragona from Piacenza, whose appointment represented a step toward greater autonomy from the Spanish court. In July, the death of Philip V and the accession to the Spanish throne of his first-bed son Ferdinand VI, ending the power of Elizabeth Farnese, set the stage for the effective independence of the Two Sicilies from Spain. From this time Charles in fact began to rule independently, limiting the power of ministers linked to Madrid.

Tanucci continued to enjoy his authority, while he began the rise of Leopoldo de Gregorio, a Sicilian of modest origins, formerly an accountant for a trading firm that supplied the army, who won the king's favor thanks to his shrewdness, obtaining his appointment first as superintendent of customs (1746) and then as company secretary, replacing Giovanni Brancaccio (1753), as well as the titles of marquis of Vallesantoro (1753) and Squillace (1755). Charles nevertheless centralized the power of government on himself, overseeing the activities of his ministers, who were now reduced to executors of his directives.

Reform of Kingdom Institutions

Among Charles's first important measures were those aimed at reforming the legal system through the abolition of bodies established in the viceregal period that were unsuitable for an independent state such as the Kingdom of Naples had become. By a prammatic sanction dated June 8, 1735, the Collateral Council was abolished, and replaced in its functions by the Royal Chamber of Santa Chiara.

Starting in 1739, several projects were launched to reorganize the Neapolitan legislative complex, made chaotic by the coexistence of eleven legislations: Roman, Lombard, Norman, Swabian, Angevin, Aragonese, Spanish, Austrian, feudal, and ecclesiastical. The most ambitious was the one that involved not only the consolidation and collection of the prammatics, but the drafting of a true codification, the Code Carolino, which was worked on by a junta composed of, among others, jurists Michele Pasquale Cirillo (who was its main promoter and creator) and Giuseppe Aurelio di Gennaro and the Prince of San Nicandro Domenico Cattaneo. The work remained unfinished for a long time and was published in full only in 1789.

Another important reform was that of the tax system, implemented through the establishment of the cadastre onciario, with the royal dispatch of October 4, 1740 and the prammatica de forma censuali seu de capitatione aut de catastis of March 17, 1741. The cadastre, called onciario because the goods to be taxed were valued in ounces, in the king's intentions was supposed to make the distribution of the tax burden more equitable, making sure "that the burdens are distributed with equality, that 'l povero non sia caricata più delle sue deboli forze ed il ricco paghi secondo i suoi averi." However, its ineffectiveness in alleviating the tax burden on the humbler classes and the abuses of its application were criticized by economists Carlo Antonio Broggia (who for this in 1755 was made to be confined to Pantelleria by business secretary Leopoldo de Gregorio), Antonio Genovesi, Nicola Fortunato and Giuseppe Maria Galanti.

Religious politics

Clement XII died in 1740, and his successor, Benedict XIV, entered into a concordat with the Kingdom of Naples the following year that allowed the taxation of some clergy property, reduced the number of clergy and limited their immunities and the autonomy of separate jurisdiction through the establishment of a mixed tribunal.

In 1746 Cardinal Archbishop Spinelli attempted to introduce the Inquisition in Naples: the reaction of the Neapolitans, traditionally hostile to the ecclesiastical court, was violent. Implored by his subjects to intervene, King Charles entered the Basilica del Carmine and touching the altar with the tip of his sword swore that he would not allow the institution of the Inquisition in his kingdom. Spinelli, who until then had enjoyed the favor of the king and the people, was removed from the city. British ambassador Sir James Gray commented, "The manner in which the king behaved on this occasion is regarded as one of the most popular acts of his reign."

Economic and trade policy

In Naples the economic benefits of independence were immediately felt, so much so that as early as July 1734 the British consul Edward Allen wrote to the Duke of Newcastle, "it is certainly of advantage to this city and this kingdom that the Sovereign resides there since this causes money to be imported and none to be exported, which on the contrary happened to the utmost degree with the Germans who had dried up all the gold of the population and almost all the silver in order to be able to make large donations to the Emperor

