#Empress Maria Leopoldina of Brazil

[archduchessofnowhere]

Marie Louise’s sister Leopoldine kept her fully supplied with news of her nephew, whom she described as “life incarnate.” The little Prince [Napoleon II] seems to have been very fond of the future Empress of Brazil. She found this “very flattering” and could have “played with him for hours on end.” “Yesterday I had a delightful experience,” she wrote on July 31, “for he called me and I had to go and join him in the garden, where he told me a story of which I did not understand a word, as he had a big croissant in his mouth”.

(...) The delightful and little-known Leopoldine, the future Empress of Brazil, had also promised her sister to watch over “Franz,” whom she considered “too sweet for words,” and to protect him “against the spiteful remarks which are already being made about him.” Certain members of the Court chose in fact to regard him simply as “the Ogre’s son.” “I am always afraid,” wrote Marie Louise, “that people will forget that it is not his fault that he has such a father. . . .” “I am entirely of your opinion,” replied Leopoldine, “and it makes me choke with anger to hear certain self-important people being as spiteful as they can about him to dear Papa [Emperor Franz I]. Neipperg will be able to give you the details, because I have discussed the subject at length with him; as for myself, one of these days I shall certainly place the child officially under my protection.” She was especially critical of the methods employed by Dietrichstein [Napoleon II's tutor], whom she called “the abominable Count Moritz.” She would have liked to see much more of her “adorable” nephew— “Papa’s darling and mine too”— but unfortunately “there are people who will not always allow it, and whose eyes I should like to scratch out.” When the boy, for some reason or other, was prevented from going to play in his little garden, Rainer [Archduke of Austria], faithful to his promise, intervened; and the following month— May, 1816— Leopoldine could tell her sister that Francis was “blooming like a rose” and “taking the air a great deal, in accordance with Uncle Rainer’s prescriptions.”

Castelot, André (1960). King of Rome: a biography of Napoleon's tragic son (translation by Robert Baldick)

[elizabeth-halime]

[best-habsburg-monarch]

Maria Leopoldina, Empress of Brazil, reigned from 1822-1826

This Barbie made Brazil independent

Napoleon II, Duke of Reichstadt

Died young but loved in this bracket

Please go read @archduchessofnowhere's post about their relationship here. It is very sweet.

[rmelster]

Portraits Archduchess Joanna of Austria, grand Duchess of Tuscany, by Alessandro Allori (1570) and her descendant, archduchess Maria Leopoldina of Austria, Queen of Portugal and first Empress of Brazil, by Joseph Kreutzinger (1815).

Despite the importance of their wealth and legacy, they were said to be despised by their husbands, Francesco I de Medici and dom Pedro; they died, respectively, at age 31 and 29, leaving daughters and a sole son and dying under violent and sudden circumstances while pregnant, that have led to the speculation that their husbands had a hand on their deaths.

Joanna of Austria’s only son, Filippo, would predecease his father; her daughter Maria would become queen of France through her marriage to Henri IV, and from her son Louis XIII’s descendants Maria Leopoldina would be born. Her daughter Eleanor would become Duchess of Mantua, and her daughter Eleanora would be crowned Holy Roman Empress.

Maria Leopoldina was a beloved empress and her untimely demise was met with the rage of the people towards her widower and his lover; her eldest daughter would become queen of Portugal on her own right as Maria II, and would be remembered as an illustrious and well-loved queen; her only surviving son became emperor of Brazil.

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

Round Four: Berthasaura vs Caihong

Berthasaura leopoldinae

Artwork by @i-draws-dinosaurs, written by @i-draws-dinosaurs

Name meaning: Bertha and Leopoldina’s reptile (in honour of naturalist and women’s rights activist Bertha Maria Júlia Lutz, and first Empress of Brazil and advocate for Brazilian independence Maria Leopoldina)

Time: Uncertain, likely ~121 to 75 million years ago (Aptian to Albian stages of the Early Creataceous) but may be younger

Location: Goio-Erê Formation, Brazil

Theropods are famously carnivorous dinosaurs, but many, many groups of theropods have decided “actually but what if I didn’t” and gone vegetarian, and yet it’s still wild when another one of those pops up every now and then. Even among them though, Berthasaura is special for being the only theropod that seems to have tried to just straight up turn itself into an ornithopod. The long spindly legs, the teeny little arms, and a big head with a toothless beak all come together to create an utterly bizarre little theropod that honestly nobody could have predicted.

