Charles III of Spain

gigatos | January 23, 2022

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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.

Firstborn of the second wedding of Philip V of Spain with 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, two Italian dynasties close to extinction. Thanks to an effective combination of diplomacy and armed interventions, the Farnese managed to obtain from the European powers the recognition of Charles” dynastic rights over the Duchy of Parma and Piacenza, of which he became duke in 1731, and over the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, where the following year he was declared grand prince (i.e. hereditary prince).

In 1734, during the War of Polish Succession, under the command of the Spanish armies he conquered the Kingdom of Naples and the following year that of Sicily, subtracting them from the Austrian domination. In 1735 he was crowned king of Sicily in Palermo, and in 1738 he was recognized as sovereign of the two kingdoms by the peace treaties, in exchange for the renunciation of the Farnese and Medici states in favor of the Habsburgs and Lorraine. Parent of the dynasty of the Bourbon Two Sicilies, inaugurated a new period of political revival, economic recovery and cultural development.

At the death of his half-brother Ferdinand VI in 1759, he was called to succeed him on the throne of Spain, where, in order to modernize the country, he promoted a reformist policy that earned him the reputation of enlightened monarch. In foreign policy, however, he was unsuccessful because of the alliance with France, sanctioned by the third Bourbon family pact, which led him to oppose the maritime power of Great Britain.

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Ambitions of Spain at the birth of Don Carlo

The Treaty of Utrecht, which in 1713 contributed to the conclusion of the War of Spanish Succession, greatly reduced the political and military weight of Spain, whose empire remained the largest existing, retaining the American colonies, but was greatly reduced by the loss of numerous European domains. The Southern Netherlands, the Kingdom of Naples, the Kingdom of Sardinia, the Duchy of Milan and the State of Presidia passed to Austria; the Kingdom of Sicily was ceded to the Savoy; while the island of Minorca and the Rock of Gibraltar, lands of the Iberian motherland, were occupied by Great 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 prelate from Piacenza Giulio Alberoni arranged an advantageous marriage 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 acquired a great influence on the court and together with Alberoni, appointed prime minister in 1715, she was the promoter of an aggressive foreign policy, aimed at reconquering the ancient Spanish possessions in Italy.

In 1716, after little more than a year of marriage, the Farnese gave birth to the infant Don Carlo, who seemed to have little chance to occupy the Spanish throne, since in the line of succession he was preceded by his half-brothers Luigi and Ferdinando. On his mother”s side he could instead aspire to inherit the Duchy of Parma and Piacenza from the Farnese family, a dynasty that was now drawing to a close, because Duke Francesco had no children, as well as his only brother Antonio. Being the great-granddaughter of Margherita de” Medici, Queen Elisabetta handed down to her firstborn also rights on the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, where the old Grand Duke Cosimo III had as the only possible heir his son Gian Gastone, lacking of descendants and known for his homosexuality.

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Treaties of London, The Hague, Vienna and Seville

The birth of Don Carlo occurred at a time when the Spanish plan to challenge the order established in Utrecht represented the most serious threat to the European balance. To face the expansionism of Bourbon Spain, Great Britain, France and the United Provinces in 1717 formed an anti-Spanish coalition called Triple Alliance, but despite this Philip V and Alberoni decided the occupation of Austrian Sardinia and Savoy Sicily, in an attempt to reannex the two islands to the Iberian crown.

On August 2, 1718, through the Treaty of London, also the Holy Roman Empire joined the coalition against Spain, which took the name of Quadruple Alliance. As a condition of peace the four powers imposed to Philip V to adhere to the treaty of London, which provided for his renunciation to every pretension on the Italian states; but the Spanish sovereign refused, giving so beginning to the war of the Quadruple Alliance. The conflict ended with a new Spanish defeat, and to pay the political consequences was above all 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.

As regards the dynastic rights of don Carlo over the Grand Duchy of Tuscany and the Duchy of Parma and Piacenza, the treaty established that, in the event of the extinction of the male lines of the Medici and the Farnese, since both Elisabetta Farnese and the 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 feudatory of the emperor, who undertook to grant him the investiture.

After the war, Spain approached France through three engagements: to the French king Louis XV, eleven years old, was promised the infanta Marianne Victoria, his cousin, three years old; the prince of Asturias Louis, heir to the Spanish throne, and the infante Don Carlos, heir to the Italian duchies, would have instead married two daughters of the regent Philip II of Orleans, respectively Louise Elizabeth and Philippa Elizabeth. Prince Louis married Luisa Elisabeth in 1722, and two years later Philip V abdicated in her favor, but after only seven months of reign the new king of Spain died of smallpox, forcing his father to resume the crown. Elisabeth Farnese, back to being the queen consort, became in this period even more influential because her husband, oppressed by a strong depression, left her as mistress of the Spanish court.