In April 1738, the threat of Barbary pirates, who had been terrorizing the coasts of the Two Sicilies and undermining its maritime traffic for centuries, reached the point that a team of Algerian xebecs broke into the Gulf of Naples with the intention of kidnapping King Charles himself, while he was returning from a pheasant hunt on the island of Procida, to take him as a prisoner before the beau of Algiers. This daring raid prompted the Neapolitan government to take drastic measures against Barbary piracy: in those years the defense of the coasts was improved with the construction of new fortifications (an example is the Granatello fort in Portici), while the construction of a war fleet, the first nucleus of the Royal Navy, was begun. Diplomatic action was also taken: a treaty was made with Morocco regarding piracy (Feb. 14, 1739) and a "treaty of peace, navigation and free trade" with the Ottoman Empire (April 7, 1740), of which the Barbary states of the Maghreb (the regencies of Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli) were vassals. However, since Ottoman sovereignty over the African coast was purely nominal, the barbarian raids continued until the intervention of the Neapolitan navy, which defeated the pirates in numerous naval battles, in which Captain Giuseppe Martinez, remembered in popular lore as Capitan Peppe, particularly distinguished himself.

In order to increase the flow of credit and investment on the trade of the port of Naples, Charles invited Jews to settle in the kingdom, recalling the financial resourcefulness of the Jewish community of Livorno, which had contributed so much to enriching the Tuscan port. Already introduced into the kingdom by Frederick II of Swabia in 1220, and driven out by Charles V in 1540, two hundred years after their expulsion the Jews were called by an edict of Charles, issued on February 13, 1740, to dwell and trade in the Neapolitan kingdom for fifty years. The reborn Jewish community in Naples was granted protection, various privileges and immunities, as well as permission to build a synagogue, school and cemetery, and the faculty to practice medicine and surgery.

The edict unleashed a wave of anti-Semitism fomented by the clergy, and the king was the target of several libelous pamphlets, including one that mockingly attributed to him the titulus crucis ICRJ (Infans Carolus Rex Judæorum). The main agitators were the Jesuit Father Pepe, the king's confessor endowed with great influence, and a Capuchin friar, who went so far as to admonish the queen that she would never give birth to a boy until the Jews were driven out. Once again Charles pandered to the protests of the people, and with a new edict (July 30, 1747) banned the Jews, who had been welcomed seven years earlier.

To encourage economic development and trade initiatives, the Board of Trade, which had already been established in viceregal times, was reformed in 1735. This body was then replaced, by edict of Oct. 30, 1739, by the Supreme Magistrate of Commerce, endowed with absolute competence in matters of domestic and foreign trade, and equal in authority to the higher magistracies of the kingdom (on Nov. 29, one was also established for Sicily, based in Palermo). Even the effects of this reform were short-lived, however, because the guilds and baronage, whose interests had been harmed by the body's activities, determined in 1746 that it be downgraded to an ordinary magistracy and that its jurisdiction be limited to foreign trade only.

Trade and navigation pacts were also signed with Sweden (June 30, 1742) and Holland (August 27, 1753), and the old ones with Spain, France and Britain were confirmed.

Charles also founded schools for the production of important artistic manufactures: the Real Fabbrica degli Arazzi (1737) and the Real Laboratorio delle Pietre dure (1738), near the Church of San Carlo alle Mortelle, directed by Florentine artists invited to move to Naples after the death of Gian Gastone de' Medici; the Royal Porcelain Factory of Capodimonte (1743), built after his marriage to Maria Amalia, in which workers from the old factory in Meißen worked, whom the Elector of Saxony, his father-in-law, sent to Naples; and the Royal Factory of Majolica in Caserta, active only in the three-year period 1753-56.

Foreign Policy

The Two Sicilies remained neutral during the Seven Years' War (1756-1763), which broke out when Frederick II's Prussia invaded Saxony, the motherland of Queen Maria Amalia. In a letter to the Duke of St. Elizabeth, the Neapolitan ambassador in Dresden, Tanucci wrote, "here we grope for the Saxon camp and continually wait for some relay to bring us the freedom of that Sovereign in any way that does not offend decorum."

Charles and Tanucci feared the expansionist aims of Charles Emanuel III of Savoy, whom the Tuscan minister called the "Italian Frederick, whose power by usurping the land of his neighbors has increased." British Prime Minister William Pitt would have liked to create an Italian league to make the Neapolitan and Sardinian-Piedmontese kingdoms fight Maria Theresa's Austria united, but Charles refused to join. The choice was blamed by the Neapolitan ambassador to Turin, Domenico Caracciolo, who wrote:

Relations were also strained with the Republic of Genoa, as Pasquale Paoli, general of the independence rebels from Còrsi, was an officer in the Neapolitan army, and the Genoese suspected him of receiving aid from the Kingdom of Naples.

