Maria Karoline von Österreich

Maria Carolina of Austria, whose full German name was Maria Karoline Auguste Elisabeth Dorotheia, was born on 6 February 1821 at the Royal Palace of Milan and died on 23 January 1844 in Vienna. She belonged to the House of Habsburg-Lorraine and held the title of Imperial and Royal Archduchess of Austria and Royal Princess of Hungary and Bohemia. Maria Carolina was the firstborn child of Archduke Rainer Joseph of Austria and Princess Elisabeth of Savoy-Carignan. Her parents lived in Milan because her father served as Viceroy of the Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia. One week after her birth, on 13 February 1821, she was baptized in the same palace. The ceremony was performed by the Archbishop of Milan, Count Gaisruck. Her godmother was her aunt, Empress Caroline Augusta. At her baptism, she received the names Maria Carolina Augusta Elisabeth Margareta Dorotheia. As a member of the Austrian imperial family, Maria Carolina was also closely connected to the Italian ruling houses. In 1843, her maternal uncle, King Charles Albert of Sardinia, proposed that she marry the young Prince Eugene of Savoy-Carignan. Eugene came from a cadet branch of the House of Savoy. Since 1834, he had been entrusted with restoring the Savoy-Carignan line, which was regarded as extinct after Charles Albert, then Prince of Carignan, ascended the Sardinian throne in 1831. Maria Carolina was also among the Austrian archduchesses considered as possible wives for Emperor Pedro II of Brazil. Although these deliberations did not lead to a marriage, they demonstrate the dynastic importance attached to an alliance with a Habsburg archduchess. Maria Carolina died in Vienna at the age of 22. She was the second of her siblings to die; her brother Maximilian had passed away five years earlier. In accordance with the tradition of the House of Habsburg, her body was buried in Vienna’s Imperial Crypt. Her heart was buried separately in the chapel of the Church of San Fedele in Milan, reflecting her connection to her birthplace and to the Lombard-Venetian environment of her family. From birth until her death, Maria Carolina used the style “Her Imperial and Royal Highness, Archduchess Maria Carolina of Austria, Royal Princess of Hungary and Bohemia.” She was also a Dame of the First Class of the Order of the Starry Cross in the Austrian Empire.