Claudia Felicitas of Austria
1653 – 1676 · Generation XIV · Consort · Austrian Habsburgs
Claudia Felicitas (1653 – 1676). Consort. Married Leopold in 1673. Second wife of Leopold I. Born at Innsbruck, the eldest daughter of Archduke Ferdinand Charles and Anna de’ Medici, she sang beautifully, composed music and hunted with passion — at thirteen she was painted as Diana — while also belonging to the Dominican Third Order. On her uncle’s death in 1665 she and her sister were left as the last of the Tyrolean Habsburgs. Leopold, desperate for a male heir after losing his first wife, chose his second cousin, who turned away other suitors, among them James, Duke of York. They married at Graz Cathedral on 15 October 1673. The marriage was said to be happy, and she wielded real influence: she brought about the fall of the minister Prince Lobkowicz, who had opposed the match, and drew attention to abuses in government and the courts. Both her daughters died in infancy. She died of tuberculosis in Vienna aged twenty-two and was buried in the Dominican Church.
Place in the family
- Claudia Felicitas of Austria married Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor, a grandfather of Maria Theresa.
One of 24 people of Austrian Habsburgs (1527–1754) in this archive. The Vienna line, which held the Holy Roman crown almost without a break.
Partners
- Married Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor (1640 – 1705) in 1673
Life
- 1653 — Born
- 1673 — Married Leopold
- 1676 — Died