Maria Carolina of Austria
1752 – 1814 · Generation XVII · Queen of Naples and Sicily · Habsburg-Lorraine
Maria Carolina (1752 – 1814). Queen of Naples and Sicily. Married Ferdinand in 1768. Daughter of Maria Theresa; consort of Ferdinand IV of Naples. She was a substitute bride: two sisters promised to Ferdinand had died of smallpox, and, having protested that Neapolitan marriages were unlucky, she went south in 1768 and found her husband “very ugly.” She bore him eighteen children in twenty-one years. The birth of an heir in 1775 won her a seat on the Privy Council, and she soon engineered the fall of the minister Bernardo Tanucci, ending Spanish sway in Naples; with her favourite, Sir John Acton, she rebuilt the navy, and she patronised Angelica Kauffman and Jacob Philipp Hackert. The fate of her sister Marie Antoinette turned her from enlightened reform to repression, with a secret police and an alliance with Britain. French armies twice drove the court to Sicily, in 1798 and 1806. Stripped of influence when her son became regent, she returned to Vienna, where a stroke killed her in 1814.
Place in the family
- Maria Carolina of Austria was a daughter of Maria Theresa.
- Maria Carolina of Austria was the sixth of 9 children of Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor and Maria Theresa recorded in this archive.
One of 24 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 → Maria Carolina of Austria.
Parents
- Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor (1708 – 1765)
- Maria Theresa (1717 – 1780)
Siblings
- Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor (1741 – 1790)
- Maria Christina, Duchess of Teschen (1742 – 1798)
- Archduchess Maria Elisabeth of Austria (1743 – 1808)
- Maria Amalia, Duchess of Parma (1746 – 1804)
- Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor (1747 – 1792)
- Ferdinand Karl, Archduke of Austria-Este (1754 – 1806)
- Marie Antoinette (1755 – 1793)
- Archduke Maximilian Francis of Austria (1756 – 1801)
Partners
- Married Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies (1751 – 1825) in 1768
Life
- 1752 — Born
- 1768 — Married Ferdinand
- 1814 — Died