Lucia Migliaccio Duchess of Floridia
Biography of Lucia Migliaccio Duchess of Floridia, second wife of King Ferdinand IV of Bourbon, and "failed" queen because of lower rank
The origins of Lucia Migliaccio Duchess of Floridia
Lucia Migliaccio Duchess of Floridia (Syracuse, 18 January 1770 – Naples, 26 April 1826)
Lucia Migliaccio, Sicilian of colors and perfumes, became queen without ever having hoped for it. She was from Syracuse, she was born in 1770, on January 18, to Vincenzo, Duke of Floridia, and Dorotea Borgia of the Marquises of Casale. A family, that of the Migliaccios of Sicily, which had its roots in the fifteenth-century cavalry of the island.
Vincenzo Camuccini, 1820 – Portrait of Lucia Migliaccio
The meeting with the King
He met Ferdinand IV in his first Palermitan exile, when with the arrival of the French in Naples and the birth of the Neapolitan Republic in 1799, the monarchy experienced the first attacks of modern times; she was married to Benedetto Grifeo and Del Bosco, duke of Ciminna and prince of Partanna. They met again in 1806, when the royal family had found refuge in Palermo due to the arrival of Giuseppe Bonaparte in the capital. She and she was a widow. The Bourbons followed the fate of the Kingdom from the island, but the king did not seem to give too much weight to the question if he did not lose any of his lifestyle habits, first of all hunting and then his passion for women. Thus was born, slowly but surely, a love story that proved fatal.
The love story with the King
Ferdinand married her in 1814, two months after Maria Carolina’s death. They had chosen themselves this time. No political strategy, no alliance. It was a morganatic wedding. Lucia belonged to a lower-ranking nobility, she could never have aspired to the throne and if children were born from their union they would not have had the right to the dynastic succession, nor to the inheritance of the patrimony. This was not enough to make her loved in the family. Of all the children of Ferdinando and Maria Carolina, the one who most opposed the new marriage was Francesco who never accepted the choice of his father, who never loved Lucia.
Il Re aveva all’epoca 63 anni e lei 42. Di donne ne aveva avuto a bizzeffe ma soltanto lei gli fece scoprire l’amore. E non tanto perché avesse fascino e sensualità ma perché era dolce, comprensiva e soprattutto innamorata di lui e disinteressata a tutto il resto che lo riguardava.Così, la sposò due mesi dopo la morte della moglie e al figlio Francesco, che gli ricordava certe chiacchiere sui presunti trascorsi di lei, rispose secco : «Penza ‘ a màmmeta, guagliò, penza ‘ a màmmeta!»E con lei visse, per la prima volta davvero appagato dall’unione con una donna , gli ultimi 10 anni della sua vita.Nel punto più verde e panoramico della collina del Vomero , nel 1823, volle far costruire , come ennesimo dono d’amore, una magnifica villa che chiamò ‘ Floridiana”, dove i coniugi tennero sontuose feste von la nobiltà di tutta Europa. Poi, nel bellissimo parco che arricchiva la villa, lui volle far costruire anche un’altra dimora, piccola ed intima, che chiamò ” villa Lucia”. E fu in questa oasi di tranquillità e di amore che l’anziano Re visse l’ultima brevissima parte della sua vita non separandosi mai, per nessuna ragione, da Lucia, la donna che che finalmente gli aveva fatto conoscere l’amore cosicché , se costretto ad allontanarsi, le scriveva “ sono il tuo affezionatissimo compagno che ti ama teneramente”Lui era re Ferdinando I, lei Lucia Migliaccio, contessa di Floridia.
The King was 63 at the time and she was 42. He had had plenty of women but only she made him discover love. And not so much because she had charm and sensuality but because she was sweet, understanding and above all in love with him and uninterested in everything else that concerned him.
So, he married her two months after the death of his wife and to his son Francesco, who reminded him of certain gossip about her alleged past, he replied dryly: «Penza ‘ a màmmeta, guagliò, penza ‘ a màmmeta!» (let’s think to your mother my guy, think to your mother!)
And he lived with her, for the first time truly satisfied by the union with a woman, the last 10 years of his life.
In the greenest and most panoramic point of the Vomero hill, in 1823, he wanted to build, as yet another gift of love, a magnificent villa that he called ‘Floridiana”, where the couple held sumptuous parties with the nobility of all Europe. Then, in the beautiful park that enriched the villa, he also wanted to build another residence, small and intimate, that he called “villa Lucia”. And it was in this oasis of tranquility and love that the elderly King lived the last very short part of his life never separating, for any reason, from Lucia, the woman who had finally made him know love so that, if forced to go away, he wrote to her “I am your most affectionate companion who loves you tenderly”.He was King Ferdinand I, she was Lucia Migliaccio, Countess of Floridia.
Auth: Nando Astarita
Life as a "missed" Queen
In May 1815 Lucia arrived in Naples for the first time. Her minute body, her short step, her Mediterranean being in her colors, in her smile, in her bearing, made her well liked by people who did not see in her someone different from themselves. During the ten years of marriage Ferdinando showered her with endearments and gifts. Not only duchies and jewels but two beautiful residences: the noble palace in Piazza dei Martiri, in the Chiaia district, which has since been called Palazzo Partanna, and the large villa on the hill, in the nascent Vomero district, which also had a zoo and which today , which has become a public park, is called “La Floridiana”.
The end
Ferdinando died, at the age of seventy, on January 4, 1825. The pain that accompanied Lucia’s life from that day on was strong. She was alone now, really. She died seriously ill on April 26, 1826. She was 56 years old. She was buried in the city that saw her happy, in the church of San Ferdinando, nearby the royal palace. A neoclassical-style tomb was erected for her, based on a project by Tito Angelini.