Sicilian revolution of 1848
시칠리아 혁명 (1848)
The Sicilian revolution against Ferdinand II of the Two Sicilies that began in Palermo on 12 January 1848, the first rising of the European revolutions of 1848. It set up an independent Kingdom of Sicily that lasted sixteen months and ended when Bourbon troops entered Palermo on 15 May 1849.
In depth
The date was set for the birthday of the Palermo-born king, and grievances over lost autonomy, poverty and the cholera of 1837 had built up. Within a month the rising spread across the island and the Bourbon troops withdrew, keeping only the citadel of Messina. Parliament revived the constitution of 1812, proclaimed the Kingdom of Sicily on 25 March and deposed the Bourbon dynasty on 13 April, with Ruggero Settimo as effective head of state. The revolutionary government proposed an Italian confederation and flew the tricolour with the trinacria. It chose the Savoyard Duke of Genoa as king, but he refused.
In September 1848 Filangieri's army bombarded and took Messina, earning Ferdinand the name "Bomb King". When war resumed in March 1849, the Sicilian army of some 6,000 under the Polish general Mierosławski lost Catania (7 April), and Palermo fell on 15 May. The 43 leaders excluded from the amnesty went into exile in Malta and elsewhere, and many of them prepared the Expedition of the Thousand eleven years later.