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Maria Maximiliana of Austria

1827–1834

Born
9 Jan 1827, Florence
Country of birth
Grand Duchy of Tuscany, today Italy
Died
18 May 1834, Florence
facts
7
sources
1
images and files
0

Facts and their sources

Tap a fact to see where it comes from.

A life in time

  1. Born · Florence

    Birth, Florence

  2. Died · Florence

    Death, Florence

What was it like?

The world around Florence, 1827: who ruled, who else was alive, how people lived. This is general history, not a record about the family, and every item shows where it comes from.

Maria was born around the same time as Carmine Crocco, Luigi Cremona, and Abdülaziz.

Born around the same time

  • Carmine Crocco

    1830 · Italian brigand (1830–1905)

  • Luigi Cremona

    1830 · Italian mathematician (1830-1903)

  • Abdülaziz

    1830 · 32th Sultan of the Ottoman Empire (1861–1876)

  • Eadweard Muybridge

    1830 · English-American photographer (1830–1904)

  • Hans von Bülow

    1830 · German conductor and pianist (1830–1894)

  • Jules Verne

    1828 · French writer (1828–1905)

Fashion

Calabrian men's festival clothing

During festivals in Calabria, men commonly wore black velvet jackets and breeches, paired with long white cotton caps that hung over their shoulders.

Cleanliness of Sorrento peasant women

Sorrento peasant women were noted for their cleanliness, never being seen in public without being combed and wearing footwear, even on regular work days.

Music

Essential instruments for daily life

Castanets and tambourines were essential instruments for dancers, frequently accompanied by violins and guitars. Guitars were especially favored for nocturnal serenades, open-air concerts, and romantic declarations.

Music in religious festivals

Religious processions and festivals were vibrant musical events where people sang devotional songs and participated in popular theatre performances. These celebrations often merged music, dance, and collective banqueting to strengthen community bonds.

Getting around
Around 1820–1820

Traveling the Difficult Southern Roads

In regions like Calabria, carriages were often impractical due to poor road conditions, forcing travelers to rely on mules or simple calessos for transport. A journey of roughly 500 km from southern Calabria to Naples was considered a major undertaking with no clear travel times advised.

Climbing Mount Etna by horse and carriage

To climb Mount Etna, travelers would depart Catania by carriage for Nicolosi, then ride horses to the Casa degli inglesi, arriving at midnight. From there, they trekked 1.5 hours before dawn to reach the summit to witness the sunrise.

Daily life

Limited access to education

The kingdom had no compulsory school attendance, and education was largely controlled by the Church, with literacy rates remaining extremely low, at approximately 14.4 percent by 1861.

Peasant homes in Fardella

Peasant homes in Fardella typically consisted of a ground floor for stables and storage, and a single first-floor room where families cooked, ate, and slept; they lacked both drinking water and electricity.

Food

Chestnuts as a main dish

Poor Neapolitans purchased nine boiled chestnuts for one soldo and used the reddish cooking juice to soak their bread as a main meal.

Scrap fish for a soldo

For one soldo, a poor resident could buy a small paper cone of fried fish known as fragaglia, which were the scraps from the bottom of fishmongers' baskets.

Prices and wages

Coffee and social status symbols

A cup of coffee, which cost 2 grana, transitioned from a natural pleasure to an increasingly indispensable luxury for ordinary people like shoemakers. Eating white bread was a significant social marker, as some laborers could only afford the common "mangiafoglie" diet of vegetables.

Daily wages for laborers and craftsmen

In the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies around 1825–1849, a common laborer earned 15–20 grana per day, while specialized craftsmen could earn 80 grana. Workers often received an additional daily allowance of 10–15 grana for food if it was not provided on the job.

Work

Common roles in southern Italy

In the mid-19th century, common service roles included priests, domestic servants, and sailors, while most people outside of agriculture were not highly industrialized or commercialized.

Daily wages and cost of food

In 1816, a laborer earned 15-20 grana per day, while 35 grana could cover the daily cost of food for an entire family.

News and letters

Unpaid postal workers lived on hopes

Postal workers in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies often received no salary, living instead on hope or abusive practices, until reforms attempted to stabilize their income.

Mail speed across the Italian Peninsula

In the early to mid-19th century, mail traveling from Austria through Rome and Naples to Sicily covering 1,200 kilometers took approximately 10 days.

Family

Parents

Ancestors and children

Open the full tree

Four generations back to the right, the children to the left. The number beside a child counts the generations of descendants known after them.