Maria Theresa of Naples and Sicily (1772–1807)
Princess Maria Theresia Karolina Giuseppina of Naples and Sicily (born June 6, 1772 in Naples , † April 13, 1807 in Vienna ) was the last Empress of the Holy Roman Empire and first Empress of Austria by marriage .
Life
Maria Theresa was the eldest daughter of King Ferdinand IV of Naples and Sicily from the House of Bourbon Sicily (1751-1825) and his wife Archduchess Maria Karolina of Austria (1752-1814), daughter of Emperor Francis I Stephan and the Archduchess Maria Theresa . The princess grew up at the court of her parents and in 1790 was envisaged as the wife of the future Roman-German Emperor Franz II (1768-1835).
Relationship and marriage
After Franz's first wife and sister-in-law of the Russian heir to the throne, Grand Duke Paul , Princess Elisabeth of Württemberg , died on February 18, 1790 giving birth to their first child, he remarried after just seven months. On September 19, 1790, the second marriage to Maria Theresa took place in Vienna.
The young couple immediately took a liking to each other, although their natures were very different. The young Archduke already had a tendency towards melancholy in his youth, was poor in feeling, shy, serious and withdrawn, and also of Spartan simplicity. He was strict with himself and conscientious. His figure was gaunt, his features pale and expressionless. Maria Theresia, on the other hand, was a graceful blonde woman with light blue eyes, full lips and a nose that was a little too big. She was a cheerful person with a southern temperament, radiated sensuality. The two, however, got along brilliantly and their seventeen year marriage was a happy one.
The bride and groom were the product of one of those carefully elaborated marriages of the old Empress Maria Theresa : In this case, the Habsburgs' marriage policy won over marriage hygiene several times when Emperor Leopold II married his eldest son Franz to the daughter of his sister Maria Karolina in 1790 , who his mother Maria Theresa had married the King of Naples, Ferdinand von Bourbon.
Emperor Franz II / I. had the same grandparents as King Charles III through his mother Maria Ludovica , a native princess of Spain as the sister of Ferdinand von Bourbon . and Maria Amalia of Saxony . Maria Theresa and Franz II had in common, however, also the Habsburg grandmother Maria Theresa of Habsburg-Lothringen and the grandfather Franz I.
Franz II married his first cousin on both sides. Since Princess Maria Theresa brought the willingness to give birth so much sought after by the Habsburgs, the close blood relationship had a fatal effect: the unhappy children of the first Austrian imperial couple, especially Ferdinand I , had to bear the consequences.
Maria Theresa's younger sister Maria Amalia Teresa di Borbone was Queen of the French from 1830. Through her, Maria Theresa became posthumously the great-aunt of Charlotte , Princess of Belgium and Empress of Mexico (1840–1927), who was married from 1857 to the Austrian Archduke and later Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico .
Maria Theresa's grandson Peter II of Brazil, a son of King Peter IV of Portugal and Archduchess Maria Leopoldine of Austria, married Teresa Maria Cristina of Naples-Sicily , Princess of Bourbon and Naples-Sicily in 1843 . Teresa Maria Christina, for her part, was the cousin of Peter's mother, Maria Leopoldine of Austria, who died early and was a daughter of Maria Theresa.
Maria Theresa settled in well in Vienna. Like her mother Maria Karolina , who had lived through a turbulent youth in Vienna at her parents' court, she loved parties and entertainment. Despite the many pregnancies, she attended almost all of the carnival balls during her time in Vienna. She especially loved the waltz, which was then fashionable.
She hardly dealt with government affairs, although she showed interest in the political events of her time and her husband also discussed political problems with her. She is said to have campaigned for the dismissal of the cabinet councilor Johann Baptist von Schloißnigg and the head of the imperial chancellery Colloredo . Napoleon's bitter opponent also supported the warring party at court, which called for a fight against France.
ancestors
Philip V King of Spain (1683–1746) | |||||||||||||
Charles III King of Spain (1716–1788) | |||||||||||||
Elisabetta Farnese (1692–1766) | |||||||||||||
Ferdinand I of Naples and Sicily (1751–1825) | |||||||||||||
Friedrich August II. Elector of Saxony , as August III King of Poland (1696–1763) | |||||||||||||
Maria Amalia of Saxony (1724–1760) | |||||||||||||
Maria Josepha Archduchess of Austria (1699–1757) | |||||||||||||
Maria Theresa of Naples-Sicily | |||||||||||||
Leopold of Lorraine (1679–1729) | |||||||||||||
Emperor Franz I Stephan (1708–1765) | |||||||||||||
Elisabeth Charlotte de Bourbon-Orléans (1676–1744) | |||||||||||||
Maria Karolina of Austria Archduchess (1752–1814) | |||||||||||||
Emperor Charles VI. (1685-1740) | |||||||||||||
Empress Maria Theresa (1717–1780) | |||||||||||||
Elisabeth Christine of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel (1691–1750) | |||||||||||||
death
In the winter of 1806, Maria Theresa of Naples-Sicily fell ill with tubercular pleurisy, which the imperial physician, Andreas Joseph von Stifft , treated with bloodletting. However, it did not trigger an improvement in the state of health, but a premature birth. When Empress Maria Theresa died after the premature birth (the daughter died a few days after the mother) on April 13, 1807, the Emperor was inconsolable and had to be removed from his wife's corpse by force. She was buried in the Imperial Crypt under the Capuchin Church in Vienna. The shaken emperor stayed away from the funeral and instead traveled to Ofen with his two oldest children . Her heart urn is in the heart crypt of the Habsburgs , her gut urn in the ducal crypt . Maria Theresa of Naples-Sicily is one of those 41 people who received a “ separate burial ” with the body being divided between all three traditional Viennese burial places of the Habsburgs (imperial crypt, heart crypt, ducal crypt).
