Naples - 1790 - Un Grano (F) - FERDINAND IV. (1751-1825), king of Naples (III. of Sicily, and I. of the Two Sicilies), third son of Don Carlos of Bourbon, king of Naples and Sicily (afterwards Charles III. of Spain), was born in Naples on the 12th of January 1751. When his father ascended the Spanish throne in 175 9 Ferdinand, in accordance with the treaties forbidding the union of the two crowns, succeeded him as king of Naples, under a regency presided over by the Tuscan Bernardo Tanucci. The latter, an able, ambitious man, wishing to keep the government as much as possible in his own hands, purposely neglected the young king's education, and encouraged him in his love of pleasure, his idleness and his excessive devotion to outdoor sports. Ferdinand grew up athletic, but ignorant, ill-bred, addicted to the lowest amusements; he delighted in the company of the lazzaroni (the most degraded class of the Neapolitan people), whose dialect and habits he affected, and he even sold fish in the market, haggling over the price.