Maria Magdalena von Österreich

Maria Magdalena of Austria was born in Vienna on 26 March 1689. She belonged to the House of Habsburg and was the youngest surviving daughter of Emperor Leopold I and his third wife, Eleonore Magdalene of Palatinate-Neuburg. Her father was also Holy Roman Emperor and King of Hungary. Among her siblings were the future emperors Joseph I and Charles VI, who likewise became kings of Hungary, as well as the archduchesses Maria Elisabeth and Maria Anna. From her father’s first marriage, she also had a half-sister, Maria Antonia, who married Maximilian II Emanuel, Elector of Bavaria, in 1685. Maria Magdalena spent her entire life at the imperial court in Vienna. Unlike some of her sisters, she never married and remained unmarried. Very little is known about her personal daily life or activities. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, there were plans to marry her to a member of the Portuguese royal family. Her sister Maria Anna had been married to King John V of Portugal since 1708, but the plans for Maria Magdalena’s own Portuguese match failed shortly afterward. After these marriage plans collapsed, Maria Magdalena remained permanently at the imperial court as an unmarried archduchess. She had no children. She was particularly close to her niece Maria Theresa, the daughter of her brother Charles, who was King of Hungary as Charles III. Maria Magdalena and Maria Theresa maintained a close and intimate relationship until Maria Magdalena’s death. During her final years, Maria Magdalena witnessed several significant changes within the Habsburg family and its political surroundings. She outlived her brother Charles III, saw Maria Theresa accede to the throne, and lived to see the beginning of the War of the Austrian Succession. In the spring of 1743, she contracted pneumonia. She died in Vienna on 1 May 1743, at the age of 54. She was buried in the traditional burial place of the Habsburgs, the Capuchin Crypt in Vienna. Her grave was beside that of her mother, Empress Eleonore Magdalene of Palatinate-Neuburg, and her nephew, Archduke Leopold Johann, who had died in infancy.