Luise of Anhalt-Dessau (1631–1680)

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Luise von Anhalt-Dessau, statue in the "Piast mausoleum" in Liegnitz

Luise von Anhalt-Dessau (* February 10, 1631 in Dessau , † April 25, 1680 in Ohlau ) was by her marriage Duchess of Liegnitz , Brieg , Wohlau and Ohlau . She came from the Princely House of Anhalt-Dessau .

Life

Luise was the daughter of the Anhalt-Dessau prince Johann Kasimir from his marriage to Agnes von Hessen-Kassel . On November 24, 1648, she married the then Wohlauer Duke Christian in Dessau . The children came from marriage:

In 1662 Luise received the Order of the Slaves of Virtue from the Empress Dowager Eleonore . It was an order of women that was also open to Protestants and whose emblem was the golden sun. After the death of her husband in 1672 Luise took over the guardianship of her son Georg Wilhelm and the reign of his inherited duchies of Liegnitz, Brieg and Wohlau. The Duchy of Ohlau received it in a will for its own lifelong usufruct as a widow's seat . After daughter Charlotte secretly married Duke Friedrich von Holstein-Sonderburg-Wiesenburg on July 14, 1672 without Luise's knowledge , Luise got into trouble. Their advisers accused them of failure, which is why they pleaded for an end to their reign. These circumstances ultimately also led to the fact that the Hereditary Prince Georg Wilhelm was declared of age prematurely on March 14, 1675 by Emperor Leopold and at the same time received his duchies as fiefdoms. Afterwards, Duchess Luise resided in Ohlau. There she arranged for the castle to be expanded to include the so-called Luisenbau . She donated the well-known clockwork with the figure of the Ohlauer death for the Ohlauer town hall tower .

After Georg Wilhelm's early death in 1675, Liegnitz and its partial duchies as well as Luises Wittum Ohlau fell to the Crown of Bohemia as a settled fiefdom .

In 1677 Luise had a splendid princely tomb built in the choir of the Liegnitz Johanniskirche , which had already served as the burial place of the Liegnitz dukes, according to the artistic ideas of her adviser, the Silesian baroque poet Caspar von Lohenstein . The architectural design comes from Carlo Rossi. The four life-size alabaster statues were created by the sculptor Mathias Rauchmiller . They represent the ducal family: Duchess Luise with the saying “Heu mihi soli” ( Oh, I'm lonely ), Duke Christian with the saying “Nescia gnati?” ( Have you forgotten your son? ), Whose son Georg Wilhelm with the saying “ At sequor ipse ”( Oh, I also follow ) and the daughter Charlotte (whose body was buried in Trebnitz in 1707 ) with the saying“ Spes ubi nostrae? ”( Where is our hope now? ).

literature

Web links

Commons : Luise von Anhalt-Dessau (1631–1680)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Norbert Conrads : The tribute visit of the last Piast in 1675 in Vienna . In: Silesia in early modernity: On the political and intellectual culture of a Habsburg country . New research on Silesian history. ed. v. Joachim Bahlcke . Weimar 2009, ISBN 3-412-20350-5 , p. 86.
personal data
SURNAME Luise of Anhalt-Dessau
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Luise, Duchess of Liegnitz, Brieg, Wohlau and Ohlau
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Duchess of Liegnitz-Brieg-Wohlau and Ohlau
DATE OF BIRTH February 10, 1631
PLACE OF BIRTH Dessau
DATE OF DEATH April 25, 1680
Place of death Ohlau