Thursday, March 23, 2023

Empress Maria Theresa in Film

 


From Flock Flicks:

Maria Theresa (1717-1780) ruled a vast domain in central Europe in her own right: Austria, Hungary, Croatia, Bohemia, Transylvania, Mantua, Milan, Lodomeria and Galicia, the Austrian Netherlands, and Parma. By marriage, she was Duchess of Lorraine, Grand Duchess of Tuscany, and Holy Roman Empress. Her ascendancy to the throne sparked a war in the 1740s. She was known for making dynastic marriages with her many, many children (she gave birth to 16, 13 of whom survived) including the future Queen Marie Antoinette of France. She’s one of the “enlightened despots” of the 18th century, passing many reforms but maintaining central control of power. (Read more.)

Share

8 comments:

crazylikeknoxes said...

As chance would have it, I'm presently making my way through Goldstone's The Shadow of the Empress. Not the greatest read, but more appealing than most of these film stills.

elena maria vidal said...

And probably with the same level of accuracy. Goldstone's book is highly inaccurate in regard to Marie-Antoinette.

crazylikeknoxes said...

I have to be curious- what do you make of her diagnosis of Louis XVI with autism spectrum disorder?

elena maria vidal said...

It is impossible to diagnose someone who is long dead. Goldstone's portrayal of Louis is absurd. More later.

elena maria vidal said...

https://teaattrianon.blogspot.com/2022/01/lack-of-scholarly-rigor.html

elena maria vidal said...

Above is a link to a post from the past on the Goldstone book.

crazylikeknoxes said...

Thanks for the response and the links. It seems that, rather than asking if she got this or that right, I should be asking what didn't she get wrong. I, too, had my suspicions that her sources were limited to what she could read in English.

elena maria vidal said...

I enjoyed some of Nancy's other books a lot but she writes with a feminist point of view which is anachronistic when interpreting historical events.