Kingdom of Naples

The Kingdom of Naples, officially the Kingdom of Sicily on this side of the lighthouse, ruled the Italian peninsula south of the Papal States from 1282 to 1816. It was born in the War of the Sicilian Vespers: when the island rose in 1282 and gave itself to Aragon, the mainland stayed with Charles of Anjou and his heirs, who kept Naples as their capital and the Sicilian name as their title. The Angevin court of Naples, brilliant under Robert the Wise, lost the island forever but held the south for two centuries. Alfonso of Aragon won the mainland in 1442 and joined it to his Mediterranean empire; thereafter Naples passed as a viceroyalty of Spain, then of Austria, then to an independent Bourbon line from 1734. Napoleon gave the throne to his brother Joseph and to Murat from 1806 to 1815. Restored at Vienna, the Bourbons merged Naples with the island kingdom in 1816 into the Two Sicilies, which entered the new Italy in 1861.