, title = Duke of Castro,

Duke of Calabria Duke of Calabria was the traditional title of the heir apparent of the Kingdom of Naples after the accession of Robert of Naples. It was also adopted by the heads of certain Houses that had once claimed the Kingdom of Naples in lieu of the royal ...

, image = Ferdinando Pius.jpg , caption = , succession = Head of the House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies , reign-type = Tenure , reign = 26 May 1934 – 7 January 1960 , predecessor = Prince Alfonso , successor = Disputed:
Prince Ranieri (brother)

Infante Alfonso Infante Alfonso of Spain (''Don Alfonso Cristino Teresa Ángelo Francisco de Asís y Todos los Santos de Borbón y Borbón Dos-Sicilias''; 3 October 1941 – 29 March 1956) was the younger brother of King Juan Carlos of Spain. He was also th ...

(nephew) , spouse =

Princess Maria Ludwiga Theresia of Bavaria , title = Duchess of Calabria , image = Herzogin von Calabrien und Prinzessin Urraca.jpg , caption = Princess Maria Ludwiga Theresia with her youngest child Princess Urraca , spouse = Prince Ferdinand Pius, Duk ...

, issue = Princess Maria Antonietta
Princess Maria Cristina
Prince Ruggiero Maria, Duke of Noto
Princess Barbara Maria
Princess Lucia, Duchess of Genoa
Princess Urraca Maria , house =

Bourbon-Two Sicilies The House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies is a cadet branch of the Spanish royal family, Spanish Bourbons that ruled Southern Italy and Sicily for more than a century in the 18th and 19th centuries. It descends from the Capetian dynasty in legitimate ma ...

, father =

Prince Alfonso, Count of Caserta , title = Count of Caserta , image = Alfonso, Count of Caserta.jpg , caption = , succession = Head of the House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies , reign-type = Tenure , reign = 27 December 1894 – 26 ...

, mother =

Princess Maria Antonietta of Bourbon-Two Sicilies , title =Countess of Caserta , image =Princess Maria Antonietta of Bourbon-Two Sicilies.jpg , caption = , reign = , coronation = , predecessor = , successor = , succession = , spouse ...

, birth_date = , birth_place =

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

Papal States The Papal States ( ; it, Stato Pontificio, ), officially the State of the Church ( it, Stato della Chiesa, ; la, Status Ecclesiasticus;), were a series of territories in the Italian Peninsula under the direct sovereign rule of the pope fro ...

, death_date = , death_place =

Lindau Lindau (german: Lindau (Bodensee), ''Lindau am Bodensee''; ; Low Alemannic German, Low Alemannic: ''Lindou'') is a major Town#Germany, town and Lindau (island), island on the eastern side of Lake Constance (''Bodensee'' in German) in Bavaria, Ge ...

Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

, place of burial = Filialkirche St. Peter und Paul, Rieden, Swabia,

, religion =

Roman Catholicism The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwide . It is am ...

Prince Ferdinand Pius (''Ferdinando Pio Maria''), Duke of Castro (25 July 1869,

– 7 January 1960,

), was head of the

House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies The House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies is a cadet branch of the Spanish royal family, Spanish Bourbons that ruled Southern Italy and Sicily for more than a century in the 18th and 19th centuries. It descends from the Capetian dynasty in legitimate ma ...

and pretender to the throne of the extinct

Kingdom of the Two Sicilies The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies ( it, Regno delle Due Sicilie) was a kingdom in Southern Italy from 1816 to 1860. The kingdom was the largest sovereign state by population and size in Italy before Italian unification, comprising Sicily and a ...

from 1934 to 1960.

Family

Ferdinand was the eldest child of

and his wife

. He was a grandson of

Ferdinand II of the Two Sicilies Ferdinand II ( it, Ferdinando Carlo; scn, Ferdinannu Carlu; nap, Ferdinando Carlo; 12 January 1810 – 22 May 1859) was King of the Two Sicilies from 1830 until his death in 1859. Family Ferdinand was born in Palermo to King Francis I of the T ...

and an older brother of

Prince Carlos of Bourbon-Two Sicilies Don Carlos, Prince of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, Infante of Spain (Full Italian name: ''Carlo Maria Francesco d'Assisi Pasquale Ferdinando Antonio di Padova Francesco de Paola Alfonso Andrea Avelino Tancredi, Principe di Borbone delle Due Sicilie, Infa ...

, Maria Immaculata, Princess Johann Georg of Saxony, Maria Cristina, Archduchess Peter Ferdinand of Austria, Maria di Grazia, Princess Imperial of Brazil,

Prince Ranieri, Duke of Castro , title = Duke of Castro , image = Raniero.jpg , image_size = , caption = Portrayed with a cavalry uniform of the Spanish Army and the Order of Alcántara, c. 1914 , succession = Head of the House of B ...

Prince Philip of Bourbon-Two Sicilies , image = Prince Philip of Bourbon-Two Sicilies.jpg , image_size = 200px , caption = , spouse = , issue = Prince Gaetano , house = Bourbon-Two Sicilies , father = Prince Alfonso, Count of Caserta , m ...

, and

Prince Gabriel of Bourbon-Two Sicilies , image = Gabriel de Borbón Franzen.jpg , caption = Portrayed wearing a cavalry uniform of the Spanish Army, c. 1914 , spouse = Princess Malgorzata Izabella Czartoryska Princess Cecylia Lubomirska , issue = Prince An ...

