Maria Carolina of Austria

Maria Carolina
Portrait by Anton Raphael Mengs, 1768
Queen consort of Naples
Tenure	12 May 1768 – 23 January 1799 13 June 1799 – 30 March 1806
Queen consort of Sicily
Tenure	12 May 1768 – 8 September 1814
Born	Archduchess Maria Carolina of Austria (1752-08-13)13 August 1752 Schönbrunn Palace, Vienna, Archduchy of Austria, Holy Roman Empire
Died	8 September 1814(1814-09-08) (aged 62) Hetzendorf Palace, Vienna, Austrian Empire
Burial	Imperial Crypt, Austria
Spouse	Ferdinand IV and III ​ ​ (m. 1768)​
Issue more...	Maria Theresa, Holy Roman Empress Luisa Maria, Grand Duchess of Tuscany Carlo, Duke of Calabria Princess Maria Anna Francis I, King of the Two Sicilies Maria Cristina, Queen of Sardinia Prince Gennaro Prince Giuseppe Maria Amalia, Queen of the French Maria Antonia, Princess of Asturias Princess Maria Clotilde Princess Maria Enrichetta Leopold, Prince of Salerno Prince Alberto Princess Maria Isabella
Names German: Maria Carolina Luise Josefa Johanna Antonia
House	Habsburg-Lorraine
Father	Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor
Mother	Maria Theresa
Signature

Maria Carolina (Maria Carolina Louise Josepha Johanna Antonia; 13 August 1752 – 8 September 1814) was Queen of Naples and Sicily as the wife of King Ferdinand IV and III, who later became King of the Two Sicilies. As de facto ruler of her husband's kingdoms, Maria Carolina oversaw the promulgation of many reforms, including the revocation of the ban on Freemasonry, the enlargement of the navy under her favorite, Sir John Acton, and the expulsion of Spanish influence. She was a proponent of enlightened absolutism until the advent of the French Revolution, when, in order to prevent its ideas gaining currency, she made Naples a police state.

Born an archduchess of Austria, the thirteenth child of Empress Maria Theresa and Emperor Francis I, Maria Carolina married Ferdinand as part of an Austrian alliance with Spain, of which Ferdinand's father was king. Following the birth of a male heir in 1775, Maria Carolina was admitted to the Privy Council. She dominated the Council until 1812, when she was sent back to Vienna. Like her mother, Maria Carolina arranged politically advantageous marriages for her children. Maria Carolina promoted Naples as a centre of the arts, patronising painters Jacob Philipp Hackert and Angelica Kauffman, and academics Gaetano Filangieri, Domenico Cirillo and Giuseppe Maria Galanti.

Maria Carolina, abhorring how the French treated their queen, her sister Marie Antoinette, allied Naples with Britain and Austria during the Napoleonic and French Revolutionary Wars. As a result of a failed Neapolitan invasion of French-occupied Rome, she fled to Sicily with her husband in December 1798. One month later, the Parthenopean Republic was declared, which repudiated Bourbon rule in Naples for six months. Deposed as Queen of Naples for a second time by French forces, in 1806, Maria Carolina died in Vienna in 1814, a year before her husband's restoration to Naples.

Maria Carolina was the last surviving child of Maria Theresa. She was also the last queen of Naples and Sicily before the unification of the two into the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.