Dorothea Maria of Saxe-Weimar (14 October 1641 – 11 June 1675), was by birth Duchess of

Saxe-Weimar Saxe-Weimar () was one of the Saxon duchies held by the Ernestine branch of the Wettin dynasty in present-day Thuringia. The chief town and capital was Weimar. The Weimar branch was the most genealogically senior extant branch of the House of W ...

from the Ernestine branch of the

House of Wettin The House of Wettin () was a dynasty which included Saxon monarch, kings, Prince Elector, prince-electors, dukes, and counts, who once ruled territories in the present-day German federated states of Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia. The dynas ...

and by marriage Duchess of

Saxe-Zeitz The Duchy of Saxe-Zeitz () was a territory of the Holy Roman Empire established in 1656–57 as a secundogeniture of the Electorate of Saxony, Electoral Saxon house of House of Wettin. Its capital was Zeitz. The territory fell back to the Wettin ...

Life

Family

Born in

Weimar Weimar is a city in the state (Germany), German state of Thuringia, in Central Germany (cultural area), Central Germany between Erfurt to the west and Jena to the east, southwest of Leipzig, north of Nuremberg and west of Dresden. Together w ...

, Dorothea Maria was the youngest daughter of Duke William IV of Saxe-Weimar from his marriage to

Eleonore Dorothea of Anhalt-Dessau Eleonore Dorothea of Anhalt-Dessau (born 16 February 1602 in Dessau – died 26 December 1664 in Weimar), was a princess of Anhalt-Dessau by birth and by marriage Duchess of Saxe-Weimar. Life Eleonore Dorothea was a daughter of the prince John ...

, the daughter of Prince John George I of Anhalt-Dessau. She was named after her maternal grandmother

Dorothea Maria of Anhalt Dorothea Maria of Anhalt (Dessau, 2 July 1574 – Weimar, 18 July 1617), was by birth a member of the House of Ascania and princess of Anhalt. After her marriage, she became Duchess of Saxe-Weimar. Dorothea Maria was the sixth daughter of Joachim ...

, who had already died at that point in time.

Wedding to Maurice of Saxony, and activity in the Principality of Saxe-Zeitz

Her marriage to Duke Maurice of Saxe-Zeitz can be understood against the background of the fact that Maurice had been administrator of the

Bishopric of Naumburg-Zeitz The Prince-Bishopric of Naumburg-Zeitz (; , then ' or ') was a medieval diocese in the central German area between Leipzig in the east and Erfurt in the west. The seat of the bishop was Zeitz Cathedral in Zeitz from 968 and 1029 and Naumburg Cath ...

since 1653 and lived in City Palace in

Naumburg Naumburg () is a town in (and the administrative capital of) the district Burgenlandkreis, in the state of Saxony-Anhalt, Central Germany (cultural area), Central Germany. It has a population of around 33,000. The Naumburg Cathedral became a UNES ...

. Furthermore, Maurice had been a member since 1646, of the

Fruitbearing Society The Fruitbearing Society (German Die Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft, lat. ''Societas Fructifera'') was a German literary society founded in 1617 in Weimar by German scholars and nobility. Its aim was to standardize vernacular German and promote it ...

, led by Dorothea Maria's father. Maurice had been married before and had been a widower since 7 October 1652. When the customary mourning period had ended, he married Dorothea Maria, who was only 15 years old. Maurice's father, Elector John George I of Saxony died. Maurice inherited the Lordship of

Zeitz Zeitz (; , ) is a town in the Burgenlandkreis district, in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It is situated on the river White Elster, in the triangle of the federal states Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, and Saxony. History First a Slavic pagan settlem ...

as an

apanage An appanage, or apanage (; ), is the grant of an estate, title, office or other thing of value to a younger child of a monarch, who would otherwise have no inheritance under the system of primogeniture (where only the eldest inherits). It was ...

, making him the founder of the

branch of the

. Maurice held that the City Palace in Naumburg was not a befitting residence for a person of his station and summoned his father court architect,

Johann Moritz Richter Johann Moritz Richter (1620–1667) was a German architect and engraver. Richter was born in Weimar. In the position of "fürstlich-sächsischer Landbaumeister" (court architect), he designed the oldest extant bridge in Weimar, the ''Sternbrücke ...

