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Princess Maria Annunciata Isabella Filomena Sabasia of Bourbon-Two Sicilies (March 24, 1843, Caserta – May 4, 1871, Vienna), Archduchess and Princess Maria Annunciata of Austria, princess of Hungary, Bohemia, and Tuscany. Daughter of Ferdinand II of the Two Sicilies and Archduchess Maria Theresa of Austria, she was the second wife of Archduke Karl Ludwig, a younger brother of Emperor Franz Josef I of Austria.
She and Karl Ludwig were married in 1862, when Maria Annunciata was nineteen, and the couple had four children together. Their first child was Archduke Franz Ferdinand, eventual heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and whose assassination together with his wife, at Sarajevo in 1914, would precipitate the first World War. Their second child, Archduke Otto, was the father of the last emperor of Austria, Karl I.
Archduchess Maria Annunciata died of tuberculosis in 1871, at the age of twenty-eight.
On top of everything else, she was rather lovely too. What a shame to die so young. 28. But TB was so much more prevalent then, and nothing to be done about it.
ReplyDeleteNow you're speaking my language, Stephilius! No wonder she died early - she had that insufferable mother-in-law.
ReplyDeleteI love that I have such wonderfully informed readers! Thanks, you two. : )
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