Isabella of Parma

1741 – 1763 · Generation XVII · Consort

Isabella (1741 – 1763). Consort. Married Joseph in 1760. First wife of Joseph II; died of smallpox. Born at the Buen Retiro Palace in Madrid to Philip, later Duke of Parma, and Louise-Élisabeth of France, she was a granddaughter of both Louis XV and Philip V of Spain. Her childhood was lonely — her father was away at war until she was eight, and her mother treated her coldly — and in 1749 the family settled in impoverished Parma. The Bourbon–Habsburg rapprochement then brought her marriage to Maria Theresa’s heir. Joseph adored her, but her own deepest attachment was to his sister Maria Christina. In writings kept hidden during her lifetime she ranged over philosophy and politics and argued that women were men’s intellectual equals; her Méditations chrétiennes appeared in print only in 1764, after her death. Melancholic and worn down by four pregnancies in three years, she left a single surviving daughter and was buried in the Imperial Crypt. Her death left Joseph devastated.

Place in the family

Isabella of Parma married Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor, a son of Maria Theresa.

Partners

Married Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor (1741 – 1790) in 1760

Life

1741 — Born
1760 — Married Joseph
1763 — Died