Princess Isabella Maria of Parma

Infobox Austrian Royalty|archduke
name =Princess Isabella Maria of Parma
title =Archduchess Maria Isabella of Austria; Princess Maria Isabella of Hungary, Croatia, and Bohemia


caption =Maria Isabella painted by Jean-Marc Nattier
full name =Maria Isabella Louisa Antonietta Ferdinanda Josepha Saveria Dominica Joanna
spouse =Archduke Joseph
issue =Archduchess Maria Theresia
royal house =House of Habsburg-Lorraine
House of Bourbon-Parma
father =Philip, Duke of Parma
mother =Louise-Elisabeth of France
date of birth =31 December 1741
place of birth =
date of death =death date and age|1763|11|27|1741|12|31
place of death =Vienna
date of burial =
place of burial =Imperial Crypt

Isabella Maria of Parma, ( _it. Maria Elisabetta Luisa Antonietta Ferdinanda Giuseppina Saveria Dominica Giovanna Borbone, principessa di Parma) (December 31, 1741 – November 27, 1763), was the daughter of Philip, Duke of Parma and his wife Louise-Elisabeth, eldest daughter of Louis XV of France. She grew up at Philip V's court in Madrid, but when her father became Duke of Parma the family moved to the duchy in northern Italy.

Isabella learned to play the violin, and she also read books by philosophers and theologians like Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet or John Law. She sometimes became melancholic and, after her mother's death in 1759, was often preoccupied with thoughts about death.

On October 6, 1760, at the age of 18, she was married to Archduke Joseph of Austria, heir of the Habsburg Monarchy. She quickly charmed the court in Vienna with her beauty and intelligence; apparently Isabella could solve difficult mathematical problems.

She and Joseph's sister Maria Christina quickly became best friends. Although they met every day, they also wrote letters to each other. In one letter she professes her love for Maria Christina: "I am writing you again, cruel sister, though I have only just left you. I cannot bear waiting to know my fate, and to learn whether you consider me a person worthy of your love, or whether you would like to throw me into the river.... I can think of nothing but that I am deeply in love. If I only knew why this is so, for you are so without mercy that one should not love you, but I cannot help myself.". In a different letter she wrote: "I am told that the day begins with God. I, however, begin the day by thinking of the object of my love, for I think of her incessantly."

She gave birth to two children, Maria Theresia, in 1762, and Marie Christine in 1763. Marie Christine (named after her sister-in-law) died at birth and Isabella herself died a few days later from smallpox. Her daughter Maria Theresia died in January 1770 from pneumonia.

She is buried in Maria Theresa's vault in the Imperial Crypt Vaults in Vienna, Austria.

In 1765, her father-in-law Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor died and her husband succeeded him as Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II.

Ancestry

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1= 1. Isabella Maria of Parma
2= 2. Philip, Duke of Parma
3= 3. Louise-Élisabeth of France
4= 4. Philip V of Spain
5= 5. Elisabeth of Parma
6= 6. Louis XV of France
7= 7. Maria Leszczyńska
8= 8. Louis, Dauphin of France
9= 9. Maria Anna of Bavaria
10= 10. Odoardo Farnese
11= 11. Dorothea Sophie of Palatine-Neuburg
12= 12. Louis, Dauphin of France (1682-1712)
13= 13. Marie-Adélaïde of Savoy
14= 14. Stanisław Leszczyński
15= 15. Katarzyna Opalińska
16= 16. Louis XIV of France
17= 17. Maria Theresa of Spain
18= 18. Ferdinand Maria, Elector of Bavaria
19= 19. Henriette Adelaide of Savoy
20= 20. Ranuccio II, Duke of Parma
21= 21. Isabella of Modena
22= 22. Philipp Wilhelm, Elector Palatine
23= 23. Elisabeth Amalie of Hesse-Darmstadt
24= 24. Louis, Dauphin of France (=8)
25= 25. Maria Anna of Bavaria (=9)
26= 26. Victor Amadeus II of Sardinia
27= 27. Anne Marie of Orléans
28= 28. Rafał Leszczyński
29= 29. Anna Jabłonowska
30= 30. Jan Karol Opaliński
31= 31. Zofia Czarnkowska

References

* [http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabella_von_Bourbon-Parma Isabella von Bourbon-Parma] from German Wikipedia. Retrieved August 6, 2006.
* [http://www.xs4all.nl/~kvenjb/madmonarchs/isabella/isabella_bio.htm Biography of the melancholy Princess Isabella of Parma (1741-1763)] . Retrieved August 6, 2006