Leopold Johann von Österreich

Archduke Leopold Johann of Austria was born in Vienna on 13 April 1716 and died there on 4 November of the same year at the age of seven months. He was the only male child and the long-awaited heir to the throne of Emperor Charles VI and his wife, Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel. With his early death, followed by that of his father in 1740, the male line of the House of Habsburg became completely extinct. The Habsburg lands subsequently passed to the House of Habsburg-Lorraine, which emerged from the later marriage of Leopold’s younger sister Maria Theresa to Francis Stephen, Duke of Lorraine. The boy’s birth was of great importance to the imperial couple. Charles VI and Elisabeth Christine had been married for seven years before the empress’s first pregnancy was confirmed. Since securing the male succession was considered urgent, Elisabeth Christine was placed under considerable pressure. She underwent numerous treatments and religious or superstitious measures, including pilgrimages to Mariazell, a cure in Karlsbad, a medically prescribed wine cure, and visits to clairvoyants and astrologers. Even the imperial bedchamber was decorated with erotic depictions of men intended to promote her fertility. Leopold Johann was born on the evening of 13 April at 7:30 p.m. His birth was celebrated with great pomp according to the elaborate rules of Spanish court ceremonial. At the time, Austria and the Republic of Venice were at war with the Ottomans. As the newborn heir of the Habsburg dynasty, Leopold received the Order of the Golden Fleece at birth, since his father was its Austrian grand master. The solemn baptism took place the following day in the Knights’ Hall of the Hofburg in Vienna. The baptismal water had been brought from the Jordan River in the Holy Land. His full name was Leopold Johann Anton Joseph Franz de Paula Hermengild Rudolph Ignatius Balthasar, combining Habsburg family tradition with the veneration of saints of the period. The ceremony was conducted jointly by the papal nuncio, the provost of St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna, and the abbot of the Schottenstift. Several archbishops, bishops, and abbots attended. The godfather was King John V of Portugal, who was married to Maria Anna of Austria, one of Charles VI’s sisters. He was represented at the baptism by the Imperial Field Marshal and Prince Maximilian William of Brunswick-Lüneburg. The birth of the long-awaited heir prompted numerous celebrations at the imperial court and throughout the Holy Roman Empire. Charles VI commissioned a valuable medal, and Elisabeth Christine also ordered one to be made. The distinguished Austrian Baroque composer Johann Joseph Fux composed the opera “Angelica vincitrice di Alcina” for the occasion; it was first performed at the Favorita on 14 September 1716. Giuseppe Galli da Bibiena designed the stage setting, with the stage placed on two islands in a pond in the Favorita park. The emperor and empress, the court, and numerous ambassadors attended the performance. Georg Philipp Telemann also composed music in homage to Leopold, which was first performed in Frankfurt in 1716. In June of the same year, Reinhard Keiser’s musical festival work “Das Römische April-Fest,” with a libretto by Barthold Feind, was performed as well. Numerous printed works praising the new archduke were also published across the Empire. Leopold Johann, however, was in fragile health. He died in Vienna on 4 November 1716, before reaching his first birthday. His death deeply affected Charles VI. The fact that the emperor made no diary entries from Leopold’s death until the end of the year is regarded as an expression of his profound shock. The hope that the boy would remain healthy because there was no close blood relationship between his mother and the imperial family was not fulfilled. The burial followed the ceremony used for Archduke Ferdinand Wenzel, the firstborn son of Emperor Leopold I, who had died in infancy in 1668. On the morning after Leopold’s death, his body was opened for embalming in the presence of senior court officials, a lady-in-waiting, several physicians, and the body surgeon Heinrich Cöster. The internal organs and heart were removed and preserved separately. The child’s body was then laid out on a catafalque in the Hofburg. He wore a crown of flowers and the small chain of the Order of the Golden Fleece; the large fleece collar and the Archducal hat were placed on a silver cushion. The heart and entrails were carried in vessels to St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna and buried in the Ducal Crypt. Late that evening, the body was taken in a large procession to the Capuchin Church. There, the coffin was blessed for the last time before six Capuchin priests carried it into the Imperial Crypt. The present sarcophagus was created in 1740 on the orders of Charles VI. It was made as an outer coffin for the original small coffin and was intended to recall ancient models. The decorated tin coffin is adorned with angels’ heads, rests on four bear paws, and is crowned by an ermine mantle and the Archducal hat. A Latin inscription laments the child’s short life and the grief of his father, which was almost impossible to express in words. As a sign of their piety, Charles VI and Elisabeth Christine also donated a silver statue of the infant Jesus to the shrine at Mariazell after their son’s death; its weight corresponded to that of the deceased child.