Eleonore von Österreich

Eleonore of Austria was born on 2 November 1534 in Vienna and died on 5 August 1594 in Mantua. She was the eighth child and sixth daughter of Archduke Ferdinand of Austria, the future Emperor Ferdinand I, and Anna of Bohemia and Hungary of the Jagiellonian dynasty. Through her father, she descended from Philip I of Castile and Joanna I of Castile; through her mother, from Vladislaus II of Bohemia and Hungary. She therefore belonged to one of the prominent ruling families of Europe and grew up in a world where dynastic marriages, religious affiliations, and political alliances were closely intertwined. Eleonore received a strict Catholic upbringing that profoundly shaped her life. She was portrayed as a child; a 1536 painting by the court artist Jakob Seisenegger is now held in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. According to her later confessor and biographer, Antonio Folcario, she rejected a marriage to a Danish king, probably Frederick II, because he was Lutheran. A marriage project considered around 1544 with Johann Frederick II of Saxony also failed because of the deep religious divisions between the Catholic Habsburg imperial house and the Protestant Saxon dynasty. Eleonore is said to have joined her sisters in establishing a shelter for the poor in Innsbruck and distributing alms to those in need. In 1561, she finally married Guglielmo Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua. He had originally sought the hand of her sister Barbara, but then agreed to a union with Eleonore. For him, the marriage was chiefly of political importance, as he hoped to secure the emperor’s support in consolidating his rule over the margraviate of Montferrat. The marriage contract was concluded on 19 January 1561, and the couple married on 26 April of that year at the Palazzo Ducale in Mantua. The wedding festivities lasted until 1 May. During this period, unrest broke out in the city: the houses of many Jewish residents were looted, and the Palazzo della Ragione, which housed the ducal archives, was destroyed by fire. Although the marriage had been arranged and Guglielmo suffered from a spinal deformity, the relationship was regarded as comparatively harmonious. The couple had three children. Their son Vincenzo I was born in 1562 and succeeded his father in 1587 as Duke of Mantua and Montferrat. Their daughter Margherita Barbara married Alfonso II d’Este, Duke of Ferrara, in 1579. Their younger daughter Anna Caterina married her uncle Ferdinand II, Archduke of Austria-Tyrol, in 1582 and later became a nun. As duchess, Eleonore remained closely connected with the Habsburg court and the culture of her upbringing. In 1572, Pope Gregory XIII allowed her to recite the Divine Office in German. She supported religious institutions and aided those in need. After the birth of her first child, she visited her parents and sisters in Innsbruck. She also assisted the poet Torquato Tasso after a fire damaged his lodgings. Her own library contained mainly religious works, and she prohibited her ladies-in-waiting from reading secular literature. After the death of her mother-in-law in 1566, Eleonore took a more active role in governing the duchy. Citizens approached her with requests, including appeals for reduced punishments or for property to be transferred to widows. In 1567, she was sent to Casale Monferrato to calm a revolt, but she was unsuccessful. That same year, she and her husband narrowly escaped a conspiracy aimed at assassinating the duke. Eleonore also spent many years trying to bring the Jesuits back to Mantua, although her husband initially opposed the idea. In 1568, the Jesuit preacher Prospero Malavolta was permitted to work in Mantua; ultimately, in 1584, she succeeded in securing a permanent presence for the order. During the plague epidemic that broke out in Mantua at the end of 1575, Eleonore withdrew with her daughters to Revere. There she founded a school for poor girls at the church of San Stefano, which also served as a refuge for victims of the plague. After returning to Mantua in 1577, she continued her charitable and religious projects. Among other initiatives, she ordered the expansion of the church and convent of Santa Maria Maddalena. She later donated a quarter of her jewelry to the Jesuits to support the construction of the church of Santissima Trinità. She chose members of the order as her confessors and was also associated with the future cardinal Carlo Borromeo. Eleonore devoted considerable attention to arranging her children’s marriages. Because of her son Vincenzo’s dissolute lifestyle, she and her husband sought to guide his marriage carefully. After his first marriage to Margherita Farnese was annulled, he married Eleonora de’ Medici in 1584. The negotiations had been humiliating for Eleonore, but she later developed a good relationship with her daughter-in-law, who was also her niece. Eleonore was regarded as a devoted mother and a loving grandmother. After her husband’s death on 14 August 1587, she held the title of Archduchess of Austria and took another vow of chastity. Her religious discipline then became even stricter. She wore a penitential hair shirt, fasted, practiced self-flagellation, and closely supervised the institutions she supported, including Christian schools for girls. In 1588, she founded an oratory for catechumens and a hospice for sick pilgrims. Despite increasingly serious health problems, she continued to attend to family affairs and was still planning a pilgrimage to Loreto in 1592. Eleonore died at the age of 59 in the Palazzo Porto in Mantua. In accordance with her wishes, her body was not embalmed. She was buried on 8 August 1594 before the high altar of the church of Santissima Trinità; her gravestone bore only her name and coat of arms. In 1855, her remains were transferred to San Pietro Cathedral in Mantua. Her life is also preserved in several contemporary portraits, including a painting by Peter Paul Rubens depicting her with her family worshipping the Trinity.