Architectural works and archaeological discoveries

Intent on transforming Naples into a great European capital, Charles commissioned Giovanni Antonio Medrano and Angelo Carasale to build a grand opera house, which was to replace the small Teatro San Bartolomeo. The building was constructed in about seven months, from March to October 1737, and was inaugurated on November 4, the king's name day, from which it took the name Real Teatro di San Carlo. The following year Charles commissioned the same architects, joined this time by Antonio Canevari, to build the palaces of Portici and Capodimonte. The former was for years the preferred residence of the sovereigns, while the latter, initially conceived as a hunting lodge because of the vast wooded surrounding area, was later intended to house the Farnese works of art that Charles had transferred from Parma.

Desiring to build a palace that could rival Versailles in magnificence, in 1751 King Charles decided to build a royal residence in Caserta, a location where he already owned a hunting pavilion and which reminded him of the landscape surrounding the Royal Palace of Granja de San Ildefonso in Spain. Tradition has it that his choice fell on that city because it, being far from Vesuvius and the sea at the same time, guaranteed protection in case of volcano eruption and enemy incursions. The Dutch-Italian architect Luigi Vanvitelli was commissioned for the construction, and he officially began work on January 20, 1752, the king's 36th birthday, after a pompous ceremony.

Vanvitelli was also assigned the task of designing the Fòro Carolino in Naples (today Piazza Dante, then called Largo del Mercatello). The Fòro Carolino was built in the shape of a hemicycle and surrounded by a colonnade, at the top of which were placed twenty-six statues depicting the virtues of King Charles, some of them sculpted by Giuseppe Sanmartino. The central niche of the colonnade was to have housed an equestrian statue of the sovereign, which was never made. Inscriptions by Alessio Simmaco Mazzocchi were engraved on the pedestal.

Constructions reflecting the enlightened spirit of Charles' reign were the hotels for the poor in Palermo and Naples, buildings where the destitute, unemployed and orphans would receive hospitality, nourishment and education. Work on the first, located on the road leading from Porta Nuova to Monreale, began on April 27, 1746. The construction of the Neapolitan palace, inspired by the Dominican preacher Gregory Maria Rocco, was entrusted to the architect Ferdinando Fuga and began instead on March 27, 1751. The volume of the colossal building, with a front of 354 meters, measures only the fifth part of that envisaged by the original design (front of 600 meters, side of 135). The square in front of the main facade was called Reclusorio Square, after the popular name of the building, until 1891, when it was renamed Charles III Square.

November 1738 saw the beginning of the season of great Neapolitan archaeological research, which unearthed the ancient Roman cities of Herculaneum, Pompeii and Stabia, which had been submerged by the great eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD. The excavations, led by engineers Roque Joaquín de Alcubierre and Karl Jakob Weber, aroused great interest in the king, who wanted to be informed daily of the new discoveries and often traveled to the research sites in order to admire the finds. He later entrusted the management of the great historical and artistic heritage discovered to the Herculaneum Academy, which he established in 1755.

Historiographical judgment

As king of the Two Sicilies, Charles of Bourbon has traditionally enjoyed a positive judgment from historians, unlike the other rulers of the Bourbon dynasty of the Two Sicilies of which he was the progenitor, having been-as Benedetto Croce explains-"in competition extolled by writers of both political parties that have divided southern Italy in the last century: by the Bourbons, in homage to the founder of the dynasty, and by the liberals, who, making them pro of the encomiums made to the government of King Charles, took pleasure in contrasting the first Bourbon of Sicily, not a Bourbon, with his degenerate successors." Prominent among the latter was Pietro Colletta, a supporter of the republic of 1799 and later a Murattian general, who in his Storia del reame di Napoli dal 1734 fino al 1825, at the end of his narrative of Charles' reign, depicted the regret of the Neapolitans over the departure of the "good king" as "presaging the sadness of future kingdoms."

Such a celebratory reading was severely attacked by Michelangelo Schipa, author of the seminal Il regno di Napoli al tempo di Carlo di Borbone (1904), in which the limits of the sovereign's reforming action were analyzed, arriving at the conclusion that "a King Charles regenerator of our spirit and fortunes, and a happy age of our past, vanish to the eye of the beholder free of all passion." In writing this work Schipa also used a rare contemporary writing radically hostile to Charles, the De borbonico in Regno neapolitano principatu by Marquis Salvatore Spiriti, a lawyer from Cosenza who was sentenced to exile as an exponent of the pro-Austrian party.

