Sicily’s Constitutional Period (1812–1816)

Sicily’s Constitutional Period (1812–1816) is a brief experiment in island self-government, born of revolt and ended by royal centralization. Its constitutional reforms promised to modernize Sicily and limit Bourbon power, but their abrupt annulment left a lasting political and commercial landscape in which taxation, customs, and control of trade became instruments of rule.

Revolt and constitutional reform

In 1812, an income tax imposed by Ferdinand IV provoked a revolt in Sicily. The island’s government responded by promulgating a constitution drafted according to the Westminster system. It practically stripped the Bourbon king of power, stipulated the abolition of fiefdoms, and called for reforms to government institutions. The program joined constitutional change to a broader effort to modernize Sicilian society.

The reform also had a strategic dimension. Its proponents sought a closer relationship with Britain, which had an interest in keeping Sicily independent. The constitutional settlement thus stood at the intersection of domestic revolt and the island’s position in the wider contest for influence in the Mediterranean.

Restoration and annulment

The constitutional order did not survive the shifting fortunes of the Napoleonic era. After Napoleon’s campaign against Russia and the defeat at Leipzig, Joachim Murat allied with Austria in an effort to retain his throne. He later returned to Napoleon, but Austria defeated him at the Battle of Tolentino in 1815. The Treaty of Casalanza then sanctioned Ferdinand IV’s return to Naples; he installed his son Francesco in Palermo as lieutenant-general of the realm.

On December 8, 1816, the king staged a coup, uniting the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily under one banner and taking the title Ferdinand I, King of the Two Sicilies. The 1812 constitution was annulled. The narrative presents this change not as a neutral administrative merger but as the removal of Sicily’s political autonomy: the island was treated like a colony and subjected to a harsh tax regime.

Centralized rule and commercial consequences

After the restoration, state offices and customs were administered by Neapolitans, as were military commands. Palermo lost its power and independence, while heavier taxes, restrictions, and new constraints on trade compounded the pressure on its already struggling economy. In the novel, constitutional reversal therefore has material consequences: political authority is felt through the institutions that regulate goods, shipping, and commercial obligations.

The Florios’ trade illustrates how exposed merchants were to changes in government and customs administration. Their spices moved through a warehouse within the Palazzo Steri property, where import tariffs were paid only when goods entered Palermo rather than while they remained in transit. Later, during another period of upheaval, customs disorder stopped outgoing ships and left merchants uncertain about requisitioned goods. These episodes show the practical importance of administrative control over commerce, even as the constitutional period itself had already ended.

Legacy in the novel

The period becomes a reference point for later arguments about Sicily’s political future. In 1848, Vincenzo Florio describes the revolutionary government’s attempt to apply the 1812 constitution again, while noting that it lacks a monarch willing to accept the Sicilian crown and faces British opposition to separation from the Bourbons. The earlier constitution thus returns as both a political model and an unresolved problem: its promise of self-rule persists, but the novel emphasizes how dependent that promise remains on competing powers and institutions.

Across the narrative, regimes make claims on the same resources that sustain private enterprise. Customs offices regulate the passage of goods; governments requisition ships and money; and later, amid the approach of Garibaldi’s forces, Vincenzo orders cash and bank drafts secured in the Royal Bank’s safe. The constitutional period’s rise and suppression establish this recurring conflict between sovereignty and commerce, in which Sicily’s political status determines the limits within which its merchants can act.