In 1725 the French broke off the engagement of Louis XV with the infanta Marianne Victoria, and in retaliation the Spanish broke off also the engagement between don Carlo and Philippa Elisabetta, who was sent back to France together with her sister the widowed queen.

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

The peace between the two powers was stipulated with the Treaty of Vienna in 1725, which sanctioned the definitive renunciation of the Emperor Charles VI to the Spanish throne, while Philip V renounced his rights over the 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 Carlo.

This agreement was broken after the Anglo-Spanish war (1727-1729), when the emperor denied his consent to the engagement, pushing Philip V to break the pacts with Austria and to enter into the Treaty of Seville with Great Britain and France. This last agreement guaranteed Don Carlo the right to occupy Parma and Piacenza even by force of arms.

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End of the Farnese family and arrival in Italy

At the death of Duke Antonio Farnese, which occurred on January 20, 1731, Count Daun, Austrian governor of Milan, ordered the occupation of the Farnese duchy in the name of Don Carlo, feudatory of the emperor by virtue of the Treaty of London. However, the late Duke of Parma in his will had appointed as heir the “pregnant belly” of his wife Enrichetta d”Este, wrongly 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 boy, this would have bypassed the eldest son of Elisabetta Farnese 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 tried to assert the ancient feudal rights of the Holy See over the duchy, and to this end he ordered the occupation to his army, which was preceded by the imperial army. The pontiff then wrote letters of protest to the major Catholic courts of Europe to assert his reasons, and sent Monsignor Giacomo Oddi to Parma as apostolic commissioner, to claim the duchy if the pregnancy of the widowed duchess had proved non-existent. Since the imperial court remained insensitive to Rome”s protests, the pope recalled Cardinal Grimaldi, his apostolic nuncio to Austria, from Vienna.

On July 22, Spain adhered to the second treaty of Vienna, with which it obtained from the emperor the consent for the arrival of the infant in Italy, and in exchange it recognized the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713, a document that would allow the 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 gave him a precious sword that had belonged to Louis XIV, Don Carlo finally left for Italy. He traveled by land to Antibes on the French coast, from here he embarked for Tuscany, and arrived in Livorno on December 27, 1731.

Once the non-existence of Enrichetta d”Este”s pregnancy had been verified, the apostolic commissioner Oddi took possession of the duchy in the name of the Holy See, while the imperial plenipotentiary in Italy, count Carlo Borromeo Arese, did the same in the name of don Carlo. Finally, the imperial and Spanish reasons prevailed, so that on 29 December the regency of Parma in the name of the Infante was entrusted to Dorotea Sofia of Neuburg, his maternal grandmother and contuctor (the other contuctor was the Grand Duke of Tuscany Gian Gastone de” Medici), in whose hands were sworn the representatives of Parma and Piacenza, and the deputies of the communities of Cortemaggiore, Fiorenzuola, Borgo Val di Taro, Bardi, Compiano, Castell”Arquato, Castel San Giovanni and 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 the papal investiture, the infant recognized the feudal rights of the Church and paid an annual tribute to Rome; but these negotiations were unsuccessful.

Meanwhile, Don Carlo, on his way to Florence, was struck by smallpox in Pisa in a rather mild form; the disease, however, forced him to stay in bed for some time and left him with some scars on his face. He entered in triumph in the Medici capital on March 9, 1732, with a following of over 250 people, to which many Italians were added. Despite the fact that the Spanish Infante had been imposed 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 had not yet turned sixteen. According to contemporaries, the rigid education he had received in Spain had not played an important role in his formation. Alvise Mocenigo, ambassador of the Republic of Venice in Naples, years later said that “he always kept a very distant education from any study and any application to become by himself capable of government”. Of the same opinion was Count Ludovico Solaro di Monasterolo, Savoy ambassador, who in 1742 described him as follows to his king:

On the other hand, he studied painting and engraving and practiced various physical activities, especially fishing and hunting. 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 the tapestries that hung on the walls of his rooms with his bow and arrows, and had become so skilled in this that it was rare that he did not hit the eye at which he was aiming”. Very religious and particularly respectful of his mother”s authority, Don Carlo had a cheerful and exuberant character. His appearance was characterized by a very pronounced nose: he was described as “a dark-haired boy, thin in the face, with a lot of nose, and as ungainly as ever”.

