Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
BOURBON BRILLIANCE & HABSBURG
CUNNING
With the death of childless Charles V of Naples (Charles II of Spain) in 1700, Spain's
European possessions were up for grabs. Despite Philip, grandson of Charles V's brother-
in-law, taking the Spanish throne (and therefore the Neapolitan throne) as King Philip V,
Austrian troops nabbed Naples in 1707. Waiting in the wings, however, was King Philip
V's Bourbon son Charles, who followed his ambitious mother Elisabetta Farnese's advice
to take the city. Between his ascension to the Neapolitan throne in 1734 and Italian unifica-
tion in 1860, Naples was transformed into Europe's showpiece metropolis. The Palazzo
Reale di Capodimonte hit the skyline, central Palazzo Reale was enlarged and the Teatro
San Carlo became Europe's grandest opera house.
In 1759 Charles returned to Spain to succeed his father as King Charles III. As European
law prohibited the simultaneous holding of three crowns (Naples, Sicily and Spain), Naples
was left to Charles' eight-year-old son Ferdinand, though, in effect, power was left to
Charles' conscientious prime minister, Bernardo Tanucci.
When in 1768 Austrian Maria Carolina ar-
rived in town to marry Ferdinand, Tanucci's
days were numbered. Maria was one of 16 chil-
dren of the Habsburg Empress of Austria (the
very person who Tanucci had opposed in the
1740 crisis of Austrian succession). She was
beautiful, clever and ruthless; a ready match for
Tanucci and an unlikely partner for the fam-
ously dim, dialect-speaking Ferdinand.
In accordance with her marriage agreement Maria Carolina joined the Council of State
on the birth of her first son in 1777. It was the position she'd been waiting for to oust Ta-
nucci, and into his shoes stepped a French-born English aristocrat, John Acton. Acton had
won over Maria with his anti-Bourbon politics and wish to forge closer links with Austria
and Britain. But just as things began to go smoothly with the English, France erupted in re-
volution.
Of Naples, Goethe wrote: 'I can't begin to tell
you of the glory of a night by full moon when
we strolled through the streets and squares to
the endless promenade of the Chiaia, and then
walked up and down the seashore. I was quite
overwhelmed by a feeling of infinite space'.
 
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