Kingdom of Naples

Naples, Kingdom of, region once comprised of all Italy south of the Papal States, including Sicily. It emerged after the conquests by the Norman Robert Guiscard in the 11th century; his nephew, Roger II, took the title King of Sicily and Apulia (1130). Naples was ruled in turn by the Hohen-staufens, the Angevins, the Aragonese, and the Spanish. The Austrians conquered the kingdom in 1707, but it was taken by the Spanish Bourbon kings in 1738. Napoleon I annexed the kingdom to his empire and made his brother, Joseph, king (1806), followed by his brother-in-law, Joachim Murat. In 1815, after Napoleon's defeat, the Bourbon Ferdinand IV was restored; he reunited Naples and Sicily as the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Bourbon rule collapsed before the advance of the revolutionary forces of Garibaldi (1860). When Victor Emmanuel was confirmed by the Italian parliament as king of all Italy (1861), Naples became a part of the new Italian state, ending 700 years as an independent kingdom.