Marriage

Ferdinand married

, daughter of King

Ludwig III of Bavaria Ludwig III (Ludwig Luitpold Josef Maria Aloys Alfried; 7 January 1845 – 18 October 1921) was the last King of Bavaria, reigning from 1913 to 1918. Initially he served in the Bavarian military as a lieutenant and went on to hold the rank of Oberl ...

on 31 May 1897. They had six children: *Princess Maria Antonietta (1898–1957) *Princess Maria Cristina (1899–1985), married in 1948 to Manuel Sotomayor-Luna,

Vice President of Ecuador The vice president of Ecuador is the second highest political position in Ecuador. In many instances, the vice president succeeded the president in turbulent political situations. The last time was in 2005 after the resignation of president Lucio ...

*Prince Ruggiero Maria, Duke of

Noto Noto ( scn, Notu; la, Netum) is a city and in the Province of Syracuse, Sicily, Italy. It is southwest of the city of Syracuse at the foot of the Iblean Mountains. It lends its name to the surrounding area Val di Noto. In 2002 Noto and i ...

(1901–1914) *Princess Barbara Maria Antonietta Luitpolda (1902–1927), married in 1922 to Count Franz Xaver zu Stolberg-Wernigerode *Princess ''Lucia'' Maria Raniera (1908–2001), married in 1938 to Prince Eugenio of Savoy, Duke of Ancona * Princess Urraca Maria Isabella Carolina Aldegonda (1913–1999) Ferdinand and Maria lived for many years at Villa Amsee,

. It was there that he died in 1960.

Disputed succession

Following Ferdinand's death, the headship of the House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies was claimed by both his nephew

Infante Alfonso, Duke of Calabria , title =Duke of Calabria, Count of Caserta , image =Infante Alfonso de Calabria.jpg , caption = Portrayed wearing the uniform of the Regimiento de Húsares de la Princesa, c. 1915 , succession = Head of the House ...

, and his brother

, and remains disputed between their descendants. The basis of Alfonso’s claim was that his late father,

(1870–1949), had been Ferdinand's next oldest brother.Philippe de Montjouvent, ''Le Comte de Paris et sa Descendance'' (Charenton: Editions du Chaney, 1998 ), pp. 251-261, 264-265, 270-272 But Henri, Count of Paris, upheld the claim of Ferdinand's younger brother,

(1883–1973), contending that Carlos had renounced his rights of succession for himself and his descendants in 1901 when he married the Spanish heiress presumptive

María de las Mercedes, Princess of Asturias María de las Mercedes, Princess of Asturias (''María de las Mercedes de Borbón y Habsburgo-Lorena''; 11 September 1880 – 17 October 1904) was the eldest child of King Alfonso XII of Spain and his second wife, Maria Christina of Austria. ...

. The Count of Paris was well aware that his own claim to the French throne depended on the validity of the renunciation in 1713 of Philippe, Duc d'Anjou, in favor of the junior

House of Orléans The 4th House of Orléans (french: Maison d'Orléans), sometimes called the House of Bourbon-Orléans (french: link=no, Maison de Bourbon-Orléans) to distinguish it, is the fourth holder of a surname previously used by several branches of the Ro ...

. In 1900, Prince Carlos had executed the Act of Cannes, in anticipation of his marriage to María de las Mercedes, and in 1901 he became a Spanish subject and accepted the title of

Infante ''Infante'' (, ; f. ''infanta''), also anglicised as Infant or translated as Prince, is the title and rank given in the Iberian kingdoms of Spain (including the predecessor kingdoms of Aragon, Castile, Navarre, and León) and Portugal to t ...

. The position of Ranieri was that by so doing Carlos had renounced any claim to the throne of the Two Sicilies. But Alfonso had a different interpretation, which was that the Act of Cannes would have taken effect only if Mercedes and Carlos had succeeded to the Spanish throne. He also argued that the Act of Cannes was invalid under the succession rules of the house of Two Sicilies. The dispute remains unresolved.Olga S. Opfell, ''Royalty Who Wait: The 21 Heads of Formerly Regnant Houses of Europe'' (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2001)
pp. 37–38
/ref>

Honours

* Grand Master of the Sacred Military Constantinian Order of Saint George * Grand Master of the Order of Saint Januarius * Grand Master of the Order of Saint Ferdinand and of Merit * Grand Master of the Royal Order of Francis I * Grand Master of the Order of Saint George and Reunion * Knight of the Spanish Order of the Golden Fleece * Knight of the Order of Saint Hubert of Bavaria * Knight of the Supreme Order of the Most Holy Annunciation * Bailiff Grand Cross of Honor and Devotion of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta * Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Charles III

Arms

File:Coat of Arms of Princes of the Two Sicilies (c.1840).svg, Prince Ferdinand's arms
Until 1894 File:Coat of Arms of the Crown Prince of the Two Sicilies.svg, Prince Ferdinand's arms as titular heir to the throne
1894-1934 File:Great Royal Coat of Arms of the Two Sicilies.svg, Prince Ferdinand's arms as head of the Royal House
1934-1960

Ancestry

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ferdinand Pius Of Castro, Duke 1869 births 1960 deaths 19th-century Roman Catholics 20th-century Roman Catholics Burials at the Church of Saints Peter and Paul (Rieden, Swabia) Dukes of Calabria Dukes of Castro Dukes of Noto Italian Roman Catholics Knights of Malta Knights of the Golden Fleece of Spain Nobility from Rome Pretenders to the throne of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies Princes of Bourbon-Two Sicilies