On June 24, the feast of the patron saint of Florence, San Giovanni Battista, Gian Gastone named him grand hereditary prince of Tuscany, allowing him to receive the homage of the Florentine Senate, which, according to tradition, took an oath of fidelity in the hands of the heir to the grand ducal throne. Charles VI reacted angry to the nomination, objecting to have not yet granted him the imperial investiture, but heedless of the Austrian protests his parents sent him to take possession of the Farnese duchy. The new duke entered in Parma in October 1732, welcomed by great celebrations. On the pediment of the ducal palace was written Parma resurget (Parma will rise again), and at the Teatro Farnese was represented the drama La venuta di Ascanio in Italia, composed for the occasion by Carlo Innocenzo Frugoni.

In 1733 the decision of Don Carlo to renew the ancient Farnese claims on the Lazio territories of Castro and Ronciglione, taken away from the Farnese and annexed to the Papal State by Pope Innocent X in 1649, caused new tensions with the Holy See.

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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 resulting war saw on the Italian front France and Spain, allied with the first Bourbon family pact, facing Austria with the support of the Savoy.

The Spaniards were given a marginal role in northern Italy, but the main objective of Elisabetta Farnese was to conquer for her son the largest territories among those that the Treaty of Utrecht had taken away from Spain: the kingdom of Naples and the kingdom of Sicily. These territories all belonged to Austria, since, in 1720, with the Treaty of the Hague, the emperor Charles VI of Habsburg, already sovereign of Naples, had obtained Sicily from the Savoy, giving them Sardinia.

The war gave the Farnese the opportunity to conquer the two kingdoms of Southern Italy for their son, so in the years 1734-1735 Spain undertook a victorious military campaign taking the two kingdoms away 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 on May 25, 1734 achieved the decisive victory at Bitonto 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 the Cathedral of Palermo, after having made a journey by land to Palmi and by sea from Palmi to Palermo.

At first, in order not to irritate the Emperor Charles VI, Pope Clement XII refused to grant the investiture to the new sovereign.

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

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

Peace with Austria and marriage

Negotiations for the conclusion of the conflict led to the signing of the preliminary peace treaty on October 3, 1735, whose provisions were then confirmed on November 18, 1738 by the third treaty of Vienna. The Bourbon-Sabaud coalition won the war, but the Polish throne was occupied by the Austro-Russian candidate Augustus III, former Electoral Prince of Saxony, with the name of Frederick Augustus II.

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

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

However, he was obliged to renounce the Duchy of Parma and Piacenza, ceded to the Emperor, and the right of succession to the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, transferred to Francesco Stefano of Lorraine, husband of the Archduchess Maria Teresa, who became Grand Duke at the death of Gian Gastone de” Medici in 1737. Charles however kept 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 goods inherited by the Farnese, constituting the Farnese collection.

At the same time of the peace negotiations, Elisabetta Farnese began to negotiate in order to assure her son an advantageous marriage. Due to the opposition of Vienna, the possibility of obtaining the hand of one of the Austrian archduchesses failed, and despite France proposed her princesses, the choice of the queen of Spain fell on Maria Amalia of Saxony, daughter of the new king of Poland Augustus III. Farnese wanted to consolidate the peace with Austria, and Maria Amalia, being the daughter of a niece of the emperor Charles VI, represented a valid alternative to one of the archduchesses.

The wedding promise was ratified on October 31, 1737. Maria Amalia was only thirteen years old at the time, so a papal dispensation for her age was necessary, obtained by Neapolitan diplomats together with permission for the wedding procession to cross the Papal States. The ceremony was celebrated by proxy in Dresden on May 9 of the following year (the Neapolitan king was represented by the bride”s elder brother Federico Cristiano). The marriage facilitated the conclusion of the diplomatic dispute with the Holy See: the day after the wedding was in fact signed the papal bull proclaiming Charles King of Naples.

The meeting between the two spouses took place on June 19, 1738 in Portella, a locality on the border of the kingdom near Fondi, and during the period of celebrations, on July 3, King Charles established the distinguished and royal order of San Gennaro, the most prestigious chivalric order of the Two Sicilies. Later, in order to reward the soldiers who had helped him in the conquest of the kingdom, he instituted the Royal Military Order of Saint Charles (22 October 1738).

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First years of government

The beginning of the reign of Charles of Bourbon was characterized by a strong dependence on the court of Madrid, where Elisabeth Farnese exercised her influence on Naples through two Spanish nobles to whom she had entrusted her son before sending him to Italy: the Count of Santisteban, prime minister and tutor of the king, and the Marquis of Montealegre, secretary of state. Santisteban, in particular, was the most powerful man in the Neapolitan court for the first four years of Charles” reign, so much so that he chose the king”s acquaintances and friendships, making sure that no one had more influence over the young sovereign than he did. 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 impose himself as one of the most influential men of the court.

