Kinlight · The House of Habsburg

Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor

1747 – 1792 · Generation XVII · Holy Roman Emperor (r. 1790–1792) · Habsburg-Lorraine

Portrait of Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor

Leopold (1747 – 1792). Holy Roman Emperor (r. 1790–1792). Married Maria Luisa in 1765. Grand Duke of Tuscany 1765–1790; father of Francis II. In Tuscany he showed what an enlightened prince could do with a small state: he swept away restrictions on industry, taxed his subjects more rationally and more lightly, drained the Valdichiana, and saw to it that inoculation against smallpox reached the population at large. His penal code of 1786 banned torture and capital punishment — no modern state had yet abolished the death penalty for good — and a pioneering 1774 statute on the treatment of the insane, the earliest in Europe, opened the way to humane care of the mentally ill. He even collaborated on a draft constitution so novel it could not be enacted. Called to Vienna as emperor on his brother’s death, he wore the crown scarcely two years, yet one historian judged him “one of the most shrewd and sensible monarchs ever to wear a crown.”

One of 20 people of Habsburg-Lorraine (from 1736) in this archive. Maria Theresa’s marriage carried the inheritance into a new name, which its heirs still bear.

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 → Charles II, Archduke of Austria → Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor → Ferdinand III, Holy Roman Emperor → Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor → Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor → Maria Theresa → Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor.

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Life

  • 1747 — Born
  • 1765 — Married Maria Luisa
  • 1792 — Died

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