Maria Sofia of Bavaria
Maria Sophie Amalie of Wittelsbach (the then royal house of
Bavaria), (
1841-
1925) was the last
Queen consort of the
Kingdom of the Two Sicilies (or the
Kingdom of Naples). She was one of the ten children of Maximilian, Duke in
Bavaria and
Ludovika, Royal Princess of Bavaria. Maria Sophia was the younger sister of the better-known
Elisabeth of Bavaria ("Sissi") who married
Emperor Franz Joseph I of
Austria. In
1859 Maria Sophie married Francis II of Bourbon, the son of
Ferdinand II of the Two Sicilies, King of Naples. Within the year, with the death of the king, her husband ascended to the throne as
Francis II of the Two Sicilies, and Maria Sophia became queen of a realm that was shortly to be overwhelmed by the forces of
Giuseppe Garibaldi and
Italian unity.
In late
1860 and early
1861, the forces of
Victor Emmanuel II lay siege to the Bourbon stronghold of
Gaeta, north of
Naples, and eventually overcame the defenders. It was this brief "last stand of the Bourbons" that gained Maria Sophia the reputation of the strong "warrior queen" that stayed with her for the rest of her life. She was tireless in her efforts to rally the defenders, giving them her own food, caring for the wounded, and daring the attackers to come within range of the fortress cannon.
With the fall of Gaeta and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, Maria Sophia and her husband went into exile in
Rome, the capital of what for 1,000 years had been the sizeable
Papal States, a large piece of central Italy but which, by 1860, had been reduced to the city of Rome, itself, as the armies of Victor Emanuel II came down from the north to join up with Garibaldi, the conqueror of the south. King Francis set up a government in exile in Rome that enjoyed diplomatic recognition by most European states for a few years as still the legitimate government of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.
In
1870, Rome fell to the forces of Italy and the King and Queen moved into exile elsewhere. The king died in
1894. Maria Sophia spent time in
Munich, and then moved to
Paris where she presided over somewhat of an informal Bourbon court-in-exile. It was rumored she was involved in the
anarchist assassination of King
Humbert in
1900 in hopes of destabilizing the new nation-state of Italy. Recent historians have resurrected that rumor based on the apparent credence given to this
conspiracy theory by the then
prime minister of Italy,
Giovanni Giolitti. Others regard it as anecdotal. In any event, the case against Maria Sophia is circumstantial.
During
World War I, Maria Sophia was actively on the side of
Germany and
Austria in their war with Italy. Again, the rumors claimed she was involved in sabotage and espionage against Italy in the hope that an Italian defeat would tear the nation apart and that the kingdom of Naples would be restored. She died in
1925 in Munich.
Her wealth and privilege were, to a certain extent, overshadowed by personal tragedies. Her only child by her husband died in infancy. Also, thanks to
Armand de Lawayss, a Belgian count, she had twins in
1862. Both of them survived but were taken from her by her scandal-conscious royal Bavarian relatives. It is not clear that she ever saw them again, except once or twice, briefly and under supervision. In the late
1890s, her younger sister,
Charlotte, died heroically while trying to help others from a burning building. Shortly thereafter, in
1898, her older sister, Elisabeth, the wife of Franz Josef, the next-to-last Austrian emperor, was stabbed to death by an
anarchist. During her life, she generated an almost cult-like air of admiration even among her political enemies.
Gabriele D'Annunzio called her the "stern little Bavarian eagle" and
Marcel Proust spoke of the "soldier queen on the ramparts of Gaeta."
This item is an abridged and edited version of an
article that appears in an online encyclopedia of Naples and has been inserted here by the author and copyright holder of that article.