In 1738, Carlo and Maria Amalia determined the fall of the count of Santisteban, of which they did not tolerate the intrusive guardianship, and they solicited the recall in Spain. He was succeeded in the office of prime minister by another Spaniard, the Marquis of Montealegre, who was not able to gain a greater popularity at court than his predecessor, but whose position was firmly guaranteed by the favor of Elisabetta Farnese, who through close correspondence with him exercised her control over her son.

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War of Austrian Succession

The peace sanctioned in Vienna was short-lived: in 1740, on the death of Charles VI of Habsburg, the disavowal of the Pragmatic Sanction triggered the last great war of succession. Spain, together with France and Prussia, opposed the Austria of Maria Theresa and the coalition that supported her, which among other states joined Great Britain and the Kingdom of Sardinia.

Charles proclaimed himself neutral, but when his father urged him to send troops in central Italy in support of those Spanish, sent to the front twelve thousand men, under the command of the Duke of Castropignano. Spain, even though it had Neapolitan troops in battle, hoped to take advantage of the neutrality of the Two Sicilies. Charles, however, was forced to retrace his steps in August 1742, when the British Commodore Martin, in command of a naval squadron entered the Gulf of Naples, threatened to bombard the city if he had not withdrawn 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 convinced the king to give in to Britain”s demands.

The declaration of neutrality of the King of Naples was strongly criticized by the governments of France and Spain, who considered it a proof of weakness, and on the other hand it was not taken into consideration by the enemy powers, who with the Treaty of Worms of September 1743 decided that Naples and the Presidia would return to Austria and Sicily to the Savoy. In the following November, Maria Teresa turned to the subjects of the kingdom of Naples with a proclamation, written by Neapolitan exiles in Vienna, in which she promised (besides the expulsion of the Jews introduced by Charles) pardons and various benefits, in the hope of an anti-Bourbon rebellion. The imminent Austrian invasion rekindled the hopes of the pro-Hapsburg 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 to the example of his younger brother, the infant Philip, who had already distinguished himself on numerous battlefields. Risking losing the kingdom he had conquered ten years earlier, on March 25, 1744, after issuing a proclamation to reassure his subjects, King Charles finally took command of his army to oppose the Austrian armies of the Prince of Lobkowitz, which were marching towards 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, guided by the king himself, by the duke of Modena Francesco III d”Este and by the duke of Castropignano, together with the Spanish ones under the orders of the count of Gages, defeated clearly the Austrians of Lobkowitz, inflicting serious losses. The courage shown by the Neapolitan sovereign in battle pushed the king of Sardinia Carlo Emanuele III, his enemy, to write that “he had revealed a constancy worthy of his blood and that he had behaved gloriously”.

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

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Emancipation from Spanish influence

The marquis of Montealegre, whose reputation was affected by the behavior in occasion of the English incursion of 1742, having attracted the antipathy of Queen Maria Amalia, was recalled in 1746. He was succeeded in the office of prime minister by Giovanni Fogliani Sforza d”Aragona from Piacenza, whose appointment represented a step towards a greater autonomy from the Spanish court. In July the death of Philip V and the rise to the Spanish throne of his son Ferdinand VI, putting an end to the power of Elizabeth Farnese, laid the groundwork for the actual independence of the Two Sicilies from Spain. From this moment on, Charles began to rule autonomously, limiting the power of the ministers linked to Madrid.

Tanucci continued to enjoy his authority, while the rise of Leopoldo de Gregorio began, a Sicilian of modest origins, already accountant of a commercial firm that supplied the army, who won the favor of the king thanks to his shrewdness, obtaining the 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). Carlo centralized on himself the power of government, supervising the activity of his ministers, now reduced to executors of his directives.

Reform of the institutions of the Kingdom

Among the first important measures of Charles were those aimed at reforming the legal system through the abolition of organs established in the viceregal period, unsuitable for an independent state which had become the Kingdom of Naples. With a prammatic sanction dated June 8, 1735 the Collateral Council was abolished, and replaced in its functions by the Real Camera di Santa Chiara.

Starting from 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 provided not only the consolidation and collection of the Pragmatic, but the drafting of a real codification, the Code Carolino, which worked a junta composed, among others, by jurists Michele Pasquale Cirillo (who was the 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 onciary because the goods to be taxed were valued in ounces, in the intentions of the king should have made more equitable distribution of the tax burden, making sure “that the weights are equally distributed, that the poor is not charged more than his weak forces and the rich pay according to his possessions. However, its lack of effectiveness in alleviating the tax burden on the humblest classes and the abuses of its application were criticized by economists Carlo Antonio Broggia (who for this reason in 1755 was confined to Pantelleria by company secretary Leopoldo de Gregorio), Antonio Genovesi, Nicola Fortunato and Giuseppe Maria Galanti.

