Naples owes its foundation to a body of Greek colonists, two settlements, Paleopolis and Neapolis, existing for many years side by side as one community, Parthenope. In 328 B.C. both were subdued by Rome; from that time Paleopolis disappears, whilst its neighbour was made an ally of Rome. It resisted Pyrrhus, deterred Hannibal, but fell through treachery into the hands of Sulla's partisans (82 B.C.), who massacred the people. Under the empire it was a favourite place of residence for the emperors and the upper classes of Rome, and of the poets Virgil, Statius, Silius Italicus, luxury and pleasure, and its beautiful climate, being the sources of attraction. After Rome fell, it sided with the Goths, but was seized by Belisarius (536), and six years later by Totila. Narses recovered it soon after for the Byzantine emperors, who made it the head of a duchy. This in the beginning of the 8th century asserted its independence, and retained it until the whole country was subdued by the Normans (q.v.) in the 11th century. To the Norman dynasty succeeded that of the Hohenstaufen. But their arch-enemies, the popes, conferred the sovereignty of Naples upon Charles of Anjou, who in the battle of Benevento (1266) annihilated the power of the imperial (Ghibelline) party. The predominance of the papal (Guelph) party during the reign of Robert I., who was the patron of Dante and Boccaccio, the depraved libertinism of his heiress and granddaughter Joanna, the ravages committed by German mercenaries and by the plague, futile attempts to recover Sicily, and the feuds of rival claimants to the throne, are the leading features during the rule of the Angevine dynasty, which expired with the profligate Joanna II. in 1435. It was succeeded by that of Aragon, which had ruled Sicily from the time of the Sicilian Vespers (1282). During the tenure of the Aragon line, various unsuccessful attempts were made by the House of Anjou to recover their lost sovereignty; and the country, especially near the seacoast, was repeatedly ravaged by the Turks. Between 1494 and 1504 the French and Spanish disputed between them the possession of Naples, and victory inclined to the latter. Naples was united with Sicily, forming the kingdom of the Two Sicilies, and was governed by viceroys of Spain down to 1707. The most striking episode during this period was the revolt of Masaniello (q.v.). During the war of the Spanish Succession (q.v.), Naples was wrested from Spain by Austria (1707); but in 1735 was given to Don Carlos, third son of Philip V. of Spain, who founded the Bourbon dynasty. In 1789 the troops of the French Republic invaded Naples and converted it into the Parthenopean Republic (1799). For Nelson's share in Neapolitan politics at this time, see NELSON. A second invasion by Napoleon (1806) ended in the proclamation of his brother, Joseph, as king of Naples; and, when Joseph assumed the Spanish crown in 1808, that of Naples was awarded to Joachim Murat. On the defeat and execution of Murat in 1815 the Bourbon monarch, Ferdinand IV., was restored. The insurrectionary movements of 1821 and 1848 were the forerunners of the overthrow of the Bourbon rule by Garibaldi (q.v.) and the Sardinians, and the incorporation of Naples in the kingdom of Italy (1861).
See History of the Kingdom of Naples (1734-1825), by Colletta, Eng. trans. by S. Horner (2 vols. Edin. 1858); and see also ITALY, SICILY, and FERDINAND I. and II.