Berthasaura is a noasaur, and those of you familiar will at this moment be saying “oh of course it’s a noasaur” because those guys were small ceratosaurs that were basically Theropod Wacky Experimental Phase 1.0. Within this group you’ve got wild sticky-outy teeth, a single weight-bearing toe on each foot in our fellow competitor Vespersaurus, and now multiple instances of beaks evolving independently. Theropods just love to evolve a beak, what can I say? Whatever the hell Berthasaura had going on, it must have been successful because as the basalmost noasaurid currently known its direct lineage has been surviving since at least the Late Jurassic!

Caihong juji

Artwork by @i-draws-dinosaurs, written by @i-draws-dinosaurs

Name meaning: Rainbow with big crest

Time: 161 million years old (Oxfordian stage of the Late Jurassic)

Location: Tiaojishan Formation, China

It’s always a special treat to hear the announcement of a dinosaur with known colours, because it gives the most direct impression of how truly stunning these animals would have been to witness in real life. And Caihong might just be the most spectacular of them all so far, described in 2018 from an immaculate full-body fossil that preserves detailed feathers! Caihong’s feathers are longer than some other floofy dinosaurs, and would have had the appearance of a luxurious mane along its neck. Not only that, the fossil preserves feather microstructures that in life would have made this dinosaur gloriously iridescent!

Now iridescent dinosaurs aren’t new, Microraptor has been decked out in fabulous starling-esque plumage for a while now, but Caihong absolutely takes it to the next level. Its whole body was covered in iridescent black, including the enormous tail, but the real star of the show are the platelet-like melanosomes found on the head, neck, and the base of the tail. Different from the usual iridescent melanosomes, the structure of these tiny organelles reflects brilliantly iridescent colours, like those on the heads of hummingbirds and particularly the bright purple feathers on the necks of the trumpeter family. Caihong would have put on an absolutely dazzling jewel-toned display in the treetops or on the forest floor of prehistoric China!

[alicentsultana]

"This is the burden of being an Empress, reign for all."

Maria Leopoldina, Empress of Brazil

Portrayed in "Novo Mundo" by Letícia Colin

Drawing of a Brinco de Princesa (Hybrid fuchsia) done by Maria Leopoldina

Decorated fan owned by Maria Leopoldina

Signed paper with oath done by Maria Leopoldina swearing to serve Brazil, obey the laws and her husband, Pedro I. March 25th, 1824

Portrait: Maria Leopoldina, Joseph Kreutzinger, 1815

Portrait: Arquiduquesa Maria Leopoldina, Friedrich Johann Gottlieb Lieder, 1815

Painting: Sessão do Conselho de Estado, Georgina de Albuquerque, 1922

[royal-confessions]

“Empress Maria Leopoldina of Brazil was one of the most exceptional women in brazilian history.” - Submitted by cenacevedo15

[bloodymarygirlll]

Maria Leopoldina, Empress Consort of Brazil.

[best-braganza-tournement]

Our Contestants

1: Maria Leopoldina of Austria, First Empress of Brazil

2 Dona Maria I of Portugal

3: Dona Maria II of Portugal

4:  Isabel, Princess Imperial of Brazil

5 Carlota Joaquina de Bourbon

6: João I, Duke of Bragança

7 João IV, King of Portugal

8: Afonso I, Duke of Bragança

9: Fernando I, Duke of Bragança

10: Jaime I, Duke of Bragança

11: Teodósio I, Duke of Bragança

12: Teodósio II, Duke of Bragança

13: Afonso VI of Portugal

14 Pedro II of  Portugal

15: João V of Portugal

16: João VI of Portugal

17: Pedro II of Portual

18 Pedro I of Brazil/ IV of Portugal

19: Miguel I of Portugal

20: Pedro V of Portugal

21: Luís I of Portugal

22: Carlos I of Portugal

23: Manuel II of Portugal

24 Dom Pedro II of Brazil

25: Teresa Cristina, Empress of Brazil.

