The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies existed from 1816 to 1861 in southern Italy. It was absorbed into the Kingdom of Italy in 1861 under King Victor Emmanuel II.
However, the heirs of the lost kingdom still exist today. The kingdom operated under Salic law, which did not allow for the succession of women. The Queens mentioned are, therefore, consorts and not reigning Queens. Any claimed titles since the end of the kingdom are titular.
The last King of the Two Sicilies was King Francis II of the Two Sicilies, whose wife was Marie Sophie of Bavaria. Their only child was a daughter who lived for only three months. The headship of the house passed to Francis’s half-brother, Prince Alfonso. His wife was Princess Maria Antonietta of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, with whom he had twelve children.
His heir was Prince Ferdinand Pius, Duke of Castro. His wife was Princess Maria Ludwiga Theresia of Bavaria, but the couple’s only son died at the age of 13. This caused the headship of the house to pass to Prince Ferdinand Pius’s fourth brother, Prince Ranieri, Duke of Castro. His three other younger brothers had predeceased him. However, this was disputed by the descendants of his father’s eldest brother, Carlos, who had predeceased him but had left descendants.
Carlos had married Mercedes, Princess of Asturias, and in anticipation of that, he had executed the Act of Cannes in 1900. Ranieri argued that Carlos had thus renounced his claims to the Sicilian throne, but Carlos’s son Alfonso argued that this would only have been effective if Mercedes had succeeded to the Spanish throne, which did not happen. Thus, the claim to the headship of the house has remained disputed since then.
The claim of Prince Ranieri passed to his son, Prince Ferdinand, Duke of Castro. Ranieri was married to Countess Maria Carolina Zamoyska, and they also had a daughter. Prince Ferdinand married Chantal de Chevron-Villette in 1949. This marriage was initially considered to be morganatic but was declared dynastic when his father became the disputed head of the house. This was also disputed by the other claimant. Ferdinand and Chantal had three children, including a son, Prince Carlos, who is the current disputed head of the house. He is married to Camilla Crociani and they have two daughters together. As such, Camilla would be one of the disputed Queens of the Two Sicilies.
She was born in Rome on 5 April 1971. She lived in New York, where she attended Marymount High School and later New York University. She speaks fluent Italian, French, English, Spanish and Japanese. She married Prince Carlos in 1998 and they have two daughters together. In 2016, he decreed that the rules of succession be changed to absolute primogeniture.1 This makes his eldest daughter, Princess Maria-Carolina, Duchess of Calabria, his heir.
The claim of Prince Alfonso is the second claim to the headship of the royal house. He was married to Princess Alicia of Bourbon-Parma, and they had three children together. Their only son, Infante Carlos, Duke of Calabria, succeeded to the headship in 1964. He was married to Princess Anne of Orléans in 1965, and they had five children together. Upon his death in 2015, the claim passed to his only son, Prince Pedro, Duke of Calabria. He married Sofía Landaluce y Melgarejo in 2001, who would thus be the second of the disputed Queens of the Two Sicilies. They have seven children together, including his heir, Prince Jaime, Duke of Noto.
Sofía was born on 23 November 1973 in Madrid as the daughter of José Manuel Landaluce y Domínguez and María de las Nieves Blanca Melgarejo y González.
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