Religious Policy

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 the Cardinal Archbishop Spinelli tried 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, he 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. The 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.”

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Economic and trade policy

In Naples the economic advantages of independence were felt immediately, so much so that already in July 1734 the British consul Edward Allen wrote to the Duke of Newcastle: “it is certainly an advantage for this city and this kingdom that the Sovereign resides there because this means that money is imported and not exported, which instead happened to the highest degree with the Germans who had dried up all the gold of the population and almost all the silver in order to make large donations to the Emperor.

In April 1738, the threat of the Barbary pirates, who had been terrorizing the coasts of the Two Sicilies for centuries and undermining maritime traffic, 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 King of Algiers. This daring incursion pushed the Neapolitan government to take drastic measures against the Barbary piracy: in those years the defense of the coasts was improved with the construction of new fortifications (an example is given by the fortress of Granatello in Portici), while the construction of a war fleet was started, the first nucleus of the Royal Navy. There was also a diplomatic action: a treaty with Morocco regarding piracy (February 14, 1739) and a “treaty of peace, navigation and free trade” with the Ottoman Empire (April 7, 1740), of which the barbarian states of the Maghreb (the regencies of Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli) were vassals. However, since the Ottoman sovereignty over the African coasts was purely nominal, the barbarian raids continued until the intervention of the Neapolitan navy, which defeated the pirates in numerous naval battles, in which he distinguished himself in particular Captain Giuseppe Martinez, remembered in popular tradition as Captain Peppe.

In order to increase the flow of credits and investments on the traffic of the port of Naples, Charles invited the Jews to settle in the kingdom, recalling the financial initiative of the Jewish community of Livorno, which had contributed to enrich the Tuscan port. Already introduced into the kingdom by Frederick II of Swabia in 1220, and expelled 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 live and trade in the Neapolitan kingdom for fifty years. The reborn Jewish community of Naples obtained protection, various privileges and immunities, as well as permission to build a synagogue, a school and a cemetery, and the right 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 of great influence, and a Capuchin friar, who went so far as to warn the queen that she would never give birth to a son until the Jews had been expelled. Also this time Charles supported the protests of the people, and with a new edict (July 30, 1747) banned the Jews, welcomed seven years earlier.

In order to favour economic development and commercial initiatives, in 1735 the Giunta di Commercio (Board of Commerce) was reformed, already established in the viceregal period. This body was then replaced, by edict of October 30, 1739, by the Supreme Magistrate of Commerce, with absolute competence in matters of internal and foreign trade, and equal in authority to the higher magistracies of the kingdom (on November 29 was also established one for Sicily, with headquarters in Palermo). Also the effects of this reform were short-lived, because the corporations and the baronage, damaged in their own interests by the activity of the organ, in 1746 determined the downgrading to ordinary magistracy and the limitation of the jurisdiction only to foreign trade.

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 Great 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 the marriage with Maria Amalia, in which workers coming from the ancient factory of Meißen worked, that the Elector of Saxony, his father-in-law, sent to Naples; and the Royal Factory of Majolica of Caserta, active only in the three years 1753-56.

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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 homeland of Queen Maria Amalia. In a letter to the Duke of Santa Elisabetta, the Neapolitan ambassador in Dresden, Tanucci wrote: “here we are palpitating for the Saxon camp and we are continually waiting for some messenger to bring us the freedom of that Sovereign in any way that does not offend the decorum”.

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

Even with the Republic of Genoa, relations were tense, because Pasquale Paoli, general of the rebellious independent Corsicans, was an officer of the Neapolitan army, and the Genoese suspected that he received aid from the Kingdom of Naples.

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Architectural works and archaeological discoveries

Intent on transforming Naples into a great European capital, Charles entrusted Giovanni Antonio Medrano and Angelo Carasale with the task of building a large opera house, which was to replace the small Teatro San Bartolomeo. The building was built in about seven months, from March to October 1737, and was inaugurated on November 4, the name day of the king, from which it took the name of Real Teatro di San Carlo. The following year Charles commissioned to the same architects, supported this time by Antonio Canevari, the construction of the Royal Palace of Portici and Capodimonte. The first one was for years the favorite residence of the sovereigns, while the second one, initially conceived as a hunting lodge for the vast surrounding wooded area, was later intended to host the Farnese works of art that Charles had transferred from Parma.

