FERDINANDO III, EMPEROR. — Born on 13 July 1608 in Graz, died on 2 April 1657. The eldest son of Ferdinando II and Maria Anna, princess of Bavaria. Elected and crowned king of Hungary in 1625, two years later he also assumed the Bohemian crown. After Wallenstein’s death, he assumed supreme command of the imperial troops engaged in the Thirty Years’ War. In 1637 he succeeded his father in the imperial dignity and was, even more than his father, fiercely hostile to the Protestants. He endeavoured to put an end to the bloody conflict that had erupted in 1618 and convened the Diet at Ratisbona in 1640, but France and Sweden did not begin negotiations until 1645. These concluded with the Peace of Westphalia.
BIBL.: M. Koch, Geschichte des deutschen Reiches unter Ferdinand III., 2 vols., Vienna 1863. For other bibliography: E. Pristin-V. L. Tapié, Le XVIIe siècle, 2nd ed., Paris 1949, V. indice. Silvio Furlani