Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
1714
The end of the War of the Spanish Succession forces the withdrawal of Spanish forces from Lom-
bardy. The Spanish Bourbon family establishes an independent Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.
1737
Naples' original Teatro San Carlo is built in a swift eight months. Designed by Giovanni Antonio
Medrano, it was rebuilt in 1816 after a devastating fire.
1752
Work commences on the Palazzo Reale in Caserta, north of Naples. Commissioned by Charles VII of
Bourbon and designed by Luigi Vanvitelli, the palace would outsize Versailles.
1798-99
Napoleon invades Italy and occupies Rome. Ferdinand I sends an army to evict him, but his troops
flee. The French counter-attack and take Naples, establishing the Parthenopean Republic.
1805
Napoleon is proclaimed king of the newly constituted Kingdom of Italy, comprising most of the
northern half of the country. A year later, he also retakes the Kingdom of Naples.
1814-15
After Napoleon's fall, the Congress of Vienna is held to re-establish the balance of power in Europe.
The result for Italy is largely a return of the old occupying powers.
1848
European revolts spark rebellion in Italy. The Bourbons are expelled from Sicily but retake it in a rain
of fire that earns Ferdinand II the epithet 'Re Bomba' (King Bomb).
1860
In the name of Italian unity, Giuseppe Garibaldi lands with 1000 men, known as the Red Shirts, in
Sicily. He takes the island and moves into southern Italy.
1861
By the end of the 1859-61 Franco-Austrian War, Vittorio Emanuele II controls Lombardy, Sardinia,
Sicily, southern Italy and parts of central Italy, and is proclaimed king of a newly united Italy.
1880-1915
People vote with their feet; millions of impoverished southerners embark on ships for the New World,
causing a massive haemorrhage of the most able-bodied and hardworking southern male youths.
1889
