«Wiederhergestellte Ruhe in Italien». La noblesse habsbourgeoise à Naples au temps de la Sainte-Alliance (1815-1825)

Naples occupies a special place in the cultural and political memories of Central European nobility. In the aftermath of the Congress of Vienna the resorts of the Habsburg nobles are closely linked to the diplomatic and military action in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Their circulation brings to light the Parthenopean city in the formation of the political culture of the generation born at the dawn of the century of revolutions. The aim of this study is to compare two writings about the Austrian presence in Naples, drawn from the archives of Bohemia and Austria, in order to give them meaning in the establishment of Pax Austriaca in pre-unified Italy. On the one hand, the Count of Clary-Aldringen, revisiting the spirit of the Grand Tour, stayed in Naples during the decisive years of the Quinquennio 1815-1820 and spent the following years writing memories of his travels. On the other one, the Count de Ficquelmont, a veteran of the Spanish War, was sent to Naples in order to gauge the scale of the 1820 insurrections. The concrete implications of their stays in Naples are thus compared with the formation of an aristocratic representation supporting the Habsburg action in the Restoration process.