Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies

Ferdinand I
Portrait by Anton Raphael Mengs, c. 1772–1773
King of the Two Sicilies
Reign12 December 1816 – 4 January 1825
SuccessorFrancis I
King of Naples
3rd reign22 May 1815 – 12 December 1816
2nd reign13 June 1799 – 30 March 1806
1st reign6 October 1759 – 23 January 1799
PredecessorCharles VII
King of Sicily
Reign6 October 1759 – 12 December 1816
PredecessorCharles III
Born(1751-01-12)12 January 1751
Royal Palace, Naples
Died4 January 1825(1825-01-04) (aged 73)
Naples, Two Sicilies
Burial
Spouses
(m. 1768; died 1814)
(m. 1814)
Issue
Detail
Names
Ferdinando Antonio Pasquale Giovanni Nepomuceno Serafino Gennaro Benedetto di Borbone
HouseBourbon-Two Sicilies
FatherCharles III of Spain
MotherMaria Amalia of Saxony
ReligionCatholic Church
SignatureFerdinand I's signature

Ferdinand I (Italian: Ferdinando I; 12 January 1751 – 4 January 1825) was King of the Two Sicilies from 1816 until his death. Before that he had been, since 1759, King of Naples as Ferdinand IV and King of Sicily as Ferdinand III. He was deposed twice from the throne of Naples: once by the revolutionary Parthenopean Republic for six months in 1799, and again by a French invasion in 1806, before being restored in 1815 at the end of the Napoleonic Wars.

Ferdinand was born in Naples as the third son of King Charles VII and Queen Maria Amalia. In August 1759, Charles succeeded his half-brother Ferdinand VI of Spain as King Charles III, but treaty provisions made him ineligible to hold all three crowns. On 6 October, he abdicated his Neapolitan and Sicilian titles in favour of his third son, Ferdinand, because his eldest son Philip had been excluded from succession due to intellectual disability and his second son Charles was heir-apparent to the Spanish throne. Ferdinand was the founder of the cadet House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies.