Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici

Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici

Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici (11 August 1667 – 18 February 1743) was an Italian noblewoman who was the last lineal descendant of the main branch of the House of Medici. A patron of the arts, she bequeathed the Medicis' large art collection, including the contents of the Uffizi, Palazzo Pitti and the Medici villas, which she inherited upon her brother Gian Gastone's death in 1737, and her Palatine treasures to the Tuscan state, on the condition that no part of it could be removed from "the Capital of the grand ducal State....[and from] the succession of His Serene Grand Duke." Anna Maria Luisa was the only daughter of Cosimo III de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and Marguerite Louise d'Orléans, a niece of Louis XIII of France. On her marriage to Johann Wilhelm, Elector Palatine, she became Electress of the Palatinate, and, by patronising musicians, she earned for the contemporary Palatine court the reputation of an important music centre. Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici has received more than 674,220 page views. Her biography is available in 28 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 27 in 2019). Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici is the 196th most popular nobleman (down from 185th in 2019), the 1,043rd most popular biography from Italy (down from 935th in 2019) and the 27th most popular Italian Nobleman.

Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici was the daughter of Cosimo III, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and Marguerite Louise d'Orléans. She married her first cousin Louis Joseph, Dauphin of France, the eldest son of King Louis XV of France and Queen Marie Leszczyńska. Anna Maria Luisa is most famous for being the mother of the last Valois Dauphin, King Louis XVI of France.