Kingdom of Sicily in the context of "History of Malta"

Syracuse (/ˈsaɪrəkjuːs, -kjuːz/ SY-rə-kewss, -⁠kewz; Italian: Siracusa [siraˈkuːza] ; Sicilian: Saragusa [saɾaˈuːsa]) is a city and municipality, capital of the free municipal consortium of the same name, located in the autonomous region Sicily in Italy. As of 2025, with a population of 115,636, it is the fourth most populous city in Sicily, following Palermo, Catania, and Messina.

Situated on the southeastern coast of the island, Syracuse boasts a millennia-long history: counted among the largest metropolises of the classical age, it rivaled Athens in power and splendor, which unsuccessfully attempted to subjugate it. It was the birthplace of the mathematician Archimedes, who led its defense during the Roman siege in 212 BC. Syracuse became the capital of the Byzantine Empire under Constans II. For centuries, it served as the capital of Sicily, until the Muslim invasion of 878, which led to its decline in favor of Palermo. With the Christian reconquest, it became a Norman county within the Kingdom of Sicily.

The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies (Italian: Regno delle Due Sicilie) was a kingdom in Southern Italy from 1816 to 1861 under the control of the House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, a cadet branch of the Spanish Bourbons. The kingdom was the largest sovereign state by population and land area in Italy before the Italian unification, comprising Sicily and most of the area of today's Mezzogiorno (southern Italy) and covering all of the Italian peninsula south of the Papal States.

The kingdom was formed when the Kingdom of Sicily merged with the Kingdom of Naples, which was officially also known as the Kingdom of Sicily. Since both kingdoms were named Sicily, they were collectively known as the "Two Sicilies" (Utraque Sicilia, literally "both Sicilies"), and the unified kingdom adopted this name. The king of the Two Sicilies was overthrown by Giuseppe Garibaldi in 1860, after which the people voted in a plebiscite to join the Kingdom of Sardinia. The annexation of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies completed the first phase of Italian unification, and the new Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed in 1861.

Southern Italy, also known as Meridione ([meriˈdjoːne]) or Mezzogiorno ([ˌmɛddzoˈdʒorno] ), is a macroregion of Italy consisting of its southern regions.

The term "Mezzogiorno" today mostly refers to the regions that are associated with the people, lands or culture of the historical and cultural region that was once politically under the administration of the former Kingdoms of Naples and Sicily (officially denominated as one entity Regnum Siciliae citra Pharum and ultra Pharum, i.e. "Kingdom of Sicily on the other side of the Strait" and "across the Strait") and which later shared a common organization into Italy's largest pre-unitarian state, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.

Palermo (/pəˈlɛərmoʊ, -ˈlɜːr-/ pə-LAIR-moh, -⁠LUR-; Italian: [paˈlɛrmo] ; Sicilian: Palermu, locally also Paliemmu [paˈljɛmmʊ] or Palèimmu) is a city in southern Italy, the capital of both the autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the city's surrounding metropolitan province. The city is noted for its history, culture, architecture and gastronomy, playing an important role throughout much of its existence; it is over 2,700 years old. Palermo is in northwestern Sicily, by the Gulf of Palermo in the Tyrrhenian Sea.

The city was founded in Isla Palermo 734 BC by the Phoenicians as Sis ("flower"). Palermo then became a possession of Carthage. Two Greek colonies were established, known collectively as Panormos; the Carthaginians used this name on their coins after the 5th century BC. As Panormus, the town became part of the Roman Republic and Empire for over a thousand years. From 831 to 1072 the city was under Arab rule in the Emirate of Sicily when the city became the capital of Sicily for the first time. During this time the city was known as Balarm. Following the Norman conquest, Palermo became the capital of a new kingdom, the Kingdom of Sicily, that lasted from 1130 to 1816.

Messina (/mɛˈsiːnə/ mess-EE-nə, US also /mɪˈ-/ miss-; Italian: [mesˈsiːna] ; Sicilian: Missina [mɪsˈsiːna]; Greek: Μεσσήνη) is a harbour city and the capital of the Italian Metropolitan City of Messina. It is the third largest city on the island of Sicily, and the 13th largest city in Italy, with a population of 216,918 inhabitants in the city proper and 595,948 in the metropolitan city as of 2025. It is located near the northeast corner of Sicily, at the Strait of Messina and it is an important access terminal to Calabria region, Villa San Giovanni, Reggio Calabria on the mainland.

