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Giuseppe Maria Gonzaga

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Francesco Zucchi, Portrait of Giuseppe Gonzaga, Duke of Guastalla.

Giuseppe Gonzaga (20 March 1690 – 16 August 1746) was the last reigning Duke of Guastalla and a member of the House of Gonzaga.

Early life

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He was the second son of Vincenzo Gonzaga, Duke of Guastalla and his second wife, Princess Maria Vittoria Gonzaga of Guastalla (1659-1707). Giuseppe was mentally disabled.[citation needed]

When his elder brother Duke Antonio Ferrante died in an accident in 1729, Giuseppe was the only remaining male member of the Gonzaga family, so he became duke.

Marriage

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Giuseppe would probably never have married, but when he became duke a marriage was arranged in 1731 with the sixteen-year-old Princess Eleonore von Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Wiesenburg (1715–1760), daughter of Leopold, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Wiesenburg and his wife, Princess Maria Elisabeth of Liechtenstein (1683-1744). She was also granddaughter of Duchess Karolina of Legnica-Brieg. The marriage remained childless.

Duchy

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During the War of Polish Succession the Duchy was occupied by the French for four years, between 1734 and 1738. When Giuseppe Gonzaga died in 1746, Italy was again a theater of war in the War of Austrian Succession, and the Duchy was annexed by Austria. Two years later, in the Treaty of Aix-La-Chapelle, Guastalla was ceded to the Spanish, together with the Duchy of Parma and Piacenza, with which it was merged.

Ancestry

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Sources

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  • Marek, Miroslav. "Genealogy euweb". Genealogy.EU.[self-published source][better source needed]
Preceded by Duke of Guastalla
1729–1746 		Succeeded by
To Austria and then finally to the Duchy of Parma (1748)
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