Alfred, 2nd Prince of Montenuovo

Alfred
Prince of Montenuovo
Born (1854-09-16)16 September 1854
Vienna, Austrian Empire
Died 6 September 1927(1927-09-06) (aged 72)
Vienna, Republic of Austria
Spouse Countess Franziska Maria Stephania Kinsky of Wchinitz and Tettau
Issue Juliana, Princess of Oettingen-Oettingen
Marie Felizia, Countess Franz of Ledebur-Wicheln
Ferdinand, 3rd Prince of Montenuovo
Franziska, Princess Leopold of Lobkowicz
Full name
Alfred Adam Wilhelm Johann Maria
House House of Montenuovo
Father William Albert, 1st Prince of Montenuovo
Mother Countess Juliana Batthyány-Strattmann

Alfred, 2nd Prince of Montenuovo (16 September 1854  6 September 1927) was one of the highest court officials of Emperor Francis Joseph I of Austria. Among his ancestors were members of the Habsburg family and the de Medici Family.

Private life

Prince Alfred of Montenouvo was born in Vienna, Austrian Empire, the only son of William Albert, 1st Prince of Montenuovo (1819–1895), (son of Adam Albert, Count of Neipperg and Archduchess Marie Louise of Austria) and his wife, Countess Juliana Batthyány-Strattmann (1827–1871), (daughter of Count János Baptist Batthyány-Strattmann and Countess Marie Esterházy de Galántha). His paternal grandmother Marie Louise was the Empress consort of Napoleon I of France from 1810 to 1814 and Duchess of Parma from 1814, she married morganatically to his grandfather Adam Albert in 1821.

Alfred married on 30 October 1879 in Vienna to Countess Franziska Maria Stephania Kinsky of Wchinitz and Tettau (1861–1935), daughter of Ferdinand Bonaventura, 7th Prince Kinsky of Wchinitz and Tettau, and his wife, Princess Maria Josepha of Liechtenstein. They had four children:

He inherited the title Prince of Montenuovo in 1895 following the death of his father.

The prince died in 1927 in his palace at Löwelstrasse 6 in Vienna's city centre after suffering a heart attack. His corpse was interred at his family's burial place at Bóly (Német-Bóly) in Hungary.

Career

After studying at the Catholic seminary in Salzburg, Alfred started a career as court official, in 1896/97 becoming Obersthofmeister (Grand Master of the Court) of Archduke Otto of Austria, brother of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, from 1896 successor to the throne.

In 1898 Francis Joseph I made him Second Obersthofmeister of the court of the emperor (besides Prince Rudolf of Liechtenstein). In 1900, Montenuovo was honoured by the Order of the Golden Fleece, the personal order of the dynasty. After Prince Rudolf's death, Montenuovo advanced to First Obersthofmeister in 1909. The Obersthofmeisteramt, as his office was called, among other duties was supervising the court theatres. Montenuovo supported the decision to make Gustav Mahler conductor and director of the I.R. Court Opera.

Montenuovo was said to have been a lifelong enemy of Franz Ferdinand. Following the assassination of the latter and his morganatic wife Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, at Sarajevo in 1914, and with the emperor's connivance, he decided to turn the funeral into a massive and vicious snub.[1] Even though most foreign royalty had planned to attend, they were pointedly disinvited and the funeral was attended by just the immediate imperial family, with the dead couple's three children excluded from the few public ceremonies. The officer corps was forbidden to salute the funeral train, and this led to a minor revolt led by Archduke Karl, the new heir to the throne. The public viewing of the coffins was curtailed severely and even more scandalously, Montenuovo tried unsuccessfully to make the children foot the bill. The Archduke and Duchess were interred at Artstetten Castle because the Duchess could not be buried at the Imperial Crypt.[2]

In 1917, the new emperor Charles I replaced Montenuovo with Prince Karl von Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst.

Honours

Austrian

Foreign

Ancestry

Notes and sources

  1. The Assassination of the Archduke: Sarajevo 1914 and the Romance That Changed the World by Greg King and Sue Woolmans
  2. "The Funeral of the Archduke". The Independent (New York). Jul 13, 1914. p. 59. Retrieved August 9, 2013.
Alfred, 2nd Prince of Montenuovo
House of Montenuovo
Born: 16 September 1854 Died: 6 September 1927
Titles of nobility
Preceded by
William Albert
Prince of Montenuovo
1895–1919
Succeeded by
Republic declared
Titles in pretence
Loss of title
 TITULAR 
Prince of Montenuovo
1919–1927
Reason for succession failure:
Austrian nobility titles abolished
Succeeded by
Ferdinand
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