progeny
This dynastic marriage policy took revenge on the offspring. In the seventeen years of their marriage, the Neapolitan gave birth to twelve children. Only two of the sons survived: Ferdinand and Franz Karl, who was nine years younger than him. One of the five surviving daughters was the even less fortunate Maria Ludovika, called Marie Louise, Empress of the French.
- Maria Louise (1791–1847), Empress of the French, Duchess of Parma,
- ⚭ 1810 Emperor Napoleon I , son of Carlo Bonaparte and his wife Letizia Ramolino
- ⚭ 1821 Count Adam Adalbert von Neipperg , son of Count Leopold Johann von Neipperg and his wife Countess Wilhelmine von Hetzfeld-Wilfenburg
- ⚭ 1834 Count Karl von Bombelles, son of Marc Marie Marquis de Bombelles and his wife Princess Angélique de Mackau
- Ferdinand I (1793–1875) ⚭ 1831 Princess Maria Anna , daughter of King Victor Emanuel I of Sardinia-Piedmont and his wife Archduchess Maria Theresa of Austria-Modena d'Este
- Karoline Leopoldine (June 8, 1794 - March 16, 1795), Archduchess
- Karolina Ludovika (December 9, 1795 - June 30, 1799), Archduchess
- Maria Leopoldine (1797–1826), Empress of Brazil, ⚭ 1817 Emperor Peter I of Brazil, son of King John VI. of Portugal and his wife Infanta Charlotte Johanna of Spain
- Maria Clementine (1798–1881) ⚭ 1818 Prince Leopold of Naples-Sicily , Duke of Salerno, son of King Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies adH Bourbon and his wife Archduchess Maria Karoline of Austria
- Joseph Franz (April 9, 1799 - June 30, 1807), Archduke
- Maria Caroline Ferdinanda (1801–1832) ⚭ 1819 King Friedrich August II of Saxony, son of Duke Maximilian of Saxony and his wife Princess Karoline of Parma
- Franz Karl (1802–1878), Archduke ⚭ 1824 Princess Sophie Friederike of Bavaria (1805–1872), daughter of King Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria
- Marie Anna (June 8, 1804 - December 28, 1858), Archduchess
- Johann Nepomuk (August 30, 1805 - February 19, 1809), Archduke
- Amalia Theresia (April 6, 1807 - April 9, 1807), Archduchess
Trivia
Joseph Haydn is said to have dedicated his Theresienmesse, composed in 1799, to Marie Therese. She even sang a few soprano solos of his works herself.
literature
- Constantin von Wurzbach : Habsburg, Maria Theresa of Naples . In: Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich . 7th part. Imperial and Royal Court and State Printing Office, Vienna 1861, p. 81 f. ( Digitized version ).
- Dorothy Gies McGuigan: Habsburg family 1273-1918 , ISBN 3-548-33173-4 , page 426 ff.
- Richard Reifenscheid: The Habsburgs - From Rudolf I to Karl I , Tosa Verlag Vienna (1994) ISBN 3-85001-484-3
- Friedrich Weissensteiner : Women on the Habsburg throne - the Austrian empresses , Ueberreuter-Verlag Vienna, 1998, ISBN 3-8000-3709-2
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Friedrich Weissensteiner: Women on the Habsburg throne - the Austrian empresses , Ueberreuter Vienna, 1998, ISBN 3-8000-3709-2
- ^ Maria Theresa of Naples-Sicily at Operissimo on the basis of the Great Singer Lexicon
Predecessors | Office | Successors |
---|---|---|
Maria Ludovica of Spain |
Roman-German Empress 1792 to 1806 |
NO |
Empress of Austria 1804 to 1807 |
Maria Ludovika of Austria-Este |
personal data | |
---|---|
SURNAME | Maria Theresa of Naples-Sicily |
ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Naples and Sicily, Princess Maria Theresa of |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | last Empress of the Holy Roman Empire and first Empress of Austria by marriage |
DATE OF BIRTH | June 6, 1772 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | Naples |
DATE OF DEATH | April 13, 1807 |
Place of death | Vienna |