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Notes -
They were quite wealthy during the Middle Ages, e.g. Sicily under the Norman Roger II. However the south's cash crops stagnated the economy as great wealth flowed in without much need for diversification and increasing complexity (...and later the Kingdom of the 2 Sicilies banned agricultural exports!) Prosperity started breaking down in the 14th century, then in the 15th century when large earthquakes and plagues decimated the population and slave raids shifted settlements inland; the Spanish art of governance (rent seeking) also halted development (cf. Spanish literacy into the late 19th century).
Nevertheless, up to unification, Naples remained one of Europe's largest and wealthiest cities. Sicily had 3 of the most industrialized provinces in 1871 - but they hadn't changed production methods for centuries, doing seasonal labor in workshops (compared to the area around Milan which used power looms etc. from the 1820s).
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