Archduchess Maria Clementina of Austria
Maria Clementina of Austria was an Austrian archduchess and the tenth child and third daughter of Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor and Maria Luisa of Spain. In 1797 she married her double first cousin Prince Francis, Duke of Calabria, heir to the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily. She was modest, well educated and kind, becoming popular in her adoptive country. Afflicted with frail health, she died of tuberculosis, age twenty four. Her only surviving child was Princess Caroline, Duchess of Berry.
Portrait by Joseph Hickel, 1796
Maria Clementina as a young girl.
Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor
Leopold II was the 44th Holy Roman Emperor, King of Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia, and Archduke of Austria from 1790 to 1792, and Grand Duke of Tuscany from 1765 to 1790. He was a son of Empress Maria Theresa and Emperor Francis I, and the brother of Queen Marie Antoinette of France, Queen Maria Carolina, Duchess Maria Amalia of Parma, and Emperor Joseph II. Leopold was a moderate proponent of enlightened absolutism. He granted the Academy of Georgofili his protection. Unusually for his time, he opposed the death penalty and torture and abolished it in Tuscany on 30 November 1786 during his rule there, making it the first nation in modern history to do so. This act has been commemorated since 2000 by a regional custom known as the Feast of Tuscany, held every 30 November. Despite his brief reign, he is highly regarded. The historian Paul W. Schroeder called him "one of the most shrewd and sensible monarchs ever to wear a crown".
Leopold as Grand Duke of Tuscany, 1770
Young Leopold drawing fortifications, Jean-Étienne Liotard, 1762
Leopold (left) with his brother Emperor Joseph II, by Pompeo Batoni, 1769, Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum
Leopold's coronation as King of Hungary in Pressburg