Maria Louisa of Spain

Infobox German Royalty|majesty|consort
name = Maria Louisa of Spain
title = Holy Roman Empress; Queen consort of the Romans, Hungary, Croatia, and Bohemia; Archduchess consort of Austria; Grand Duchess consort of Tuscany


reign = 20 February 1790 - 1 March 1792
spouse = Leopold II
issue =Maria Theresa, Queen of Saxony
Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor
Ferdinand III, Grand Duke of Tuscany
Archduke Charles, Duke of Teschen
Archduke Alexander Leopold
Archduke Joseph, Palatine of Hungary
Maria Clementina, Queen of the Two Sicilies
Archduke Anton Victor
Archduke Johann
Archduke Rainer Joseph
Archduke Louis
Archduke Rudolf
royal house = House of Habsburg-Lorraine
House of Bourbon
styles = "HI&RM" The Dowager Holy Roman Empress
"HI&RM" The Holy Roman Empress
"HI&RH" The Grand Duchess of Tuscany
"HI&RH" Archduchess Maria Louisa of Austria
"HRH" Infanta Maria Louisa of Spain
date of birth = birth date|1745|11|24|mf=y
place of birth = Portici
date of death = death date and age|1792|05|15|1745|11|24|mf=y
place of death = Vienna
father = Charles III of Spain
mother = Maria Amalia of Saxony

Maria Louisa of Spain (Spanish: "María Luisa", German: "Maria Ludovika") (24 November 1745–15 May 1792) was Grand Duchess of Tuscany and Empress of Austria as spouse of Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor.

Life

Maria Louisa was born in Portici, in Campania, the site of the summer palace of her parents, King Charles VII of Naples and Maria Amalia of Saxony. She was the fifth daughter, and second surviving child, of her parents. Her father became King of Spain as Charles III in 1759, and she moved with her family to Spain.

On 16 February 1764 she was married by proxy at Madrid to Archduke Peter Leopold, the second son of Emperor Francis I and Empress Maria Theresa, and the heir apparent to the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. The next year, on 5 August, she married him in person at Innsbruck. Only a few days later, the death of Emperor Francis made Maria Louisa's husband the new Grand Duke of Tuscany, and the newly married couple moved to Florence, where they would live for the next twenty-five years.

In 1790, on the death of Peter Leopold's childless brother, Joseph II, Maria Louisa's husband inherited the Habsburg lands in Central Europe, and was shortly thereafter elected Holy Roman Emperor. Taking the name of Leopold II, the new Emperor moved his family to Vienna, where Maria Louisa took on the role of imperial consort. Leopold died scarcely two years later, dying on 1 March 1792. Maria Louisa followed her husband to the grave in less than three months, not living long enough to see her eldest son Francis elected as the last Holy Roman Emperor.

Children

Over the course of twenty-one years, between 1767 and 1788, Maria Louisa bore her husband sixteen children, of whom all but two survived to adulthood. These were:

*Maria Theresia (1767–1827), who married the future King Anton of Saxony.
*Francis (1768–1835), who would become Holy Roman Emperor as Francis II and later the first Emperor of Austria as Francis I.
*Ferdinand (1769–1824), who would succeed his father as Grand Duke of Tuscany.
* Maria Anna (1770–1809)
*Charles (1771–1847), who would become a famous general during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.
*Alexander (1772–1795), who served as Palatine of Hungary
*Albert (1773–1774)
*Maximilian (1774–1778)
*Joseph (1776–1847), who succeeded his brother as Palatine of Hungary
*Maria Clementina (1777–1801), who married her first cousin Francis, Duke of Calabria, later King Francis I of the Two Sicilies
*Archduke Anton Victor of Austria (1779–1835), briefly Archbishop-Elector of Cologne and later Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights
*Maria Amalia (1780–1798)
*John (1782–1859), also a general and later Imperial Vicar of the short-lived German Empire of the Frankfurt Parliament in 1848.
*Rainer (1783–1853), who became Viceroy of the Lombardo-Venetian Kingdom
*Louis (1784–1864), effective regent of the Austrian Empire during the reign of his mentally disabled nephew Ferdinand I.
*Rudolf (1788–1831), Prince-Archbishop of Olmütz and Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church.

Ancestry

ahnentafel-compact5
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border=1
boxstyle=padding-top: 0; padding-bottom: 0;
boxstyle_1=background-color: #fcc;
boxstyle_2=background-color: #fb9;
boxstyle_3=background-color: #ffc;
boxstyle_4=background-color: #bfc;
boxstyle_5=background-color: #9fe;
1= 1. Maria Louisa of Spain
2= 2. Charles III of Spain
3= 3. Maria Amalia of Saxony
4= 4. Philip V of Spain
5= 5. Elisabeth of Parma
6= 6. Augustus III of Poland
7= 7. Maria Josepha of Austria
8= 8. Louis, Dauphin of France
9= 9. Maria Anna of Bavaria
10= 10. Odoardo II Farnese
11= 11. Dorothea Sophie of Neuburg
12= 12. Augustus II the Strong
13= 13. Christiane Eberhardine of Brandenburg-Bayreuth
14= 14. Joseph I, Holy Roman Emperor
15= 15. Wilhelmina Amalia of Brunswick
16= 16. Louis XIV of France
17= 17. Maria Theresa of Spain
18= 18. Ferdinand Maria, Elector of Bavaria
19= 19. Henriette Adelaide of Savoy
20= 20. Ranuccio II Farnese, Duke of Parma
21= 21. Isabella of Modena
22= 22. Philipp Wilhelm, Elector Palatine
23= 23. Landgravine Elisabeth Amalie of Hesse-Darmstadt
24= 24. John George III, Elector of Saxony
25= 25. Anne Sophie of Denmark
26= 26. Christian Ernst, Margrave of Brandenburg-Bayreuth
27= 27. Sophie Luise of Württemberg
28= 28. Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor
29= 29. Eleonore-Magdalena of Neuburg
30= 30. John Frederick, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg
31= 31. Benedicta-Henrietta of Simmern

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External links