Mathilde Ludovika, Duchess in Bavaria (30 September 1843 – 18 June 1925) was the fourth daughter of Maximilian, Duke in Bavaria and

Princess Ludovika of Bavaria Princess Ludovika of Bavaria (Marie Ludovika Wilhelmine; ''Mary Louise Wilhelmina''; 30 August 1808 – 25 January 1892) was the fifth child of King Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria and his second wife Caroline of Baden. She was the mother of Empress ...

. Her mother was the youngest surviving daughter of King

Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria Maximilian I Joseph (; 27 May 1756 – 13 October 1825) was Duke of Zweibrücken from 1795 to 1799, prince-elector of Bavaria (as Maximilian IV Joseph) from 1799 to 1806, then King of Bavaria (as Maximilian I Joseph) from 1806 to 1825. He was ...

by his second wife Margravine Karoline of Baden.

Early life

Born and raised at

Possenhofen Castle Possenhofen Castle () is a condominium complex and former palace located in Possenhofen on the western shore of Lake Starnberg in Bavaria, Germany. It is best known as being the childhood summer residence of Empress Elisabeth of Austria. History ...

, Mathilde was a younger sister of (among others)

Duke Karl-Theodor in Bavaria Karl Theodor, Duke in Bavaria (9 August 1839 – 30 November 1909), was a member of the House of Wittelsbach and a professional oculist. He was the favorite brother of Empress Elisabeth of Austria, and the father of Queen Elisabeth of the Bel ...

, Elisabeth of Austria-Hungary, and Duchess Marie Sophie in Bavaria. She was an older sister of (among others) Duchess Sophie in Bavaria. Her godmother and namesake was her mother's niece Grand Duchess Mathilde of Hesse and by Rhine.

Marriage and family

On 5 June 1861, Mathilde married Prince Lodovico of Bourbon Two-Siclies, Count of Trani. He was

heir presumptive An heir presumptive is the person entitled to inherit a throne, peerage, or other hereditary honour, but whose position can be displaced by the birth of a person with a better claim to the position in question. This is in contrast to an heir app ...

to his older half-brother

Francis II of the Two Sicilies Francis II ( Neapolitan and , ; christened ''Francesco d'Assisi Maria Leopoldo''; 16 January 1836 – 27 December 1894) was King of the Two Sicilies. He was the last King of the Two Sicilies as successive invasions by Giuseppe Garibaldi and Vict ...

. Francis was married to her older sister Marie Sophie. The bride was 17 years old and the groom was 22. They had one child, a daughter: * Princess Maria Teresa Maddalena of Bourbon-Two Sicilies (15 January 1867 – 1 May 1909). She married Prince Wilhelm of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen. Allegedly, during the early years of her marriage, Mathilde had an affair with the Spanish diplomat , 1st Duke of Ripalda and Santa Lucía, with whom she had a daughter at the

Villa Farnesina The Villa Farnesina is a Renaissance suburban villa in the Via della Lungara, in the district of Trastevere in Rome, central Italy. Built between 1506 and 1510 for Agostino Chigi, the Pope's wealthy Sienese banker, it was a novel type of suburb ...

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

:''La Villa Farnesina'' in: www.lne.es (in Spanish)
etrieved 04 February 2016/ref> *María Salvadora Bermúdez de Castro (20 January 1864 – 18 September 1945), later 2nd Duchess of Santa Lucía. Sent to

Brighton Brighton ( ) is a seaside resort in the city status in the United Kingdom, city of Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, England, south of London. Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze Age Britain, Bronze Age, R ...

immediately after her birth, she was raised by her paternal family and legally adopted by her father only in 1879; she probably never saw her mother. She married Alvaro Pérez de Barradas y Fernández de Cordoba, 12th Marquess of Peñaflor.

Two Sicilies Revolution

However, the

Two Sicilies The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies () was a kingdom in Southern Italy from 1816 to 1861 under the control of the House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, a cadet branch of the Bourbons. The kingdom was the largest sovereign state by population and land are ...

were conquered by the

Expedition of the Thousand The Expedition of the Thousand () was an event of the unification of Italy that took place in 1860. A corps of volunteers led by Giuseppe Garibaldi sailed from Quarto al Mare near Genoa and landed in Marsala, Sicily, in order to conquer the Ki ...

under

Giuseppe Garibaldi Giuseppe Maria Garibaldi ( , ;In his native Ligurian language, he is known as (). In his particular Niçard dialect of Ligurian, he was known as () or (). 4 July 1807 – 2 June 1882) was an Italian general, revolutionary and republican. H ...

in 1861. Garibaldi served the

Kingdom of Sardinia The Kingdom of Sardinia, also referred to as the Kingdom of Sardinia and Corsica among other names, was a State (polity), country in Southern Europe from the late 13th until the mid-19th century, and from 1297 to 1768 for the Corsican part of ...

which was in the process of

Italian unification The unification of Italy ( ), also known as the Risorgimento (; ), was the 19th century political and social movement that in 1861 ended in the annexation of various states of the Italian peninsula and its outlying isles to the Kingdom of ...

. Lodovico was still the heir of Francis as head of a deposed Royal House. He retained this position for the rest of his life but predeceased Francis on 8 June 1886. Francis was eventually succeeded by their younger brother Prince Alfonso, Count of Caserta. Mathilde survived her husband by thirty-nine years but never remarried.

Ancestry

References

Citations

Bibliography

* * *

External links

Her profile in Peerage.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mathilde Ludovika In Bavaria, Duchess 1843 births 1925 deaths People from Starnberg (district) House of Wittelsbach Princesses of Bourbon-Two Sicilies Duchesses in Bavaria German Roman Catholics Royal reburials