26: Catherine de Bragança, Queen Consort of England, Scotland, and Ireland

27: Infante Dom Manuel, Candidate for the throne of Poland

28: José I of Portugal

29: Carol II of Romania (Carlos II in Portuguese)

30: Ferdinand I of Romania

31: Infantá Antonia de Bragança, Princess Consort of Hohenzollern

32: Amélie of Leuchtenberg

33: Infanta Isabel Maria, Regent of Portugal

34: Mariana Vitória of Spain, Queen Consort of Portugal

35: Maria Francisca of Savoy (Consort to Afonso VI and Pedro II)

36: Maria Pia of Savoy (Queen-Consort to Luís I of Portugal)

[orionsolstice]

I think we should thank Maria Theresa of Naples and Sicily for giving birth two icons in Marie Louise and Maria Leopoldina Empress of Brazil

[notwiselybuttoowell]

Nearly six years after it was engulfed by a devastating fire that inflicted incalculable damage on Brazil’s cultural heritage, the country’s national museum has received an important donation of more than a thousand fossils as part of a campaign to help rebuild the collection lost to the flames.

The fire, caused by an electrical short-circuit on the night of 2 September 2018, consumed the former imperial palace which housed the 200-year-old museum in a park just north of Rio de Janeiro’s city centre and destroyed about 85% of its archive of 20m artefacts.

Losses included Egyptian and Greco-Roman relics acquired by the Brazilian imperial family, a large dinosaur named Dinoprata, and invaluable records of Indigenous life and culture in pre-colonial times.

Efforts are now under way to rebuild the collection ahead of the museum’s planned reopening in April 2026. Reconstruction works on St Christopher’s Palace began in 2021. The restored facade and front courtyard were unveiled a year later, but works continue on the rest of the building.

“It was an enormous tragedy but we need to look ahead and rebuild the institution. Brazil needs its national museum back,” Alexander Kellner, the institution’s director, told reporters on Tuesday, celebrating “this magical moment of the [fossil] donation”.

It is the most important donation of fossils received by the museum in recent history and of vital scientific significance, he said.

The 1,104 fossils donated by the Swiss-German collector Burkhard Pohl all originate from the Araripe Basin, an area spanning the states of Ceará, Pernambuco and Piauí in north-eastern Brazil where two geological formations contain palaeontological material from the Early Cretaceous period.

The donated specimens include two unique dinosaur fossils, a Tetrapodophis – possibly the earliest snake fossil – and two unstudied pterosaur skulls. They will be on display in future palaeontology exhibitions as well as contribute to scientific research at the museum, which is part of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ).

As part of a collaboration between the museum and Pohl’s Swiss-based Interprospekt Group, UFRJ palaeontologists and students are taking part in excavation expeditions in Wyoming and Montana in the US, in the hopes of discovering dinosaurs which could later be displayed in Brazil.

The aim is to have gathered about 10,000 objects for exhibition by the time the museum reopens, Keller said, about twice the size of the display before the fire. He estimates the museum currently has about 2,000 pieces.

Digital versions of destroyed pieces will also be included, although their loss is “irretrievable”, said Keller.

“We can’t recreate what was lost, but we can show new objects. Various people have already made donations,” he said, citing the gift of an original portrait of Maria Leopoldina, Empress of Brazil.

The institution’s Indigenous ethnology section suffered particularly severe losses and researchers are working closely with Indigenous Brazilians to ensure the reconstructed collection includes their perspective.

[archduchessofnowhere]

In the spring of 1817 Leopoldine left Schönbrunn to become Empress of Brazil. "Nothing remains for me to do," she wrote to Marie Louise on April 4, "except weep with you and curse the word politics for causing me so much suffering. Prince Metternich is accompanying me as far as Leghorn as my official escort; you can imagine how delighted I am!?... We unfortunate princesses are like dice whose… happiness or unhappiness depends on the throw." Before taking the road to Leghorn, Leopoldine went and gave her beloved, curly-headed nephew a farewell kiss. She would often speak of her "treasure" in the letters - the unhappy letters of an exile - which she was to write from Brazil.

Castelot, André (1960). King of Rome: a biography of Napoleon's tragic son (translation by Robert Baldick)

[idkimnotreal]

there is a historical parallel to queen elizabeth ii: dom pedro ii of brazil.

he died about three decades before she was even born. much like elizabeth, he was thrust into a position of power against his will - he was born to be emperor, but his father abdicated before he was even middle aged due to political pressure and pedro inherited the throne at age 4. it’s often said he could never be a child because he was sternly tutored to be emperor at a young age. ten years later, at 14, the liberal party used legislation to coup the conservative party and fully install pedro ii as emperor of brazil (”golpe da maioridade” or age of majority coup). when he became de facto emperor, however, pedro’s first move was to remove the liberals from power and place the conservatives instead. the cycling of power between parties (so that none of them ever acquired more power over the other) would become his trademark until the end of his reign.

