Maria Theresa of Savoy (1803–1879)

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Princess Maria Theresa of Savoy

Maria Theresa of Savoy , full name Maria Theresia Fernanda Felicitas Gaetana of Savoy (born September 19, 1803 in Rome , † July 16, 1879 in San Martino near Lucca ) was a daughter of King Victor Emanuel I of Sardinia-Piedmont and his wife Maria Theresa of Austria-Este . She was Duchess of Lucca from 1824 to 1847 and then Duchess of Parma from 1847 to 1849 .

Life

Maria Theresa was born in the Palazzo Colonna in Rome. She had a twin sister, Maria Anna , who later became Empress of Austria. The two princesses were baptized by Pope Pius VII on September 20, 1803. Her godparents were her maternal grandparents, Archduke Ferdinand Karl of Austria-Este and Maria Beatrice Ricciarda d'Este . In the Museo di Roma , baptism is depicted on a painting.

Maria Theresa spent most of her childhood in Cagliari , Sardinia , where her family had withdrawn from Rome in February 1806 before Napoleon's armies. In Cagliari she received her first training from an educator and the pastor GB Terzi. She was very religious and wanted to become a nun after a serious illness, but did not dare to publicly express this wish for fear of her mother. In 1814 her father was reinstated as ruler of Piedmont and returned to Turin . Maria Theresa only embarked on a British ship from Sardinia to Genoa after the final fall of Napoleon in August 1815 , from where she went to Turin.

On August 15, 1820, Maria Theresa married in Turin by procurationem and on September 5, 1820 personally in Lucca, Karl Ludwig , who was the last king of Etruria from 1803 to 1807 . At his court in Lucca, however, she was completely in the shadow of her dominant mother-in-law Maria Luisa . Her relationship with her husband also became problematic. Although she and Karl Ludwig were considered to be one of the most attractive princely couples of their time, while Maria Theresa was an avid Catholic, her husband lived more of his own pleasures. Maria Theresa spent Christmas 1821 with Karl Ludwig in Rome, where she became a Dominican tertiary at the beginning of the next year. In the winter of 1822 she returned to Lucca.

During this time Maria Theresa gave birth to two children, of which only the son survived the childhood stage:

  • Princess Luisa (born August 29, 1821 - † September 8, 1823)
  • Duke Charles III. von Parma (January 14, 1823 - March 27, 1854), grandfather of Empress Zita of Austria .

Karl Ludwig succeeded his mother Maria Luisa, who died on March 13, 1824, in the government of the Duchy of Lucca, making Maria Theresa Duchess of Lucca. At Christmas 1825 Maria Theresa and her husband took part in the celebration of the Holy Year in Rome . But she saw herself pushed more and more to one side by her husband, who had numerous affairs, and suffered a nervous disease. Nevertheless, she initially accompanied him on his travels, for example to visit relatives in Dresden , whereupon she went to Vienna to see her maternal grandmother, Maria Beatrice d'Este. She only returned to Lucca after her death in November 1829. In 1832 she traveled with her husband to Turin, Vienna, Prague and Germany, but eventually settled in the Palais Kinsky in Vienna without him . The next year it hurt her when she heard the rumor of Karl Ludwig's conversion to Protestantism . In August 1833 she returned to Lucca, wanted to stay in Italy from then on and lived in a villa in Pianore without her husband.

Maria Theresa turned more and more to religion and felt contempt for court life and the amusements of her husband. She withdrew completely from the court in Lucca and led a deeply religious life in her house in Pianore in association with priests and nuns. In 1838, like her husband, she was present in Milan for the coronation of Emperor Ferdinand I as King of Lombardy-Veneto . She had little influence on her son Karl, who married the French Princess Louise Marie Thérèse d'Artois in 1845 .

In September 1847, as a result of revolutionary movements, Maria Theresa had to flee first to Massa and then to Genoa . Her husband renounced the title of Duke of Lucca in October 1847, but after the death of Napoleon's second wife, Marie-Louise of Austria , took over the rule of Parma on December 17, 1847 as Charles II ; therefore Maria Theresa briefly became Duchess of Parma. A revolution broke out there in March 1848 and in April 1848 (finally in March 1849) Maria Theresa's husband abdicated in favor of his son, who was known as Karl III. ascended the throne of Parma. Maria Theresa herself lived in 1848/49 in a villa assigned to her by Karl Albert of Savoy not far from Turin. In December 1849 she returned to Lucca and lived again in her house in Pianore.

After her son was murdered in 1854, Maria Theresa had a chapel built in Viareggio to commemorate him . In 1855 she wrote her memoirs, which she dedicated to her confessor E. Milioni. From 1866 she lived permanently in a villa in San Martino in Vignale on the hills not far north of Lucca, where she only had her confessor and the manager of her property in her service. There she died of cerebral artery sclerosis in 1879 at the age of 75 and was buried in the Campo Verano cemetery in Rome.

literature

Web links

Commons : Maria Theresia of Savoy  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. ↑ Noel S. McFerran: A Jacobite Gazetteer - Rome, Museo di Roma
  2. ↑ a b c d e f Elvio Ciferri:  Maria Teresa di Savoia. In: Mario Caravale (ed.): Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (DBI). Volume 70:  Marcora – Marsilio. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome 2007, pp. 345-347.
  3. ↑ Ricardo Mateos Sainz de Medrano: Changing Thrones: Duke Carlo II of Parma , in: Royalty History Digest , Vol. 3, No. 1, July 1993, p. 99.
  4. ↑ Ricardo Mateos Sainz de Medrano: Changing Thrones: Duke Carlo II of Parma , in: Royalty History Digest , Vol. 3, No. 1, July 1993, p. 100.
personal data
SURNAME Savoy, Maria Theresa of
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Daughter of King Victor Emmanuel I.
DATE OF BIRTH September 19, 1803
PLACE OF BIRTH Rome
DATE OF DEATH July 16, 1879
Place of death San Martino near Lucca