Schipiana's work was reviewed by Benedetto Croce (to whom, moreover, it had been dedicated), who - while acknowledging its great historiographical value, and admitting the need for "a careful revision" of the Caroline period, made necessary by the "several laudatory exaggerations" - criticized its demolishing approach and its recourse to "an acrimonious and satirical intonation," finally reproaching Schipa for having "sinned with that excessive purpose of impartiality, which translates into an effective partiality in an adverse sense." For his part, Croce, after listing the main achievements of the twenty-five years of his reign, concluded instead that "they were years of decisive progress."

Among contemporary historians, Giuseppe Galasso described the reign of Charles of Bourbon as the beginning of the "finest hour" in the history of Naples.

Ascension to the throne of Spain

The contracting powers of the Treaty of Aachen (1748) stipulated that, should Charles be called to Madrid to succeed his half-brother Ferdinand VI, whose marriage was barren, he would be succeeded in Naples by his younger brother Philip I of Parma, while the latter's possessions would be divided between Maria Theresa of Austria (Parma and Guastalla) and Charles Emmanuel III of Savoy (Piacenza), by virtue of their "right of reversion" over those territories. On the strength of the right to hand down the Neapolitan throne to his descendants, recognized to him by the Treaty of Vienna (1738), Charles did not ratify the Treaty of Aachen or even the subsequent Treaty of Aranjuez (1752), concluded between Spain, Austria and the Kingdom of Sardinia, which confirmed what had been decided by the former.

Referring to Spanish Secretary of State José de Carvajal y Lancaster, architect of the Aranjuez Agreement, Tanucci summarized the matter in these terms:

In order to safeguard the rights of his lineage, King Charles entered into diplomatic negotiations with Maria Theresa and in 1758 concluded with her the Fourth Treaty of Versailles, under which Austria renounced the Italian duchies and consequently stopped supporting Philip's bid for the Neapolitan throne. Charles Emmanuel III, on the other hand, continued to claim Piacenza, and when Charles deployed his troops on the Papal border to oppose the Savoy plans, war seemed inevitable. Through the mediation of Louis XV, who was related to both, the king of Sardinia finally had to give up Piacenza and settle for financial compensation.

Meanwhile, Ferdinand VI of Spain, distraught over the death of his wife Maria Barbara of Braganza, began to show symptoms of the form of mental illness that had already afflicted his father, and on December 10, 1758, after naming Charles his universal heir, he retired to Villaviciosa de Odón, where he died the following August 10. Charles was then proclaimed king of Spain under the name Charles III, and provisionally assumed the title "lord" of the Two Sicilies, renouncing that of king as required by international treaties, pending the appointment of a successor to the throne of Naples.

As the eldest male son Philip suffered from mental infirmity, the title of Prince of Asturias, due to the heir to the Spanish throne, was assigned to his younger brother Charles Anthony. The right to inherit the Two Sicilies then passed to the third male Ferdinand, hitherto destined for an ecclesiastical career, who was recognized by Austria with the Treaty of Naples of October 3, 1759, and to cement the understanding with the Habsburgs was destined to marry one of Maria Theresa's daughters. Neapolitan diplomacy thus succeeded in securing Austrian protection for the new king while at the same time curtailing Savoy ambitions.

On Oct. 6, sanctioning through a prammatic sanction the "division of the Spanish power from the Italian," Charles abdicated in favor of Ferdinand, who became king at only eight years old with the name Ferdinand IV of Naples and III of Sicily.

He also entrusted him to a regency council of eight members, including Domenico Cattaneo, the prince of San Nicandro (kneeling in the picture of Maldarelli's abdication) and Bernardo Tanucci, with the task of ruling until the young king turned sixteen; but the most important decisions would still be made in person by Charles himself in Madrid, through a dense correspondence with both the prince of San Nicandro and Bernardo Tanucci. The other sons, except Philip, embarked instead with their parents for Spain, and Leopoldo de Gregorio, the marquis of Squillace (who became Esquilache in Spain), also left in their wake.

