Briefe einer Fürstin aus dem Dreißigjährigen Krieg

The correspondence of Infanta Maria Ana de Austria (1606-1646), the first wife of Emperor Ferdinand III, lay unnoticed in the Vienna archives for a long time. It is an extraordinary personal account of a royal woman from the time of the Thirty Years' War. The 141 letters, almost all of which were written in Spanish, date from 1629 to 1645. Most of them are addressed to Ferdinand III and his brother Archduke Leopold Wilhelm and provide an unexpectedly multifaceted insight into the life of the imperial family and court society in the first half of the 17th century. The letters reveal a remarkable degree of intimacy and harmony between the royal / imperial couple and disclose rarely seen private aspects of life within the House of Habsburg. However, intimate family details are combined with numerous political observations, thus providing unusual insights into a female perspective on the events of the time. In addition to the complete text of the letters, which are accompanied by explanatory notes, the volume contains a detailed introduction that provides context on the period, the circumstances of the letters' transmission, and their content. Detailed regesta in German and indexes of the places, people and· events mentioned facilitate access to the contents of the letters. The annotated edition is intended to facilitate and stimulate further academic research based on the source material presented here.