Page:Collier's New Encyclopedia v. 08.djvu/481

LEFT SICILIES 417 SICILY brother, Count Roger, conquered Sicily. Roger's son and successor, Roger II., com- pleted the conquest of all Lower Italy by subduing Capua, Amain and Naples, at that time celebrated commercial republics, and in 1130 took the title of king, calling his kingdom the Kingdom of the Two Sici- lies. In 1189 the race of Tancred became extinct, and the German emperor, Henry VI., of the house of Hohenstauf en, claimed the kingdom in right of his wife, Constan- tia, the daughter of Roger II. The king- dom remained with the family of Hohen- staufen till 1266, when Pope Alexander IV., feudal overlord, bestowed it on Charles of Anjou, brother of Louis IX. of France, who caused the legitimate heir, Conradin of Suabia (1268)., to be be- headed. Sicily, however, freed herself in 1282 from the oppressions of the French by the aid of King Pedro of Aragon, and Naples was now separated from it, Sicily being under the Kings of Aragon, while Naples was under the Angevin dynasty. This dynasty was dispossessed in 1442 by Alfonso V. of Aragon, who bestowed Naples on his natural son Ferdinand. In 1504 Sicily was again united to Na- ples under the Spanish crown, and gov- erned by viceroys till 1713, when the peace of Utrecht again divided the Two Sicilies, Naples falling to Archduke Charles of Austria, Sicily to Duke Victor Amadeus of Savoy. King Philip V. of Spain reconquered Sicily in 1718, at the instigation of Alberoni, but was forced to cede it to Austria in 1720, Savoy re- ceiving Sardinia in exchange, by which means the Two Sicilies became a part of the Austrian dominions. In 1734 the Spanish Infante Don Carlos, son of Philip V., at the head of an army invaded Na- ples, conquered both the continental and the insular part of the Kingdom, and was crowned at Palermo in 1735 as Charles III. This change was sanctioned by the treaty of Vienna (1783), and till 1860 this line of the Bourbon family main- tained possession of the Two Sicilies, ex- cept for a few years during the Napo- leonic period, when Joseph Bonaparte and Joachim Murat reigned on the mainland as kings of Naples. In 1759, when Charles ascended the Spanish throne under the. name of Charles III., he conferred the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies on his third son Ferdinand, and decreed at the same time that it should never again be united to the Spanish monarchy. The reign of Ferdinand extended through the stormy period of the French Revolution and the subsequent European commotions. His successors, Francis I., Ferdinand II. (Bomba), and Francis II. were despotic tyrants who forced the people into peri- odic revolt, put down with much severity. In 1860, however, an insurrection broke out in Sicily, and an expedition of volun- teers from Piedmont and other Italian provinces under Garibaldi sailed from Genoa to the assistance of the insurgents. The result was that the Neapolitan troops were driven from the island. Garibaldi, following up his success, crossed over to the mainland, where he met little or no opposition; Francis II. fled from Naples; the strong places in his hands were re- duced; and by a popular vote the King- dom of the Two Sicilies ceased to exist as such, and became an integral part of the Kingdom of Italy. See Italy. SICILY, an island belonging to the kingdom of Italy, in the Mediterranean, the largest and the finest in that sea, ly- ing at the S. W. extremity of Italy, from which it is parted by the narrow Strait of Messina. Area, 9,936 square miles; pop. about 3,793,500. Sicily is of an ir- regularly triangular shape (hence its an- cient Latin name of Trinacria), and is 180 miles in length by 120 in breadth. < A mountain chain, seemingly a continuation of the Apennines, traverses the island E. and W., throwing off spurs, from one of which in the E. rises Mount Etna, the loftiest volcano in Europe, having a cul- mination of 10,900 feet; neither the lakes nor the rivers are of any considerable size or length. The plains and valleys which compose the greater portion of the island are remarkably fertile, and yield large crops of maize, wheat, rice, pulse, all kinds of vegetables, and abundance of fruits; the silk worm is largely culti- vated. The minerals are marble, iron, copper, stone, agate, jasper, salt, and coal, while of sulphur the yield is enormous — about 300 mines. The manufactures, gen- erally unimportant, are silks, hats, furni- ture, skins, cotton, and cutlery; the ex- ports comprise all native produce, with linseed, manna, rags, and tanned leather. Sicily is divided into seven provinces — Palermo, Messina, Catania, Girgenti, Syr- acuse or Noto, Trapani, and Caltanisetta. The Sicilians are of middle stature, well made, with dark eyes and coarse black hair; their features are better than their complexion ; and they attain maturity and begin to decline earlier than the inhabi- tants of more N. regions. There are 1,000 miles of railroads. Elementary schools are established everywhere, and grammar and commercial schools in the town. There are universities in Palermo, Mes- sina and Catania. Sicily was originally peopled by the Phoenicians, by the Greeks, next by the Carthaginians, and then by the Romans. The Saracens in the 8th century subju- gated the island, and some centuries later the Norwegians made inroads on its ter- ritory and finally it fell under the Nor-