Servant of God Francis II of the Two Sicilies

Francis II (Neapolitan and Italian: Francesco II, Sicilian: Francischieddu; christened Francesco d'Assisi Maria Leopoldo; 16 January 1836 – 27 December 1894) was the last king of the Two Sicilies before the Italian unification, led by Giuseppe Garibaldi and Victor Emmanuel II of Sardinia. After he was deposed, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and the Kingdom of Sardinia were merged into the newly formed Kingdom of Italy. The only son and heir of King Ferdinand II of the Two Sicilies by his first wife, Maria Christina of Savoy, Francis II was the last of the Bourbon kings of Naples, where he was born in 1836. His education had been much neglected and he proved a man of weak character, greatly influenced by his stepmother, Archduchess Maria Theresa of Austria, whom he feared, and also by the priests and the camarilla, the reactionary court set. On 3 February 1859 in Bari, Francis married Duchess Maria Sophie of Bavaria, of the ducal Bavarian house of Wittelsbach (a younger sister of Empress Elisabeth "Sissi" of Austria). However, their marriage was unhappy. Their only daughter, Maria Cristina Pia, was born ten years after her parents married and lived only three months (24 December 1869 – 28 March 1870). Francis II took the throne on 22 May 1859, after the death of his father. For the post of prime minister, he at once appointed Carlo Filangieri, who realised the importance of the Franco-Piedmontese victories in Lombardy and advised Francis II to accept the alliance with the Kingdom of Sardinia proposed by Cavour. On 7 June, a part of the Swiss Guard mutinied, and while the king mollified them by promising to redress their grievances, General Alessandro Nunziante gathered his troops, who surrounded the mutineers and shot them down. The incident resulted in the disbanding of the whole Swiss Guard, which was the strongest bulwark of the Bourbon dynasty.