, to discuss the design of a magnificent

baroque The Baroque ( , , ) is a Western Style (visual arts), style of Baroque architecture, architecture, Baroque music, music, Baroque dance, dance, Baroque painting, painting, Baroque sculpture, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished from ...

palace, Moritzburg Palace, in his new capital Zeitz. The Duke and Duchess saw as their main task to revive the economy and to repair the devastation of the infrastructure of their principality during the

Thirty Years' War The Thirty Years' War, fought primarily in Central Europe between 1618 and 1648, was one of the most destructive conflicts in History of Europe, European history. An estimated 4.5 to 8 million soldiers and civilians died from battle, famine ...

. They also devoted themselves to the reconstruction of the seminary in Zeitz.

Christoph Cellarius Christoph (Keller) Cellarius (22 November 1638 – 4 June 1707) was a German classical scholar from Schmalkalden who held positions in Weimar and Halle. Although the Ancient-Medieval-Modern division of history was used earlier by Italian Re ...

would later add great prestige to this seminary. Dorothea Maria died in the Moritzburg Palace,

on 11 June 1675, at the age of 33. She was buried in a magnificent sarcophagus in the hall crypt below the Cathedral of St. Peter and Paul in Zeitz. Her husband remarried after her death. This third marriage, however, remained childless, so that the Saxe-Zeitz line descends from Dorothea Maria. However, the line died out after the third generation, due to lack of male heirs.

Marriage and issue

She married on 3 July 1656 in

with Duke

Maurice Maurice may refer to: *Maurice (name), a given name and surname, including a list of people with the name Places * or Mauritius, an island country in the Indian Ocean *Maurice, Iowa, a city *Maurice, Louisiana, a village *Maurice River, a trib ...

of Saxe-Zeitz, the youngest surviving son of Elector John George I of Saxony, from his second marriage, with

Duchess Magdalene Sibylle of Prussia Magdalene Sibylle of Prussia (31 December 1586 – 12 February 1659) was an Electress of Saxony as the wife of John George I, Elector of Saxony. Life Magdalene Sibylle was born in Königsberg, the daughter of Albert Frederick, Duke of Prussia an ...

. They had ten children: #Eleonore Magdalene (Weimar, 30 October 1658 – Dresden, 26 February 1661). #Wilhelmine Eleonore (born and died Dresden, September 1659). # Erdmuthe Dorothea (Naumburg, 13 November 1661 – Merseburg, 29 April 1720), married on 14 October 1679 to Duke Christian II of Saxe-Merseburg. # Maurice William, Duke of Saxe-Zeitz (Moritzburg Palace, 12 March 1664 – d. Weida, 15 November 1718). #John George (Moritzburg Palace, 27 April 1665 – Moritzburg Palace, 5 September 1666). # Christian August (Moritzburg Palace, 9 October 1666 – d. Regensburg, 23 August 1725), Cardinal, Archbishop of Gran (Esztergom) and

Primate Primates is an order (biology), order of mammals, which is further divided into the Strepsirrhini, strepsirrhines, which include lemurs, galagos, and Lorisidae, lorisids; and the Haplorhini, haplorhines, which include Tarsiiformes, tarsiers a ...

of Hungary. # Frederick Henry (Moritzburg Palace, 21 July 1668 – Neustadt an der Orla, 18 December 1713), inherited

Pegau Pegau () is a town in the Leipzig district in Saxony, Germany, situated in a fertile plain, on the White Elster, 18 m. S.W. from Leipzig by the railway to Zeitz. It has two Evangelical churches, that of St. Lawrence being a fine Gothic structure ...

and Neustadt. #Marie Sophie (Moritzburg Palace, 3 November 1670 – Moritzburg Palace, 31 May 1671). #Magdalene Sibylle (Moritzburg Palace, 7 April 1672 – Moritzburg Palace, 20 August 1672) #Wilhelmine Sophie (born and died Moritzburg Palace, 11 June 1675).

External links

* * Anne-Simone Knöfel
''Dorothea Maria von Sachsen-Weimar''
in: de:Sächsische Biografie, published by the Saxon Institute for History and Folkloristics, edited by Martina Schattkowsky
Johann Hübner's three hundred and thirty three genealogical tables, table 171
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dorothea Maria of Saxe-Weimar House of Wettin 1641 births 1675 deaths Duchesses in the Holy Roman Empire 17th-century German nobility ⚭Dorothea Maria of Saxe-Weimar, Duchess of Saxezeitz Deaths in childbirth Daughters of dukes Mothers of Saxon monarchs