Wishing to build a palace that could compete with Versailles in magnificence, in 1751 King Charles decided to build a royal residence in Caserta, a place where he already owned a hunting pavilion and that 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 eruption of the volcano and enemy incursions. The Dutch-Italian architect Luigi Vanvitelli was entrusted with the construction, and he officially began work on January 20, 1752, the king”s thirty-sixth birthday, after a sumptuous ceremony.

Vanvitelli was also assigned the task of designing the Faro Carolino in Naples (today Piazza Dante, then called Largo del Mercatello). The Forum Carolino was built in the form 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 which were sculpted by Giuseppe Sanmartino. The central niche of the colonnade should have housed an equestrian statue of the king, never made. On the pedestal were engraved inscriptions of Alessio Simmaco Mazzocchi.

Constructions that reflected the enlightened spirit of Charles” reign were the hotels for the poor in Palermo and Naples, buildings where the indigent, the unemployed and orphans would receive hospitality, food 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 Gregorio Maria Rocco, was entrusted to the architect Ferdinando Fuga and began 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 project (front of 600 meters, side of 135). The square in front of the main facade was called Piazza del Reclusorio, from the popular name of the palace, until 1891, when it was renamed Piazza Carlo III.

In November 1738 the season of the great Neapolitan archaeological research began, which brought to light the ancient Roman cities of Herculaneum, Pompeii and Stabia, submerged by the great eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD. The excavations, conducted by engineers Roque Joaquín de Alcubierre and Karl Jakob Weber, aroused great interest in the king, who wanted to be informed daily of new discoveries and often went to the places of research to admire the finds. He then entrusted the management of the great historical and artistic heritage found at the Accademia Ercolanese, which he established in 1755.

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Historiographic judgment

As king of the Two Sicilies, Charles of Bourbon has traditionally enjoyed a positive opinion from historians, unlike the other sovereigns of the Bourbon dynasty of the Two Sicilies of which he was the founder, having been – as Benedetto Croce explains – “exalted by the writers of both political parties that have divided southern Italy in the last century: from the Bourbons, in homage to the founder of the dynasty, and from the liberals, who, making them pro of the encomiums made to the government of king Charles, liked to contrast the first Bourbon of Sicily, not Bourbon, to his degenerate successors”. Among the latter, Pietro Colletta, supporter of the republic of 1799 and then Murat”s general, stands out. In his History of the Kingdom of Naples from 1734 to 1825, at the end of the narration of Charles” reign, he depicted the Neapolitans” regret for the departure of the “good king” as “presaging the sadness of future kingdoms”.

This celebratory reading was severely attacked by Michelangelo Schipa, author of the fundamental work Il regno di Napoli al tempo di Carlo di Borbone (1904), in which the limits of the reforming action of the sovereign were analyzed, reaching the conclusion that “a King Charles regenerator of our spirit and our fortune, and a happy age of our past, disappear to the eye of those who look without any passion”. In the writing of this work Schipa also used a rare contemporary writing radically hostile to Charles, the De borbonico in Regno neapolitano principatu of the Marquis Salvatore Spiriti, a lawyer from Cosenza sentenced to exile as a member of the pro-Austrian party.

Schipi”s work was reviewed by Benedetto Croce (to whom it was dedicated), who – while recognizing its great historiographical value, and admitting the need for “a careful revision” of the Carolino period, made necessary by the “several praising exaggerations” – he criticized the demolishing approach and the use of “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 defined the reign of Charles of Bourbon as the beginning of the “most beautiful hour” in the history of Naples.

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Ascension to the throne of Spain

The contracting powers of the Treaty of Aachen (1748) established that, should Charles be called to Madrid to succeed his half-brother Ferdinand VI, whose marriage was sterile, 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. Strong of the right to hand down the Neapolitan throne to his descendants, recognized by the Treaty of Vienna (1738), Charles did not ratify the Treaty of Aachen nor the subsequent Treaty of Aranjuez (1752), stipulated between Spain, Austria and the Kingdom of Sardinia, which confirmed what had been decided by the former.

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

In order to safeguard the rights of his lineage, king Charles started diplomatic negotiations with Maria Teresa and in 1758 he stipulated with her the fourth Versailles treaty, by virtue of which Austria renounced to the Italian duchies and consequently stopped supporting the candidacy of Philip to the Neapolitan throne. Charles Emmanuel III continued to claim Piacenza, and when Charles deployed his troops on the papal border to oppose the Savoy plans the war seemed inevitable. Thanks to the mediation of Louis XV, who was related to both of them, the king of Sardinia finally had to give up Piacenza and settle for a financial compensation.

