The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies was a kingdom in Southern Italy from 1816 to 1861 under the control of a cadet branch of the Spanish Bourbons. The kingdom was the largest sovereign state by population and size in Italy before Italian unification, comprising Sicily and most of the area of today's Mezzogiorno in covering all of the Italian Peninsula south of the Papal States.

The House of Bourbon 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. Further branches, descended from the Spanish Bourbons, held thrones in Naples, Sicily, and Parma. Today, Spain and Luxembourg have monarchs of 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.