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Archduchess Anna Beatrice of Austria-Este

1848–1849

Born
19 Oct 1848, Gries-Quirein
Country of birth
Italy
Died
8 Jul 1849, Modena
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 · Gries-Quirein

    Birth, Gries-Quirein

  2. Died · Modena

    Death, Modena

What was it like?

The world around Gries-Quirein, 1848: 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.

Archduchess was born the same year as Robert I, Duke of Parma, Elia Millosevich, and Otto Lilienthal.

Born the same year

  • Robert I, Duke of Parma

    Duke of Parma and Piacenza from 1854 to 1859

  • Elia Millosevich

    Italian astronomer (1848-1919)

  • Otto Lilienthal

    German aviation pioneer (1848-1896)

  • Hubert Parry

    British composer, teacher and historian (1848–1918)

  • Luigi Mancinelli

    Italian orchestral conductor (1848–1921)

  • W. G. Grace

    English amateur cricketer (1848-1915)

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

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.

Travel by mule and lettiga in Sicily

In Sicily, travel was often done by mule or in a lettiga, a carriage-like box without wheels carried by two mules that moved at about three miles per hour. This unconventional vehicle was notoriously noisy due to bells and prone to swaying on uneven ground.

Daily life

Daily routine in boarding schools

In private boarding schools run by Pious Schools in the 1840s, students typically followed a strict routine that included eight to nine hours of sleep, five hours of lessons, and two hours of spiritual exercises daily.

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.

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 diet of the poor

In the mid-19th century, luxury items like a cup of coffee cost 2 grana, a price that laborers often paid daily as a digestive despite their poverty. At the same time, many workers lived as mangiafoglie, eating pasta only occasionally because it was expensive relative to their daily 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.

Work

Eight-Hour Workday in Pazzano Mines

In the Pazzano iron mines, a regulation established in 1845 set a working day of eight hours, which was notably shorter than the 10 to 16 hours common elsewhere in the Kingdom.

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.

News and letters
Around 1850–1862

The introduction of stamps

To make sending letters easier, Italy introduced the stamp, or francobollo, a small paper square with the ruler's image, replacing the old system where sender and recipient split the cost.

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.