In the meantime, Ferdinand VI of Spain, upset by the death of his wife Maria Barbara of Braganza, began to show the symptoms of that form of mental illness that had already struck his father, and on December 10, 1758, after having nominated Charles his universal heir, he retired to Villaviciosa de Odón, where he died on the following August 10. Charles was then proclaimed king of Spain with the name of Charles III, and provisionally assumed the title of “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.

Since the eldest son Philip was mentally ill, the title of Prince of Asturias, due to the heir to the Spanish throne, was assigned to his younger brother Charles Antonio. The right to inherit the Two Sicilies then passed to the third male Ferdinand, until then destined to an ecclesiastic career, who was recognized by Austria with the Treaty of Naples of October 3, 1759, and to cement the agreement with the Habsburgs was destined to marry one of the daughters of Maria Theresa. The Neapolitan diplomacy succeeded in assuring the new king the Austrian protection and at the same time to reduce the ambitions of the House of Savoy.

On October 6, sanctioning through a prammatic sanction the “division of the Spanish power from the Italian one”, Charles abdicated in favor of Ferdinand, who became king when he was only eight years old with the name of Ferdinand IV of Naples and III of Sicily.

He also entrusted him to a regency council composed of eight members, among which Domenico Cattaneo, prince of San Nicandro (kneeling in the picture of the abdication of Maldarelli) and Bernardo Tanucci, with the task of governing until the young king had not turned sixteen years old; but the most important decisions would still have taken in person the same Charles in Madrid, through a dense correspondence with both the prince of San Nicandro and Bernardo Tanucci. The other sons, except for Filippo, embarked with their parents for Spain, and Leopoldo de Gregorio, the marquis of Squillace (which in Spain became Esquilache), left with them.

Differently from what he did when he moved from Parma to Naples, Charles did not take with him to Spain artistic goods belonging to the Two Sicilies. An anecdote says that before embarking, he removed from his finger a ring he had found during a visit to the archaeological excavations of Pompeii, considering it as heritage of the Neapolitan State. It is said instead that he brought with him to Madrid part of the blood of San Gennaro, emptying almost completely one of the two cruets kept in the Cathedral of Naples.

The fleet set sail from the port of Naples on October 7 amidst the commotion of the Neapolitans, and arrived in the port of Barcelona ten days later, welcomed by the enthusiasm of the Catalans. In celebrating the new sovereign, 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 of Charles III in Barcelona itself. Pleased with the warm welcome, the new king of Spain returned to the Catalans some of the privileges they had enjoyed before the uprising of 1640, and several of those that 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 the minor age of his son, the regency council always operated according to his directives, until 1767 when Ferdinand turned 16 and reached his majority.

King of Spain

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

His foreign policy of friendship towards France and the renewal of the family pact, in fact, led him to an impromptu 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 even more the English domination of the seas to the great disadvantage of Spain.

In 1770 another unsuccessful adventure saw him again face Great Britain in a diplomatic crisis for the possession of the Falkland Islands. In 1779, although reluctantly, supported France and the newly born United States of America in the American War of Independence, although aware that the independence of the British colonies would, shortly thereafter, had a disastrous influence on the holding of the Spanish colonies in America.

The failures in foreign policy pushed the sovereign to focus mainly on domestic policy in order to modernize society and the structure of the state on the model of enlightened despotism with the help of a few well selected officials chosen among the small nobility: the Marquis of Squillace, the Marquis of Ensenada, the Count of Aranda, Pedro Rodríguez de Campomanes, Ricardo Wall and Grimaldi.

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Reforms of the Marquis of Squillace

On August 10, 1759 he was crowned king of Spain. Once on the throne, Charles III appointed the Marquis of Squillace as Minister of Finance who was given important powers in religious and military matters.

The goal of the Marquis was to increase tax revenues in order to finance the reconstruction program of the navy and the army as well as for the protection of manufacturing activities. This goal was achieved with an increase in taxation and the establishment of a National Lottery while the trade of grain was liberalized in the hope that greater competition would push the owners to improve the crops.

Although vigorously supported by other ministers, the liberalization of the grain trade did not have the desired effects due to bad harvests in Europe that encouraged speculation.

The situation degenerated in March 1766 provoking the Motin de Esquillace: the pretext for the insurrection was the order to replace the wide-brimmed hat typical of the popular classes with the tricorn; the posters affixed throughout Madrid by the most reactionary sectors of the clergy and nobility, exacerbated by the abolition of certain tax privileges, further aroused the protest and helped to channel it towards the reformist policy of the government.

