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Maria Luisa of Parma

Maria Luisa of Parma
Maria Luisa de Parma1.jpg
Queen consort of Spain
Tenure 14 December 1788 – 19 March 1808
Born (1751-12-09)9 December 1751
Parma, Duchy of Parma
Died 2 January 1819(1819-01-02) (aged 67)
Barberini Palace, Rome, Papal States
Burial El Escorial
Spouse Charles IV of Spain
Issue
Detail
Carlota Joaquina, Queen of Portugal
Infanta Maria Amalia
Maria Luisa, Queen of Etruria
Ferdinand VII
Infante Carlos, Count of Molina
Maria Isabel, Queen of the Two Sicilies
Infante Francisco de Paula
Full name
Luisa María Teresa Ana
House Bourbon-Parma
Father Philip, Duke of Parma
Mother Princess Louise Élisabeth of France
Religion Roman Catholicism
Full name
Luisa María Teresa Ana

Maria Luisa of Parma (9 December 1751 – 2 January 1819) was Queen consort of Spain from 1788 to 1808 as the wife of King Charles IV of Spain. She was the youngest daughter of Philip, Duke of Parma and his wife, Princess Louise-Élisabeth of France, the eldest daughter of King Louis XV.

Born in Parma, she was christened Luisa Maria Teresa Anna, but is known to history by the short Spanish form of this name: María Luisa. Her parents had been the Duke and Duchess of Parma since 1749, when the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748) awarded the duchy to the Bourbon. She, her brother Ferdinand, and her sister Isabella were educated in Parma by Étienne Bonnot de Condillac, a well-known French philosopher.

María Luisa's mother tried to engage her to Louis, Duke of Burgundy, heir to the French throne. However, the young duke died in 1761. In 1762 Maria Luisa instead became engaged to Charles, Prince of Asturias, later King Charles IV of Spain, whom she married on 4 September 1765 in La Granja Palace.

As there was no queen in Spain at that time, María Luisa became the first lady in precedence at the court from the beginning of her residence there. Her husband was the son and heir of the widowed Charles III of Spain, previously Duke of Parma and King of Naples and Sicily.

María Luisa was believed to have had many love affairs, but there is no direct evidence that she had any lovers, not even Manuel de Godoy, her husband's prime minister, whom contemporary gossip singled out in particular as a long-time lover. She was unpopular during her husband's reign, her poor historical reputation being attributed to her support of pro-French political policies that were not deemed beneficial for Spain in the long term.


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