The Kingdom of Naples

Pedro de Toledo (viceroy 1532–53) reorganized the Kingdom of Naples and placed it firmly within the Spanish monarchical orbit dominated by Castile. Within the kingdom, he oversaw the eradication of the pro-French barons and attempted to install centralized, absolutist policies. Within the city, he developed new residential quarters and strengthened Spanish defenses against outside attack. He enjoyed unparalleled personal prestige; his daughter Eleonora was married to Cosimo I (the Great), the Medici duke of Tuscany, in 1539. But his power had limits, as was shown by the successful Neapolitan opposition to the introduction of the Inquisition in 1547. Pedro’s policy was governed by the principle of “divide and conquer,” which played upon rampant inequalities between the barons and the people and between the capital and the countryside.

The most important ruling body in the kingdom was the Collateral Council, comprising five regents presided over by the viceroy, with a judicial council and a financial council exercising their respective competencies at its side. A new elite of lawyers, a “nobility of the robe,” began to emerge, sustaining the Spanish regime with its indispensable bureaucratic services. The Neapolitan parliament, which consisted of representatives of the city districts (seggi), of the feudal nobility, and of royally owned towns, had only two functions—to authorize taxes and to request rights and privileges from the king in exchange—but this body was suspended in 1642.

In the capital the town council, which seated representatives of the city’s five noble seggi and of a citywide commoners’ seggio, emerged as the most important institution of municipal government. The most pressing problem facing the city administration was the provision of food. Naples had grown to 250,000 inhabitants by 1600, which ranked it first in population among the cities of western Europe.

In the countryside, where some 90 percent of the population still lived, the aristocracy retained strong social and economic control. The Spanish government’s bureaucracy did attempt to break the barons’ political stronghold and to limit the worst abuses, but success depended upon a healthy economy and an emerging middle class, both of which began to falter after 1585. The 12 provinces of the kingdom remained atomized, and their unarticulated markets were often attached to the trading networks of foreign states such as Venice or Genoa rather than integrated to form a national market within the kingdom itself.

The kingdom of Sicily

Sicily’s administration had existed apart from that of the mainland since 1282, when the island had revolted against Angevin rule and come under the Aragonese crown. In the 16th century Sicily remained the cornerstone of the Spanish Mediterranean policy against the Ottomans, and its agricultural products continued to be the staple of long-distance trade.

As in Naples, Spanish policy in Sicily attempted to modify traditional baronial abuses. Spain allowed the barons considerable autonomy over their large agrarian estates, including the exploitation of their tenant farmers, but it prevented open feuds between barons and eroded their political power by excluding them from offices in the central government. Two local councils, one in judicial affairs and the other in public finance and administration, centralized Spanish government from the reign of Charles V. Parliament and the Inquisition competed for power with the viceroy. Parliament, which comprised three branches—clergy, nobility, and royal towns and districts—voted ordinary and special taxes, but its short and infrequent sessions prevented sustained opposition to Spanish policies. The Inquisition, on the other hand, was completely independent of the viceroy and often challenged his jurisdiction, but it received royal backing only in purely religious disputes. Above all, Spain played internal rivalries and sectional interests against one another for its own advantage. Constant struggles weakened all parties, and the numerous autonomous authorities held civil government in such check that it became immobilized and unable to make important decisions.

Sardinia

Sardinia’s links to the kingdom of Aragon dated from the 14th century. Long-standing assimilation to Spanish culture had reinforced the patriarchal structure of the local nobility, whose chief source of wealth was sheep raising. As in Naples and Sicily, the Spanish introduced little change into government, preferring instead to support an aristocratic-monarchist regime. The viceroy was often a Sardinian, the native parliament had three branches, and international politics separated Sardinia from Italian affairs.