Editing Reggio Calabria (section)

===Early modern period===
From the early 16th century, the Kingdom of Naples was under the [[Habsburgs]] of [[Spain]], who put Reggio under a viceroy from 1504 to 1713. The 16th and 17th centuries were an age of decay due to high Spanish taxes, pestilence, the 1562 earthquake, and the [[Ottoman Empire|Ottoman]] Turkish invasions suffered by Reggio between 1534 and 1594. In 1534, facing attack by an Ottoman fleet under [[Hayreddin Barbarossa]], the townspeople abandoned Reggio. Barbarossa captured eight hundred of those who remained and then burned the town.<ref>Roger Crowley, Empires of the Sea, faber and faber 2008 p.58</ref> After [[Barbary pirates]] attacked Reggio in 1558, they took most of its inhabitants as slaves to [[Tripoli, Libya|Tripoli]].<ref>Jamil M. Abun-Nasr. [https://books.google.com/books?id=jdlKbZ46YYkC&pg=PA191 ''A history of the Maghrib in the Islamic period''], pg. 191.<!-- ISBN needed --></ref>

In 1714, southern Italy became once more property of the Austrian Habsburgs, who remained until 1734, when they were replaced by the [[Bourbons]] of Spain.{{citation needed|date=January 2023}} Reggio was the capital of Calabria Ulteriore Prima from 1759 to 1860. In 1783, a disastrous [[1783 Calabrian earthquakes|earthquake]] damaged Reggio, all of southern Calabria and [[Messina]].

The precious citrus fruit, [[Bergamot orange]], had been cultivated and used in the Reggio area since the 15th century. By 1750 it was being grown intensively in the Rada Giunchi area of Reggio and was the first plantation of its kind in the world.<ref name="ReferenceA"/>

In 1806, [[Napoleon Bonaparte]] took Reggio and made the city a [[Duchy]] and General Headquarters. After the former's fall, in 1816, the two ancient Kingdoms of Naples and of Sicily were unified, becoming the [[Kingdom of the Two Sicilies]].

During the course of the 19th century new public gardens were laid out, the piazzas (or squares) were embellished and cafés and a theatre were opened. On the newly opened sea promenade a Civic Museum was inaugurated. In fact, some 60 years after the devastation caused by the 1783 earthquake, the English traveller and painter [[Edward Lear]] remarked "Reggio is indeed one vast garden, and doubtless one of the loveliest spots to be seen on earth. A half-ruined castle, beautiful in colour and picturesque in form, overlooks all the long city, the wide straits, and snow-topped Mongibello beyond."<ref>Edward Lear, ''Journals of a landscape painter in Southern Calabria'', R. Bentley, London, 1852</ref>