Eleonora Gonzaga

1598 – 1655 · Generation XI · Consort

Eleonora (1598 – 1655). Consort. Married Ferdinand in 1622. Second wife of Ferdinand II; no children. Born in Mantua, the youngest child of Duke Vincenzo I and Eleanor de’ Medici, she was educated from the age of ten by her aunt Margherita Gonzaga, whose devout household left a deep mark on her. The widowed emperor was both her kinsman and her godfather, so a papal dispensation was needed before a modest wedding at Innsbruck in February 1622. Crowned Queen of Hungary that year, she became empress at Regensburg and Queen of Bohemia in 1627. Despite the gap in age the marriage was happy, and she grew close to her stepchildren, especially Leopold Wilhelm. A pillar of the Counter-Reformation, she founded a Discalced Carmelite monastery in Vienna and the Loreto chapel in the Augustinian Church, and her patronage of Italian musicians made the court a centre of Baroque music — even as imperial troops sacked her native Mantua in the War of the Mantuan Succession.

Place in the family

Eleonora Gonzaga married Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor, a great-nephew of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor.

Partners

Married Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor (1578 – 1637) in 1622

Life

1598 — Born
1622 — Married Ferdinand
1655 — Died