again, much like queen elizabeth, despite hating his position and being generally unhappy because of it, he had a strong sense of duty and wanted to serve his empire. he was an educated man and strove to make brazil a center of education and technology (not that it was all roses - he crushed several revolts against the central government and did paraguay bad. very bad). we were only the second country to receive a telegraph line, during his reign. pedro ii often frequented world science fairs in europe and america. he was famous and known by other world leaders at the time - royalty, a direct descendant of the habsburgs; his mother empress maria leopoldina was a habsburg-lorraine (she died of grief when he was a kid due to an open affair her husband, the emperor, had with another woman in brazil). the royal family in brazil (ahem, unlike today) were abolitionists, and bringing abolition to brazil was what ultimately caused their downfall in 1889. it’s a fair critique that they were wrong to wait that long to hold onto power, but you can’t blame humans for protecting their own power, so for me the fact that they advocated for it and even did it in the end is enough. 

(the abolition law has a pretty name though - “the golden law”. its name in portuguese is “lei áurea” after the latin name for gold, which is only vaguely similar in portuguerse, “ouro”, and most people can’t make the connection. it was signed by princess isabel as empress regent under the pretense that the emperor was travelling to europe on business. in fact, i think the royal family leveraged the situation so that the emperor could not be blamed for it, but it failed. or he didn’t have political capital to do it and used the element of surprise, idk. a house member told princess isabel moments after she signed the law: “you may have freed a race, your highness, but you condemned the crown.”)

when republican officers and soldiers couped him with the support of imperial brazil’s agrarian elite (which relied on slave labor), he did not resist. many say that he didn’t believe a woman, his daughter and direct successor, could hold the throne of brazil. in fact, pedro ii was tired, weary, sick and hopeless about the future of the country under the monarchy. he gave it up in the hopes that it would be the better path for his country. in his deathbed, his famous last words were: “may god grant me these two last wishes - peace and prosperity for brazil”.

(i had written a final paragraph making sense of my comparison between the two monarchs but it was wiped out of existence when i edited to include the video. oh well nice post regardless. but in short, i think that those who make best rulers are usually groomed for power but do not want it, which is a difficult combo to achieve)

[best-habsburg-monarch]

Maria Theresa, Archduchess of Austria, Queen of Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia, etc. reigned 1740-1780

This Maria reformed the empire

From anon: - chucked into ruling at age 23. while pregnant - no prep!!!! Prussia invades Silesia!!! Ministers fucking around for their own provincial interests instead of for the Whole !!!!! and she has to somehow cope with all of this .... - ALL WHILE being pregnant with Joseph (II) and we know that guy was just as ornery in utero as he was irl - she's everything! He (Francis) is just ....Ken. - YAS QUEEN rediversify that gene pool - originally reluctant to participate in the 1st partition of poland (who wants galicia let's be real)

Maria Leopoldina, Empress of Brazil, reigned from 1822-1826

This Maria made Brazil independent

[germanaustriannoblesandroyals]

House of Habsburg & of Braganza: Archduchess Maria Leopoldine (Leopoldina) of Austria

Leopoldine Josepha Carolina was born as fifth child and fourth daughter to Holy Roman Emperor Francis II and his second wife Princess Maria Theresa of Naples and Sicily. Her mother died when she was ten but she formed a close relationship with her stepmother Archduchess Maria Ludovika of Austria-Este, Princess of Moden, who her father married only a year after his second wife’s death. Only when she sailed to Brazil, Leopoldine would begin to use the name of Maria Leopoldina.

Leopoldine was raised with her sisters. She studied the typical subjects for Habsburg woman: French, Italian, drawing, playing the piano, riding and shooting. Leopoldine was especially interested in science, most of all botany and mineralogy.

On May 13th, 1817, Leopoldine was married by proxy to the then Prince Pedro of Portugal, who resided in Brazil, in Vienna. Exactly three months later her ship set sail and arrived 81 days later, on November 5th, Rio de Janeiro. Here she met her husband for the very first time. But he was not the fairytale prince she had imagined. At the age of only 18, he had had already several affairs and lived with his French marriage in a quasi-marital situation. However, their marriage would produce nine pregnancies of which 7 were carried to term. Among their children were two monarchs.

However, Leopoldina was influential in the matter of politics. Unlike her, Pedro was also not a very educated man and relied heavily on her advice. He discussed every decision with her up until the indepence of Brazil. Pedro had become Prince-Regent of Brazil in 1821 when his father had to return to Portugal to strengthen his power there. In January 1822, during a expedition to Sao Paulo, a letter reached Pedro from Leopoldina, who he had left behind in Rio de Janeiro as regent in his absence. She advised him to declare Brazil’s independency from Portugal. And he did. They were crowned the first Emperor and Empress of Brazil on December 1st, 1822.