The population headed towards the Royal Palace gathering in the square while the Walloon Guard, escort since the marriage of Maria Isabella of Bourbon-Parma with 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 the royal guard while the council of the crown remained divided on opposing solutions and, shortly before the incident, the Count of Revillagigedo resigned from his duties to avoid being forced to order to open fire on the rebels.

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

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

The objectives of the rioters were the following: reduction of food prices, abolition of the order on clothing, dismissal of the Marquis of Squillace and general amnesty; requests that were all accepted by the King.

Squillace was replaced by the Count of Aranda, a trade treaty with Sicily allowed to increase imports of wheat while the new government reformed the provincial councils adding to the officials of royal appointment some deputies elected by the local population.

Expulsion of the Jesuits

Having fallen into disgrace 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, established a commission of inquiry to investigate whether the revolt had had instigators then identifying them in the Jesuits, motivating his claim with the following charges:

As a result, despite the protests of strong sectors of the aristocracy and clergy, a royal decree of February 27, 1767 imposed on local officials the seizure of the assets of the Society of Jesus and to order their expulsion.

Reforms

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

To this end, the King and his ministers encouraged many scholars to move to the country while the wealth of the Jesuits, at least in part, was used to encourage scientific research.

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

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

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

The Sociedades Económicas de Amigos del País (Economic Societies of Friends of the Country) were created to encourage agricultural activities, while the power of the mesta, the guild of transhumant shepherds, was reduced.

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

In addition, the colonial army was reorganized and the naval arsenals were strengthened.

Also noteworthy was the legislation aimed at promoting trade, such as the defiscalization of new trading companies, the liberalization of trade with the colonies with the consequent 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, a census was taken in order to reduce the population deficit and encourage an increase in the birth rate, as well as for tax purposes to ensure greater efficiency in collection and reduce fraud on tax returns and taxable estates.

He was not particularly active in the legislative field even if, under Beccaria”s influence, he restricted the death penalty only to the military code and abolished torture; he was not able to abolish the Spanish Inquisition completely but he imposed limits that made it almost inoperative.

Finally, the plan for the development of manufacturing activities was remarkable, although overly ambitious, especially fine goods such as the Porcelain of Buen Retiro, the glassworks of the Royal Palace of La Granja and the Martinez silverware.

However, neither this nor the chambers of commerce were able to stimulate, except in Asturias and the coastal regions, primarily Catalonia, other subsidiary activities, even though the production of processed wool experienced a certain increase.

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Mayor of Madrid

Charles III had particular care and concern for the city of Madrid of which he took care of the lighting service, waste collection and sewage.

He stimulated the development of the city with a rational master plan, built numerous avenues and public parks, the botanical garden, the San Carlo hospital (now the Maria Sofia Museum) and the construction of the Prado, which he intended to use as a natural history museum.

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

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

In 1783, in order to strengthen the economic position of the aristocracy, a decree recognized the possibility for the aristocracy to dedicate themselves to manual work, while the concession of numerous titles by Philip V and Charles III himself, as well as the foundation of the military order of Charles III, guaranteed their social supremacy, in compensation for the abolition of numerous fiscal privileges.

Third State

It constituted the remaining part of the population: it was mainly made up of peasants, whose conditions improved as a result of greater political and economic stability, to which a nucleus of workers was timidly added.

Gypsies

Following the failure of the Gran Redada in 1749, the plight of the Gypsy people became problematic.

Various legislative initiatives, culminating in a Royal Pragmatic Act of September 19, 1783, attempted to promote their peaceful assimilation, forbidding the use of the words gypsy or castellano novo, felt to be offensive; granting them freedom of residence, except at the Court; and prohibiting professional discrimination.

Besides these initiatives, the use of clothes, nomadic life and the use of language were banned, establishing as a sanction the branding on the back in case of first arrest and, in case of second arrest, the death penalty; children under ten years of age were separated from their families and educated in special facilities.

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

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

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

The king was always faithful to his wife, an unusual conduct in an age in which in the courts love was mainly perceived as an extramarital entertainment. Charles de Brosses, on a visit to Naples, about his affection for his wife wrote: “I noticed that there is no bed in the king”s room, so punctual is he to go to sleep in the queen”s room. Undoubtedly this is a beautiful example of conjugal assiduity”. He observed a rigorous chastity even when in 1760 the premature death of the queen left him a widower at only forty-four years old. Despite the fact that all the European courts hoped for a second marriage, strong in his religious convictions he respected a strict sexual abstinence, resisting political pressure, proposals of alliance and attempts of seduction.

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Primary Sources

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