The early modern Neapolitan aristocracy shared many characteristics with its Northern Italian and European counterparts. It acknowledged the superior political authority of a government that in turn recognized the aristocracy's predominant social role. It was the wealthiest group in society and the source of its wealth lay primarily in its landed patrimony, as was becoming increasingly true of most Northern Italian patriciates. Though it did not always reside in the capital, to a large extent the Neopolitan aristocracy shared in the urban culture and lifestyle common among Venetian or Florentine patricians. Finally, it occupied a preeminent share of the military and bureaucratic offices the early modern states needed to man.

But the aristocracy of the kingdom of Naples was considerably different from the Venetian or Florentine patriciates, as well as from other Italian and Western European nobilities, in its feudal character. Although there were feudal lands, which endowed their owners with feudal rights and exemptions, in all the Italian states, in none of them were feudal institutions and powers so widespread, pervasive, and influential as in the three kingdoms among them — Naples, Sicily, and Sardinia.