Maria Amalia, Duchess of Parma
Maria Amalia (Maria Amalia Josepha Johanna Antonia; 26 February 1746 – 18 June 1804) was duchess of Parma, Piacenza and Guastalla by marriage to Ferdinand I, Duke of Parma. She was born an archduchess of Austria as the daughter of Empress Maria Theresa and Emperor Francis I.
Maria Amalia
19 July 1769 – 9 October 1802
26 February 1746
Hofburg, Vienna, Archduchy of Austria, Holy Roman Empire
18 June 1804 (aged 58)
Prague Castle, Prague, Kingdom of Bohemia, Holy Roman Empire
Widowhood and death[edit]
Maria Amalia participated in the funeral procession of her husband alongside their daughters. She was given permission by her nephew, Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor, to live in Prague Castle with her two youngest daughters, Maria Antonia and Maria Carlotta and a small retinue of servants. In Prague Castle, she suffered from depression, never recovering from the execution of her sister Marie Antoinette who she mourned for the rest of her life, and her two oldest children, Carolina and Louis, died before her, which worsened her depressive state. She died there in 1804 from breast cancer after a series of colds, and her sisters Maria Elisabeth and Maria Carolina went to say goodbye to her, but couldn't come in time before her death. Her body was interred at the royal crypt of the St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague (the last royal funeral there), and her heart was taken to Vienna and placed inside urn number thirty-three in her family's Herzgruft Herzgruft, 'Heart Crypt'.