Unlike when he moved from Parma to Naples, Charles did not take with him to Spain artistic goods belonging to the Two Sicilies. One anecdote has it that before embarking he removed a ring he had found during a visit to the archaeological excavations in Pompeii from his finger, believing it to be the property of the Neapolitan state. Instead, it is said that he took some of the blood of St. Gennaro with him to Madrid, almost completely emptying one of the two ampullae kept in Naples Cathedral.

The fleet set sail from the port of Naples on October 7 amid the commotion of the Neapolitans, and arrived in that of Barcelona ten days later, greeted by the enthusiasm of the Catalans. In celebrating the new ruler, they shouted, "¡Viva Carlos III, el verdadero!" ("Long live the real Carlos III!"), so as not to confuse him with the pretender they had supported in opposition to his father Philip V during the War of the Spanish Succession, Archduke Charles of Habsburg (later emperor as Charles VI), who had already been acclaimed king under the name Charles III in Barcelona itself. Pleased with the warm reception, the new king of Spain restored to the Catalans some of the privileges they had enjoyed before the 1640 uprising, and several among those his father had abolished with the decrees of Nueva Planta in retaliation for the support given to his rival during the War of Succession.

He left Italy but not the management of the two kingdoms: given his son's younger age, the regency council always operated under his directives, until 1767 when Ferdinand turned 16 and came of age.

King of Spain

Unlike the Neapolitan period, his performance as King of Spain is seen as a mixture of light and shadow.

His foreign policy of friendship toward France and renewal of the family pact, in fact, prompted him to an improvised intervention in the last phase of the Seven Years' War, in which the Spanish army failed in its attempt to invade Portugal, a traditional British ally, while the Spanish navy not only failed to besiege Gibraltar, but lost the strongholds of Cuba and Manila to the British.

The Peace of Paris, therefore, despite the acquisition of Louisiana, strengthened English dominance of the seas even more to the great disadvantage of Spain.

In 1770 another unsuccessful adventure saw him again face Britain in a diplomatic crisis over possession of the Falkland Islands. In 1779, albeit reluctantly, he supported France and the newly formed United States of America in the American War of Independence, even though he was aware that the independence of the British colonies would, shortly thereafter, have an ominous influence on the holding of the Spanish colonies of America.

Failures in foreign policy prompted the ruler to focus mainly on domestic policy with the aim of modernizing society and the structure of the state on the model of enlightened despotism with the help of a few well-selected officials chosen from the petty nobility: the Marquis of Squillace, the Marquis of Ensenada, the Count of Aranda, Pedro Rodríguez de Campomanes, Ricardo Wall and Grimaldi.

Reforms of the Marquis of Squillace

On August 10, 1759 he was crowned king of Spain. Upon ascending the throne Charles III appointed the Marquis of Squillace as minister of finance who was given important powers in religious and military matters.

The Marquis' goal was to increase tax revenues in order to finance the navy and army reconstruction program as well as to protect manufacturing activities. This goal was achieved by increasing the tax burden and establishing a National Lottery while the grain trade was liberalized in the hope that increased competition would prompt owners to make improvements in crops.

Although vigorously supported by other ministers as well, the liberalization of the grain trade did not have the desired effects due to bad harvests at the European level that encouraged speculation.

The situation degenerated in March 1766 provoking the Motin de Esquillace (transl. it.: the revolt against the Squillace). A pretext for the insurrection was the order to replace the wide-brimmed hat typical of the working class with the tricorn; posters posted throughout Madrid by the more reactionary sectors of the clergy and nobility, exacerbated by the abolition of certain tax privileges, further ignited the protest and helped channel it toward the government's reformist policy.

The population headed for the Royal Palace, gathering in the square while the Walloon Guard, an escort since the marriage of Maria Isabella of Bourbon-Parma to the future Emperor of Austria Joseph II in 1764, opened fire.

After a brief and intense melee between the parties, the king preferred not to further exacerbate tempers and did not send in the royal guard while the crown council remained divided over opposing solutions and, shortly before the incident, the Count of Revillagigedo resigned from his duties to avoid being forced to order open fire on the rioters.

From Madrid the revolt spread to cities such as Cuenca, Zaragoza, La Coruña, Oviedo, Santander, Bilbao, Barcelona, Cadiz and Cartagena.

It must, however, be stressed that while in Madrid the protest was directed toward the national government, in the provinces the target was the intendants and local officials due to cases of embezzlement and corruption.

