Kinlight · The House of Habsburg

Ferdinand II, Archduke of Austria

1529 – 1595 · Generation X · Archduke of Austria · Austrian Habsburgs

Portrait of Ferdinand II, Archduke of Austria

Ferdinand (1529 – 1595). Archduke of Austria. Son of Ferdinand I; ruler of Further Austria and Tyrol. The second son of Ferdinand I and Anna of Bohemia and Hungary, he grew up in Innsbruck, reputedly his father’s favourite. His father placed Bohemia under his administration in 1547, and in 1556 he commanded against the Turks in Hungary. In 1557 he secretly married Philippine Welser, daughter of an Augsburg patrician; the emperor accepted the match only on condition of secrecy, and their sons, styled margraves of Burgau, were barred from the succession. Taking over Tyrol and Further Austria in 1564, he enforced the Counter-Reformation there and housed his celebrated collections at Ambras Castle, reckoned the oldest museum in the world — a passion so costly it drove him deep into debt. Widowed in 1580, he married his niece Anna Caterina Gonzaga, who bore him three daughters, among them the future Empress Anna. With no eligible male heir, Tyrol was reunited with the other Habsburg lands at his death.

Place in the family

  • Ferdinand II, Archduke of Austria was a nephew of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor.
  • Ferdinand II, Archduke of Austria was the second of 3 children of Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor and Anna of Bohemia and Hungary recorded in this archive.

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.

Line of descent: Rudolf I of Germany → Albert I of Germany → Albert II, Duke of Austria → Leopold III, Duke of Austria → Ernest, Duke of Austria → Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor → Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor → Philip I of Castile → Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor → Ferdinand II, Archduke of Austria.

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