Gonzaga, Eleanor Louise

The early years

Eleanor Louise was born in Guastall on November 13, 1686. She was the third child and third daughter in the family of Vincenzo, the 5th Duke of Guastalla and Sabbionetta and Margrave of Lutzara and , the princess from the Gvastalsky branch of the house of Gonzaga . For her father, this was the second marriage. Parents of Eleanor Louise were closely related: her father and mother were second cousins ​​uncle and niece. She was a granddaughter of her father - , Count of San Paolo and Laura Crispiano, an aristocrat from the house of Crispiano, Margraves of Fusara; along the line of his mother - Ferrante III , Duke of Guastalla and , the princess from the house of Este ^[1] .

Eleanor Louise's childhood fell on the years of wars that her parents waged with other relatives for inheritance rights over the duchy of Guastalla. They did not pay enough attention to children, and for this reason the princess did not receive a good education. However, she had an attractive appearance and good health ^[2] .

Marriage

Cosimo III , the Grand Duke of Tuscany, trying to prevent the extinction of the Medici house, convinced his forty-eight-year-old younger brother, Cardinal Francesco Maria , to abandon the dignity and enter into marriage. He chose the twenty-three-year-old Eleanor Louise as the bride of a middle-aged groom. The parents of the princess agreed to the marriage of her daughter, without asking her opinion. The alliance with the Medici house promised them support in the struggle for inheritance rights ^[2] .

On June 19, 1709, Francesco Maria officially refused the dignity, and on June 30 of the same year, a proxy marriage was concluded in Guastall. Eleanor Louise departed for Florence. The very first meeting with the groom, an elderly unattractive man suffering from obesity and sexually transmitted diseases, was a shock for her. He aroused her disgust. Despite this, on July 14 ^{[1] [3]} 1709 in Florence, Eleanor Louise and Francesco Maria, the Duke of Rovere and Montefeltro were married ^[2] .

Immediately after the wedding, the young wife refused to perform marital duties, fearing infection with sexually transmitted diseases. Neither the intervention of the father, nor the admonitions of the spiritual father broke the will of the princess. In order to prevent her husband from coming to her, she either pretended to be sick, or got drunk to an unconscious state ^[2] . Francesco Maria managed to overcome all difficulties, and the princess finally lost ^[4] .

Widowhood

Two years later, on February 3, 1711, Eleanor Louise was widowed. Francesco Maria died of dropsy , leaving behind large debts, but did not leave an heir. His widow lived at the court in Florence with the nephew of her late husband, John Gastone , the last Grand Duke of Tuscany from the house of the Medici . Her entourage consisted of writers, poets, and scholars. On December 30, 1718, she agreed to marry Philip von Armstadt, the imperial governor of Mantua, but this marriage did not take place ^{[2] [5]} .

The princess was not interested in the marriage, first of all, in the imperial court in Vienna , who was afraid of the appearance of legitimate heirs on the annexed property of the Habsburg house of the house of Gonzaga. About her spread rumors about obscene behavior and illegitimate children ^[2] .

In 1729, having suffered a serious illness, Eleanor Louise returned to Guastalla. Her brother, Duke Antonio Ferrante , died. The other brother of the princess, Giuseppe Maria , who became the new Duke of Guastalla, was isolated for a long time from communication with people and suffered from a mental disorder. Eleanor Louise, on the one hand, hoped to get a regent’s place with her sick duke brother, on the other, she was waiting for confirmation of her inheritance rights to the duchy, as the only healthy member of the ruling house ^[2] .

For this reason, she came into conflict with the first minister, Pomponio Spilimbergo, who actually ruled the duchy with her sick brother. Eleanor Louise found supporters among the local nobility. She was also supported by the imperial emissary in Milan , Count Carlo Borromeo. But all the plans of the Dowager Princess and Duchess were a fiasco after in 1731 her brother was recognized as sane and married with Maria Eleanor of Schleswig-Holstein, a princess from the Oldenburg house ^[2] .

After the failure of the conspiracy to remove the first minister, Pomponio Spilimbergo, Eleanor Louise moved to Vienna, where she continued to assert her right to govern the duchy of Guastalla. She was kindly received at the imperial court, but ignored requests and demands. Finally, after numerous futile attempts to become the Duchess of Guastalla and due to her difficult financial situation, she returned to Florence , from where she moved to Venice , and afterwards to Padua , where she died on May 16, 1741 (or March 16, 1742 ^[1] ). She was buried in the chapel of in the Basilica of St. Anthony. She bequeathed her property to Franz Stefan , the Grand Duke of Tuscany ^[2] .

The images of Eleanor Louise about 1710 are preserved on the engraving by Carlo Bartolomeo Gregory ^[6] and the coin of the work of the unknown, on the obverse of which is depicted her bust with the inscription in Latin “Eleanor Gonzaga, Princess of Tuscan”, and on the reverse is an olive tree with the inscription also in Latin “Persistent with danger and well-being” ^[7] . The art critic identifies with her several portraits in which she is depicted in the image of Flora , Judith and even the Virgin Mary ^[8] .