Napoleon abdicated and accepted exile to Elba under the Treaty of Fontainebleau, opening the way for the Allied powers to redesign Italy’s political map and begin restorations of pre-Napoleonic dynasties.
Pope Pius VII re-entered Rome after Napoleonic captivity and occupation. His return symbolized the restoration of papal temporal authority that the Vienna settlement would largely confirm for the Papal States.
The First Treaty of Paris ended war between France and the Allied powers and explicitly provided for a general congress to settle outstanding territorial and political questions—issues that would be decided at Vienna, including the Italian settlement.
Representatives of the great powers convened in Vienna to negotiate the post-Napoleonic order. Italy became a major focus, with the aim of restoring dynasties and building a conservative balance of power (notably through Austrian influence).
Austria’s defeat of Joachim Murat’s forces at Tolentino ended the last major bid to preserve a Napoleonic regime in southern Italy, accelerating Bourbon restoration in Naples and reinforcing Austria’s role as the peninsula’s key enforcer.
The Treaty of Casalanza ended the Neapolitan War and restored Ferdinand to the throne in Naples, embedding the Restoration principle in southern Italy and aligning the kingdom with the conservative order backed by Austria.
The Final Act consolidated the Vienna agreements. In Italy it confirmed a peninsula-wide restoration framework: Austrian control in the north (including Lombardy–Venetia), restored dynasties in central duchies, and a strengthened Sardinia-Piedmont (including Genoa) as part of the anti-French security system.
As part of the Vienna settlement, the former Republic of Genoa was incorporated into the Kingdom of Sardinia. The move strengthened Sardinia-Piedmont on France’s southeastern frontier but created enduring Genoese resentment and fed later nationalist politics.
Ferdinand merged the crowns of Naples and Sicily into the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, reasserting centralized Bourbon authority and rolling back constitutional constraints that had existed in Sicily during the Napoleonic era.
A Carbonari-linked military uprising compelled Ferdinand to accept a constitutional regime. The crisis exposed the fragility of Restoration governments in Italy and triggered great-power congress diplomacy aimed at suppressing revolutionary constitutionalism.
Meeting at Laibach (Ljubljana), the allied monarchs and ministers endorsed Austrian military intervention to overturn the Neapolitan constitutional experiment—an application of Restoration-era collective action against revolution.
Austrian troops defeated the Neapolitan constitutionalist army at Antrodoco/Rieti, clearing the way for the occupation of Naples and the restoration of absolutist rule—an emblematic Restoration victory over Italian constitutional movements.
In the wake of events in Naples, a constitutional revolt spread from Alessandria to Turin. Victor Emmanuel I abdicated, and the episode underlined how Restoration repression and secret-society constitutionalism were becoming intertwined across Italy.
Congress of Vienna and the Restoration in Italy (1814–1821)