Founded by the Sicels with the name of Zancle in 757 BC, which in their language meant sickle, it was repopulated by Greek colonists of Magna Graecia and renamed Messana. The city was renamed Messina in the Byzantine age. It was an important Roman, and then Greek-Byzantine city, but in 843 it was completely destroyed by the Arabs. Almost abandoned during the Islamic period, it rose again in the Norman era and reached the height of its grandeur between the late Middle Ages and the mid-17th century, when it competed with Palermo for the role of capital of the Kingdom of Sicily.

The Norman conquest of southern Italy lasted from 999 to 1194, involving many battles and independent conquerors. In 1130, the territories in southern Italy united as the Kingdom of Sicily, which included the island of Sicily, the southern third of the Italian Peninsula (including Benevento, which was briefly held twice), the archipelago of Malta, and parts of North Africa.

Itinerant Norman forces arrived in southern Italy as mercenaries in the service of Lombard and Byzantine factions, communicating swiftly back home news about opportunities in the Mediterranean. These groups gathered in several places, establishing fiefdoms and states of their own, uniting and elevating their status to de facto independence within 50 years of their arrival.

A medieval university was a corporation organized during the Middle Ages for the purposes of higher education. The first Western European institutions generally considered to be universities were established in present-day Italy, including the Kingdoms of Sicily and Naples, and the Kingdoms of England, France, Spain, Portugal, and Scotland between the 11th and 15th centuries for the study of the arts and the higher disciplines of theology, law, and medicine. These universities evolved from much older Christian cathedral schools and monastic schools, and it is difficult to define the exact date when they became true universities, though the lists of studia generalia for higher education in Europe held by the Vatican are a useful guide.

The word universitas originally applied only to the scholastic guilds—that is, the corporation of students and masters—within the studium, and it was always modified, as universitas magistrorum, universitas scholarium, or universitas magistrorum et scholarium. Eventually, probably in the late 14th century, the term began to appear by itself to exclusively mean a self-regulating community of teachers and scholars recognized and sanctioned by civil or ecclesiastical authority.

Charles V (24 February 1500 – 21 September 1558) was Holy Roman Emperor and Archduke of Austria from 1519 to 1556, King of Spain (as Charles I) from 1516 to 1556, King of Sicily and Naples from 1516 to 1554, and also Lord of the Netherlands and titular Duke of Burgundy (as Charles II) from 1506 to 1555. He was heir to and then head of the rising House of Habsburg. His dominions in Europe included the Holy Roman Empire, extending from Germany to northern Italy with rule over the Austrian hereditary lands and Burgundian Low Countries, and Spain with its possessions of the southern Italian kingdoms of Sicily, Naples, and Sardinia. In the Americas, he oversaw the continuation of Spanish colonization and a short-lived German colonization. The personal union of the European and American territories he ruled was the first collection of realms labelled "the empire on which the sun never sets".

Charles was born in Flanders to Habsburg Archduke Philip the Handsome, son of Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor and Mary of Burgundy, and Joanna of Castile, younger child of Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon, the Catholic Monarchs of Spain. Heir of his grandparents, Charles inherited his family dominions at a young age. After his father's death in 1506, he inherited the Habsburg Netherlands in the Low Countries. In 1516 he became King of Spain as co-monarch of Castile and Aragon with his mother. Spain's possessions included the Castilian colonies of the West Indies and the Spanish Main, as well as Naples, Sicily, and Sardinia. At the death of his grandfather Maximilian in 1519, he inherited the Austrian hereditary lands and was elected as Holy Roman Emperor. He adopted the Imperial name of Charles V as his main title, and styled himself as a new Charlemagne.

The House of Bourbon (English: /ˈbʊərbən/, also UK: /ˈbɔːrbɒn/; French: [buʁbɔ̃]) is a dynasty that originated in the Kingdom of France as a branch of the Capetian dynasty, the royal House of France. Bourbon kings first ruled France and Navarre in the 16th century. A branch descended from the French Bourbons came to rule Spain in the 18th century and is the current Spanish royal family. Other branches, descended from the Spanish Bourbons, held thrones in Naples, Sicily, and Parma. Today, Spain and Luxembourg have monarchs from the House of Bourbon.

The royal Bourbons originated in 1272, when Robert, the youngest son of King Louis IX of France, married the heiress of the lordship of Bourbon. The house continued for three centuries as a cadet branch, serving as nobles under the direct Capetian and Valois kings.