Sicilian uprising and constitution of 1812

The Sicilian uprising and constitution of 1812 mark a brief attempt to reshape the island’s government and limit Bourbon power. Their reversal, followed by centralized rule and heavier taxation, makes the episode consequential beyond constitutional history: it establishes the recurring conflict between political authority and Sicily’s control of its revenues, trade, and institutions.

Revolt and constitutional reform

In 1812, a revolt broke out in Sicily in response to income tax imposed by Ferdinand IV. The Sicilian government promulgated a constitution modeled on the Westminster system. Its provisions practically divested the Bourbon king of power, stipulated the abolition of fiefdoms, and called for reforms to the machinery of government. The declared purpose was to modernize Sicilian society while strengthening its connection with Britain, which had an interest in keeping the island independent.

The constitutional settlement emerged amid a wider contest for power. After Napoleon replaced Joseph Bonaparte with Joachim Murat, Murat was crowned king of the Two Sicilies in 1808. Following Napoleon’s defeat at Leipzig in 1813, Murat allied with Austria in an effort to retain his throne, returned to Napoleon in 1815, and was defeated by the Austrians at Tolentino. The Treaty of Casalanza then sanctioned Ferdinand IV’s return to Naples. This sequence brought the Bourbon monarchy back into a position from which it could undo the political changes made during the revolt.

Restoration and abolition

On December 8, 1816, the king staged a coup that united the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily under a single crown. He took the name Ferdinand I, King of the Two Sicilies, and annulled the 1812 constitution. In the book’s account, the island was thereafter treated like a colony and subjected to a harsh tax regime. The political reversal was also administrative: from December 1816, state offices and customs were managed by Neapolitans, as were military commands, leaving Palermo without power or independence.

The lost autonomy had direct economic consequences. Heavier taxes, restrictions, and new constraints on trade dealt what the narrative calls the final blow to an already limping economy, bringing it to a complete halt. The constitutional issue is therefore not presented as abstract institutional change alone: control of government and customs determined who administered Sicily and how commerce on the island could operate.

Commercial consequences and later echoes

The Florios’ business makes those consequences tangible. Their spices moved through a warehouse within the Palazzo Steri property, behind the customs offices. The firm stored goods there while they awaited sale or onward shipment, paying import tariffs only when the goods actually entered Palermo. That arrangement, common among wholesalers, helped them avoid unnecessary taxation. When customs and government authority shifted to Neapolitan administrators, such commercial practices existed within a political order in which Sicilians had lost control of the institutions governing trade.

Later upheavals revive the same conflict between public power and private commercial resources. During a subsequent revolutionary crisis, customs activity stopped and outgoing ships were blocked amid talk of a provisional government. In 1848, Vincenzo Florio told Giulia that he had purchased rifles in England for the revolutionary committee, while ships were requisitioned and his company’s vessel, the Palermo, was taken to transport troops. Trading had fallen by half since the revolt began. The episode differs from the 1812 constitutional settlement, but it echoes its central tension: political movements seeking authority depend on the same ships, money, and commercial infrastructure that merchants need to preserve their businesses.

After Italian unification, that tension remained. Vincenzo argued that the Piedmontese were turning Sicily into a colony and objected that the Bourbon Crown treasury had been seized and taken to Piedmont to cover the costs of annexation. Across these changes of regime, the book links political autonomy to control over taxation, customs, transport, and money. The 1812 constitution’s brief promise of reform thus becomes an early measure of what later administrations could revoke—and of the material costs borne by Sicily when authority was exercised from elsewhere.