Maria Isabel of Braganza
Queen consort of Spain (1797-1818)
Maria Isabel of Braganza (Maria Isabel Francisca de Assis Antónia Carlota Joana Josefa Xavier de Paula Micaela Rafaela Isabel Gonzaga; 19 May 1797 – 26 December 1818) was a Portuguese infanta who became Queen of Spain as the second wife of King Ferdinand VII.
Maria Isabel was the second surviving child and daughter of King John VI of Portugal and Queen Carlota Joaquina. Due to the invasion of Portugal by Napoleon in 1807, the royal family fled to their colony of Brazil in South America.
When Queen Maria I, Maria Isabel's paternal grandmother, died in 1816, the family returned to Portugal. That same year, her marriage to her uncle King Ferdinand VII of Spain occurred and Maria Isabel relocated to Spain. She quickly became pregnant and gave birth in 1817; however, the infant died within six months. Her second delivery not long after was difficult; the baby was breech and her second daughter died in the womb. Maria Isabel was presumed dead and bled to death after a fatal caesarean was ordered by her husband.
As queen, Maria Isabel had been deeply interested in art and amassed a great collection in order to open a royal museum, which was opened after her death, now known as the Prado Museum.
Early years
Infanta Maria Isabel of Portugal was born on 19 May 1797 as the third child and second daughter of King John VI of Portugal and his wife Queen Carlota Joaquina. The marriage between her father and mother was unhappy, Carlota Joaquina attempting to have King John VI deemed insane.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Maria Isabel of Braganza” as queen consort of Spain (1797-1818). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as queen consort of Spain (1797-1818). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q232488. VIAF identifies the subject as 169125469. The Library of Congress control number is nr97017561. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1797, 1818, 1807 and 1816.
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This entry incorporates text from “Maria Isabel of Braganza” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.