[3][4][5][6][7][8] The island of Sardinia, which was not part of the aforementioned polity and had been under the rule of the Alpine House of Savoy, which would eventually annex the Bourbons' southern Italian kingdom altogether, is nonetheless often subsumed into the Mezzogiorno.

The island of Sardinia, although being culturally, linguistically and historically less related to the aforementioned regions than any of them is to one another is frequently included as part of the Mezzogiorno,[10][13] often for statistical and economical purposes.

On the eastern coast is the Adriatic Sea, leading into the rest of the Mediterranean through the Strait of Otranto (named after the largest city on the tip of the heel).

The region is geologically very active, except for Salento in Apulia, and highly seismic: the 1980 Irpinia earthquake killed 2,914 people, injured more than 10,000 and left 300,000 homeless.

The first Greek settlers found Italy inhabited by three major populations: Ausones, Oenotrians and Iapyges (the last of which were subdivided into three tribes: Daunians, Peucetians and Messapians).

Other cities in Magna Graecia included Tarentum (Τάρας), Metapontum (Μεταπόντιον), Heraclea (Ἡράκλεια), Epizephyrian Locri (Λοκροὶ Ἐπιζεφύριοι), Rhegium (Ῥήγιον), Croton (Κρότων), Thurii (Θούριοι), Elea (Ἐλέα), Nola (Νῶλα), Syessa (Σύεσσα), Bari (Βάριον), and others.

After the Gothic War (535–554) until the arrival of the Normans, much of southern Italy's destiny was linked to the fortunes of the Eastern Empire even though Byzantine domination was challenged in the 9th century by the Lombards, who annexed the area of Cosenza to their Duchy of Benevento.

The Norman Kingdom of Sicily under Roger II was characterised by its competent governance, multi-ethnic nature and religious tolerance.

Normans, Jews, Muslim Arabs, Byzantine Greeks, Lombards and "native" Sicilians lived in relative harmony.

When Ferrante died in 1494, Charles VIII of France invaded Italy by using the Angevin claim to the throne of Naples, which his father had inherited on the death of King René's nephew in 1481, as a pretext, which started the Italian Wars.

The French, however, did not give up their claim and, in 1501, agreed to a partition of the kingdom with Ferdinand of Aragon, who abandoned his cousin, King Frederick.

Charles inherited the Spanish throne from his older half-brother in 1759, he left Naples and Sicily to his younger son, Ferdinand IV.

In the Edict of Bayonne of 1808, Napoleon removed Joseph to Spain and appointed his brother-in-law, Joachim Murat, as King of the Two Sicilies, though this meant control only of the mainland portion of the kingdom.

At the time of Italian unification, the gap between the former northern states of Italy and the southern two Sicilies was significant: northern Italy had about 75,500 kilometers of roads and 2,316 kilometers of railroads, combined with a wide range of canals connected to rivers for freight transportation; iron and steel production was 17,000 tons per year.

[29] The southern merchant navy was made up of sailing vessels mainly for fishing and coastal shipping in the Mediterranean Sea and had very few steamships, even if one of the first steamers was built and fitted out in Naples in 1818.

The Piedmontese north felt the need to invade the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and establish a new form of governance based on the northern system, since they viewed the south as underdeveloped and lacking in social capital.

[31] In an attempt to explain the striking difference between the annexed territory of the former Two Sicilies and the economic and political powerhouse centred in the north, racist theories were postulated, suggesting that such a divide had its roots in the coexistence of two mostly incompatible races.

He pointed out that the Bourbons in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies were staunch supporters of a feudal system, had feared the traffic of ideas and had tried to keep their subjects insulated from the agricultural and industrial revolutions of Northern Europe.

In literature, the period around 1860 was depicted by the Sicilian writer Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa in his famous novel Il Gattopardo (The Leopard), set in Sicily at the time of Italian unification.

Cavour stated the basic problem was poor government, and believed the solution lay in the strict application of the Piedmontese legal system.

[43] In the early decades of the new kingdom, the lack of effective land reform, heavy taxes, and other economic measures imposed on the south, along with the removal of protectionist tariffs on agricultural goods imposed to boost northern industry, made the situation nearly impossible for many tenant farmers, small businesses and land owners.

[45] After the rise of Benito Mussolini, the "Iron Prefect", Cesare Mori, tried to defeat the powerful criminal organizations flowering in the south with some degree of success.

Naples enjoyed a demographic and economic rebirth, mainly due to the interest of King Victor Emmanuel III, who was born there.

[47] In the 1950s, the Cassa per il Mezzogiorno was set up as a huge public master plan to help industrialise the south by land reforms creating 120,000 new small farms and by the "Growth Pole Strategy" whereby 60% of all government investment would go to the south to boost the southern economy by attracting new capital, stimulating local firms, and providing employment.

A report published in July 2015 by the Italian organization SVIMEZ shows that southern Italy had a negative GDP growth in the previous seven years and that from 2000, it has been growing half as much as Greece.

[53] According to Eurostat figures published in 2019, southern Italy is the European area with the lowest percentages of employment: in Apulia, Sicily, Campania and Calabria, less than 50% of the people aged between 20 and 64 had a job in 2018.

[59][60] The regions of southern Italy were exposed to some different historical influences from those the rest of the peninsula, starting most notably with Greek colonisation in Magna Graecia.

The Normans who settled in Sicily and southern Italy in the Middle Ages significantly impacted the architecture, religion and high culture of the region.

Jewish communities lived in Sicily and southern Italy for over 15 centuries, but in 1492, King Ferdinan II of Aragon proclaimed the Edict of Expulsion.

In the 19th century, street musicians from Basilicata began to roam worldwide to seek a fortune, most of them would become professional instrumentalists in symphonic orchestras, especially in the United States.