Maria Carolina d’Asburgo Lorena

A strong-willed woman, driven by a strong intellectual curiosity, Maria Carolina governed the Kingdom of Naples alongside Ferdinand IV of Bourbon over one of the oldest and most coveted kingdoms of the European geopolitical chessboard located in the center of the Mediterranean. She was born in Vienna, in Schoenbrunn Castle, on 13 August 1752, Maria Carolina, the thirteenth daughter of Maria Theresa of Austria and Emperor Francis I, combined in herself the qualities of a keen sovereign, the role of mother and lively intellectual at the court of the Kingdom of Naples. Just sixteen years old, in 1768 she arrived in Naples to marry Ferdinand IV of Bourbon, son of Charles of Bourbon and Maria Amalia of Saxony. From this union eighteen children were born, of whom only seven survived and were destined to settle on the thrones of the most important courts in Europe. Maria Carolina Luisa Giuseppa Giovanna Antonia of Habsburg-Lorraine, for brevity called Maria Carolina of Austria, grew up with a rigid Austrian mentality and although the choice to become royal consort of the King of Naples even came third compared to her two previous sisters, Maria Giuseppina and Maria Giovanna Gabriella, who died of smallpox even before marrying Ferdinand, the young Austrian was able to win her husband's trust thanks to the subtle indications of her mother, Maria Teresa “you will not meddle in business except as the king wants it and you will believe that you can be more useful to him than others [...] never take a tone in which you seem to want to impose something on him or criticize him” and he managed to carve out a leading political role for himself by entering the Council of State in 1775 following the birth of his firstborn. Maria Carolina experienced as a protagonist the intense activity of reform of the Bourbon political system, despite being hindered by clergy and aristocracy and carried out works and initiatives of cultural, social and economic renewal, such as the reorganization of the two kingdoms, renewed the alliance between the royal houses of Bourbon and Habsburg, thus attenuating the Spanish influence coming directly from Charles III. In fact, he managed to remove Bernardo Tanucci, shadow ruler of the kingdom, placed as guardian of the then little Ferdinand when at the age of 8 he was crowned king of Naples in place of his father Carlo who went to Spain in 1754. Maria Carolina was then joined by the English minister Prince John Acton, who won the trust of the Royals and shifted the axis of influence towards England. Just as her mother, Maria Theresa, a skilled wedding weaver for her children, Maria Carolina also managed to conclude important marriage contracts for her descendants such as Maria Theresa of Bourbon-Two Sicilies who became Empress of Austria, and Maria-Amalia of Bourbon-Two Sicilies who married Louis Philippe of France, Duke of Orléans and became sovereign of France. In the intellectual field, Maria Carolina, experienced an initial period in which the relations with Horatio Nelson and Lady Hamilton were lively and harbingers of cultural openings, those were the years of the rediscovery of the ancient and the art treasures from Herculaneum and Pompeii that aroused the elaboration of new decorative apparatuses, like the wall paintings (today unfortunately in a very poor state of conservation) present in the queen's bathroom at the Royal Site of the Belvedere of San Leucio, travelers from the Grand Tour such as Wolfgang Goethe and Mozart, still a child prodigy, arrived in Naples, who was heard by the queen in person while playing the organ at the Royal Court Chapel of the Royal Palace of Portici. Furthermore, the Austrian queen formed ties with the most enlightened nobility of the time such as Eleonora Pimentel Fonseca, who applauded the Leucian Statute promoted by Ferdinand and Carolina. From a supporter of progress to a determined counter-revolutionary, after the death of her sister Marie Antoinette she carried out a bloody operation in 1799 to eliminate any revolutionary potential, like Fonseca herself, but was forced to leave Naples and moved to Palermo, the other capital of the Kingdom. While Naples became the Neapolitan Republic and the French decade began, Maria Carolina from Sicily managed to recover the Neapolitan throne of the new Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. It was then the British who required Ferdinand to grant the Constitution in 1812 and Maria Carolina began a journey through the major courts of Europe to make child marriage agreements. He died in Vienna on ’8 September 1814 following a sudden stroke at the age of sixty-two, after having reigned amid glories and revolutions.