Holy Roman Empress Maria Luisa

Notable

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Family

Holy Roman Empress, German Queen, Queen of Hungary and Bohemia, and Grand Duchess of Tuscany as the spouse of Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor. Maria Luisa was born a Princess of Naples and Sicily. Her father, the future Carlos III of Spain, had become King of Naples and Sicily in 1735 after its occupation by the Spanish in the War of Polish Succession. After her father became King of Spain at the death of her half-uncle, Ferdinand VI of Spain, in 1759, she became known as Infanta Maria Luisa of Spain. On 16 February 1764 she was married by proxy at Madrid to Leopold I, Grand Duke of Tuscany, the second son of Emperor Francis I and Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, and the heir apparent to the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. Before her marriage, she was made to renounce her rights to the throne of Spain upon the wish of her father. After her wedding by proxy, she traveled to Austria by way of Barcelona, Genova and Bolzano. 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 Luisa'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. The couple arrived to Florence 13 September 1765. They were settled in the Palazzo Pitti and had sixteen children. In 1790, on the death of Peter Leopold's childless brother, Joseph II, Maria Luisa'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 Luisa took on the role of imperial consort. Leopold died scarcely two years later, on 1 March 1792. Maria Luisa followed her husband to the grave in less than three months, on 15 May 1792, aged 46. Link to Wikipedia biography