Unfortunately their marriage soon turned sour and abusive. Pedro continued to have affairs and one of them, Domitila de Castro, even bore him a daughter he demanded to be raised alongside his legitimate children. To embarrass Leopoldina, Pedro made Domitila the highest-ranking lady-in-waiting of his wife and gave her the title of Marchioness of Santos. The couples disagreements turned from psychologial to physical. Pretty soon Pedro began to beat his wife. His humiliations at court pushed Leopoldina in too a severe depression.

Maria Leopoldina was pregnant again when she had another fight with her husband on December 1st, 1826. Supposedly, he kicked her so strongly in the stomach that she went into premature labor. Only ten days later, the not yet 30-year-old Empress was dead.

// Letízia Colin as Leopoldina in Novo Mundo (2017)

____________________________________________________________

Requested by @elizabethbennetz

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

Round Two: Berthasaura vs Ceratosuchops

Berthasaura leopoldinae

Artwork by @i-draws-dinosaurs, written by @i-draws-dinosaurs

Name meaning: Bertha and Leopoldina’s reptile (in honour of naturalist and women’s rights activist Bertha Maria Júlia Lutz, and first Empress of Brazil and advocate for Brazilian independence Maria Leopoldina)

Time: Uncertain, likely ~121 to 75 million years ago (Aptian to Albian stages of the Early Creataceous) but may be younger

Location: Goio-Erê Formation, Brazil

Theropods are famously carnivorous dinosaurs, but many, many groups of theropods have decided “actually but what if I didn’t” and gone vegetarian, and yet it’s still wild when another one of those pops up every now and then. Even among them though, Berthasaura is special for being the only theropod that seems to have tried to just straight up turn itself into an ornithopod. The long spindly legs, the teeny little arms, and a big head with a toothless beak all come together to create an utterly bizarre little theropod that honestly nobody could have predicted.

Berthasaura is a noasaur, and those of you familiar will at this moment be saying “oh of course it’s a noasaur” because those guys were small ceratosaurs that were basically Theropod Wacky Experimental Phase 1.0. Within this group you’ve got wild sticky-outy teeth, a single weight-bearing toe on each foot in our fellow competitor Vespersaurus, and now multiple instances of beaks evolving independently. Theropods just love to evolve a beak, what can I say? Whatever the hell Berthasaura had going on, it must have been successful because as the basalmost noasaurid currently known its direct lineage has been surviving since at least the Late Jurassic!

Ceratosuchops inferodios

Artwork by @i-draws-dinosaurs, written by @zygodactylus

Name Meaning: Horned Crocodile Faced Hell Heron

Time: ~128 million years ago (Barremian stage of the Early Cretaceous) 

Location: Wessex Formation, Isle of Wight, England 

Say hello to the Hell Heron! Ceratosuchops is one of many new Spinosaurs described recently, showcasing the sheer diversity of this group as well as their much larger spread than previously believed. Ceratosuchops, previously thought to be just Baryonyx, is one of such new taxa that point to the entire group originating in Europe, a piece of their evolutionary puzzle not previously well known. Ceratosuchops was about 8.5 meters long, and had a long crocodile-like skull, with a horn on the top of it (hence its name). As a spinosaur, it would have probably been an aquatic stalker (you know, like a heron) - waiting near bodies of water for food, and snatching it up before it could swim away. Just, the difference between Ceratosuchops and actual herons, well, this was a big heron. It probably wouldn’t have had a sail, though it is possible it may have had a ridge like its close relative Suchomimus. It lived in a heavily river-filled environment, giving it a wide variety of locations to choose from for hunting. Besides a vast diversity of invertebrates, sharks, ray-finned fish, salamanders, lizards, turtles, many kinds of Neosuchians, Plesiosaurs, mammals, and pterosaurs, Ceratosuchops lived alongside other dinosaurs such as Hypsilophodon, Brighstoneus, Iguanodon, Mantellisaurus, Valdosaurus, Polacanthus, Eucamerotus, Oplosaurus, Ornithopsis, Aristosuchus, Calamosaurus, Calamospondylus, Eotyrannus, Neovenator, Ornithodesmus, Yaverlandia, Vectiraptor, Thecocoelurus, and even another spinosaur, Riparovenator!