The aims of the rioters were as follows: reduction of food prices, abolition of the order on clothing, dismissal of the Marquis of Squillace and general amnesty; demands that were all granted by the King.

Squillace was replaced by the Count of Aranda, a trade treaty with Sicily allowed for increased imports of Wheat while the new government reformed the provincial councils by adding deputies elected by the local population to the royal-appointed officials.

Expulsion of the Jesuits

Having fallen out of favor with the Marquis of Squillace, the king leaned on Spanish reformers such as Pedro Rodriguez Campomanes, the Count of Aranda or the Count of Floridablanca.

Campomanes, first, set up a commission of inquiry to investigate whether the uprising had had instigators and then identified them as the Jesuits, justifying his claim with the following charges:

As a result, despite protests from strong sectors of the aristocracy and clergy, a royal decree of Feb. 27, 1767, required local officials to seize the assets of the Society of Jesus and order their expulsion.

Reforms

The expulsion of the Jesuits had, however, deprived the country of many teachers and literati, generating great damage to the Iberian educational system.

To this end, the king and ministers encouraged numerous scholars to move to the country while the wealth of the Jesuits, at least in part, was used for the purpose of boosting scientific research.

In 1770, the Estudios de San Isidro, a modern high school was established in Madrid for the purpose of serving as a model for future institutions while numerous schools of arts and crafts, today's vocational schools, were founded in order to provide the productive class with adequate technical training and to reduce the problem, felt since the time of Philip II of the shortage of skilled labor.

The university was also reorganized along the lines of that of Salamanca so as to encourage scientific and practical studies over the humanities.

After education, the reform drive invested agriculture, which was still tied to the latifundium; José de Gálvez and Campomanes, influenced by the physiocracy focused their activities on the promotion of crops and the need for a more equitable distribution of land ownership.

Sociedades Económicas de Amigos del País were formed to boost agricultural activities while the power of the mesta, the guild of transhumant herders, was reduced.

In 1787, Campomanes drew up a state-funded program to repopulate the uninhabited areas of the Sierra Morena, Guadalquivir Valley with the construction of new villages and public works under the supervision of Pablo de Olavide who also ensured the input of German and Flemish, obviously Catholic labor to promote agriculture and industry in an uninhabited area threatened by banditry.

In addition to this, the colonial army was reorganized while naval arsenals were strengthened.

Also notable was legislation to promote trade, such as the defiscalization of new trading companies, the liberalization of trade with the colonies resulting in the abolition of the royal monopoly (1778), the establishment of the Bank of San Carlos in 1782, the construction of the Royal Canal of Aragon and work on the Spanish road network.

In 1787, the census was called for the purpose of reducing the population deficit and encouraging an increase in the birth rate, as well as for tax purposes so as to ensure greater efficiency in collection and reduce fraud on taxable returns and estates.

He was not particularly active legislatively although, under Beccaria's influence, he restricted the death penalty to the military code only and abolished torture; he did not succeed in abolishing the Spanish Inquisition altogether but nevertheless imposed such limits as to render it effectively almost inoperative.

Finally, the plan to develop manufacturing activities, especially fine goods such as the Porcelain of the Buen Retiro, the glassworks of the royal palace de la Granja, and the Martinez silverware, was remarkable, though overly ambitious.

However, neither this nor the chambers of commerce succeeded in stimulating, except in Asturias and the coastal regions, primarily Catalonia, other subsidiary activities even though the production of processed wool experienced some increase.

Mayor of Madrid

Special care and concern Charles III had for the city of Madrid, whose lighting, garbage collection and sewage services he oversaw.

The development of the city was stimulated with a rational land-use plan, numerous avenues and public parks were built, the Botanical Garden, The St. Charles Hospital (now the Maria Sofia Museum) and the construction of the Prado, which he intended to allocate as a natural history museum.

This activity made him particularly popular with Madrilenians so much so that he earned the nickname el Mejor Alcalde de Madrid ("the best mayor of Madrid").

Nobility

Decreased in number as a result of the exclusion of the petty nobility from the census at the express wish of the king, it accounted for 4 percent of the total population.

However, however reduced in number, intact was its economic power also guaranteed by frequent marriages within the same class, a custom that reduced the dispersion of assets.

