FRANCIS I. (1777-183o), king of the Two Sicilies, was the son of Ferdinand IV. (I.) and Maria Carolina of Austria. He married Clementina, daughter of the emperor Leopold II. of Austria, in 1796, and at her death Isabella, daughter of Charles IV. of Spain. Francis was appointed regent in Sicily in 1812. On the fall of Napoleon his father returned to Naples and suppressed the Sicilian constitution and autonomy, incorporating his two kingdoms into that of the Two Sicilies (1816) ; Francis then assumed the revived title of duke of Calabria. On succeeding to the throne in 1825 he showed himself as reactionary as his father.
He left the government in the hands of favourites and police offi cials, and lived with his mistresses, surrounded by soldiers, ever in dread of assassination. During his reign the only revolutionary movement was the outbreak on the Cilento (1828), savagely repressed by the marquis Delcarretto, an ex-Liberal turned reactionary.
See N. Nisco, Il Reame di Napoli sotto Francesco 1. (Naples, 1893).