Maria Teresa of Naples and Sicily
1772 – 1807 · Generation XVIII · Consort
Maria Teresa (1772 – 1807). Consort. Married Francis in 1790. Second wife of Francis II; mother of Ferdinand I and Franz Karl. The eldest child of Ferdinand of Naples and Maria Carolina, and her mother’s favourite, she was chosen for the widowed Archduke Francis in 1790 while her sister Luisa went to Tuscany; bride and groom were double first cousins. Vivacious and hot-tempered where he was shy and austere, she still made a reportedly happy match, and she threw herself into Viennese court life, dancing at balls even while pregnant, the new waltz included. As the last Holy Roman Empress and, from 1804, the first Empress of Austria, she advised her husband and was said to have stiffened his hostility to Napoleon — whom her eldest daughter, Marie Louise, would later marry. A generous patron of music, she commissioned Haydn’s Te Deum, and Beethoven dedicated his Septet to her in 1800. Weakened by tuberculous pleurisy, treated with bleeding, she died in 1807 a week after a premature birth, her twelfth.
Place in the family
- Maria Teresa of Naples and Sicily was a grandmother of Franz Joseph I of Austria.
- The archive records 12 of her descendants, across 7 generations.
Partners
- Married Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor (1768 – 1835) in 1790 — 2 children together
Children
- Ferdinand I of Austria (1793 – 1875)
- Archduke Franz Karl of Austria (1802 – 1878)
Life
- 1772 — Born
- 1790 — Married Francis
- 1807 — Died