In 1783, with the aim of strengthening the economic position of the aristocracy, a decree recognized the possibility for the aristocracy to engage in manual labor as well, while the granting of numerous titles by Philip V and Charles III himself as well as the founding of the Military Order of Charles III ensured their social primacy, in compensation for the abolition of numerous tax privileges.

Clergy

Although it constituted 2 percent of the population, according to the Ensenada Cadastre it owned one-seventh of Castile's arable land and one-tenth of its livestock while income from real estate rentals, tithe collection, and donations ensured substantial revenues. The diocese was the richest in Toledo, with an annual income of 3.5 million reals.

Third State

It constituted the remaining part of the population: it consisted mainly of peasants, whose conditions improved as a result of greater political and economic stability, and was timidly joined by a core of laborers.

Also very important were artisans whose wages, according to the cadastre, accounted for more than 15 percent of total wealth and a small bourgeois class of merchants, officials, traders and owners of manufactures, linked to Enlightenment instances and particularly influential in the capital, Cadiz, Barcelona and the Basque Country.

Gypsies

Following the failure of the Grand Redada in 1749, the situation of the Gypsy people became problematic.

Various legislative initiatives, culminating in a royal pragmatics of September 19, 1783, attempted to promote their peaceful assimilation by prohibiting the use of the words gypsy or castellano novo, which were felt to be offensive; granting them freedom of residence, except with the Court; and prohibiting occupational discrimination.

Alongside these initiatives, the wearing of robes, nomadic life, and the use of language were banned, establishing as sanctions the branding on the back in the case of a first arrest and, in the case of a second arrest, capital punishment; children under the age of ten were separated from their families and educated at special facilities.

On September 3, 1770 Charles III declared the Marcha Granadera march of honor, formalizing its use on solemn occasions. It has been used de facto as Spain's national anthem ever since, with the exception of the brief period of the Second Republic (1931-1939).

Charles III is also credited with the paternity of the current Spanish flag, the rojigualda (literally "red-gold"), whose colors and design are derived from those of the pabellón de la marina de guerra, a navy flag introduced by the king on May 28, 1785. Until then, the traditional white Bourbon ensign with the sovereign's coat of arms had flown on Spanish warships, which was replaced because it was difficult to distinguish from the flags of other Bourbon kingdoms.

By Maria Amalia of Saxony, his only wife, Charles had thirteen children, of whom only eight reached adulthood. They were all born in Italy.

The ruler always remained faithful to his consort, unusual conduct at a time when in the courts love was perceived primarily as an extramarital amusement. Charles de Brosses, on a visit to Naples, about his affection for his wife wrote: "I have noticed that there is no bed in the king's room, so punctual is he to go to sleep in the queen's room. No doubt this is a fine example of marital assiduity." He observed strict chastity even when the queen's untimely death in 1760 left him a widower at only forty-four years of age. Although all European courts hoped for his second marriage, strong in his religious convictions he observed strict sexual abstinence, resisting political pressure, proposals for alliances, and attempts at seduction.

Sources

1. Charles III of Spain
2. Carlo III di Spagna
3. ^ Secondo l'investitura papale, doveva esser chiamato Carlo VII come re di Napoli, ma non volle mai usare tale ordinale, firmandosi semplicemente Carlo.
4. ^ Elisabetta era figlia di Odoardo II Farnese e Dorotea Sofia di Neuburg. Dopo la morte di Odoardo, Dorotea ne sposò il fratello minore Francesco, che quindi era allo stesso tempo zio e patrigno di Elisabetta.
5. ^ Queste qualità della Farnese, contrapposte al carattere instabile di Filippo, indussero lo storico Michelangelo Schipa ad affermare che Carlo era nato «da un principe francese, che valeva men di una donna e da una principessa italiana, che valeva assai più di un uomo» (Schipa, p. 70; Gleijeses, p. 44).
6. ^ Italian: Carlo Sebastiano; Sicilian: Carlu Bastianu
7. Sa mère Dorothée Sophie de Neubourg après la mort de son père Édouard II Farnèse se marie le plus jeune frère François Farnèse.
8. Williams, Hugh Noel, Unruly daughters; a romance of the house of Orléans, 1913
9. Gleijeses, Don Carlos, Nápoles, Edizioni Agea, 1988, pp. 46–48.
10. Harold Acton, I Borboni di Napoli (1734–1825), Florence, Giunti, 1997, p. 18.