LEOPOLD I, EMPEROR. – Second son of Emperor Ferdinand III and of Maria Anna of Spain, born in Vienna on 9 June 1640, died there on 5 May 1705. He was destined for an ecclesiastical career, but became heir to his father’s dominions upon the death of his brother Ferdinand (1654) and succeeded his father in 1657. He was elected emperor on 18 July 1658. He was a convinced heir to the political programme of the House of Habsburg (defence of Catholicism and struggle against the Bourbons), and his reign was marked by a long series of wars: in the Catholic cause in Eastern Europe (against the Turks from 1662 to 1664 over the Transylvanian succession, and again from 1683 to 1699; the latter war saw the siege of Vienna in 1683 and the formation of the Holy League between Austria, Poland, Russia, Venice, and the Holy See) and in the anti-French cause in Western Europe against the expansionism of Louis XIV (the Dutch War of 1672–78, the War of the League of Augsburg of 1688–97). Within his domains, Leopold’s work was hindered by frequent revolts in Hungary against Habsburg Catholic policy, but the Peace of Karlowitz (1699), by removing the Turks from that region, sanctioned the emperor’s definitive control over Hungary. He died while the War of the Spanish Succession was in progress, in which Leopold, son and husband of Spanish princesses, participated in support of the candidacy of his son Charles (the future Emperor Charles VI); on this occasion, political expediency led Leopold, though a faithful Catholic, into no small diplomatic friction with the Holy See. He was, however, always on excellent terms with Innocent XI; for a long time he relied on Marco d’Aviano as his advisor; he founded many monasteries, sought to alleviate the situation of English Catholics, and strove to reconcile the various Christian confessions.
Under Leopold I, mercantilism of the English type and various attempts at administrative reorganization began in the Austrian lands; land reclamation in the Val di Chiana, the Pisan plain, the marshes of Bientina and Fucecchio, in the Valdinievole, and in the Maremma gave fresh impetus to agriculture. Local communes were also guaranteed autonomous administration. The grand duke moreover intended to promulgate a true constitution and in 1779 entrusted Gianni with the drafting of a plan “for the establishment of a body of public representation in Tuscany,” but the constitution, prepared in 1782, never entered into force. In foreign policy, Leopold aimed at the neutralization of Tuscany, while in his relations with the Church he adopted a rigorously jurisdictionalist stance: he abolished ecclesiastical immunities, forbade appeals to Rome, dissolved 2,500 confraternities, suppressed convents that served no public utility, established the *evacuatur* for acts of religious authority, and, following the suggestions of S. Ricci, bishop of Pistoia, allowed the famous Synod of 1786 to convene, which was later condemned by the Church. Upon ascending, at the death of his brother Joseph II, to the imperial throne in 1790, Leopold II, while remaining a champion of the Enlightenment and reformist movement of the 18th century, profoundly modified his conduct. He thus succeeded in overcoming the serious crisis provoked by his brother’s doctrinaire policies (the revolt of the Austrian Netherlands and of Hungary), moderated his previous intransigence toward the Holy See (1790: suppression of state seminaries), and liquidated his brother’s military legacy (the Peace of Sistova of 4 August 1791 with Turkey, to which he restored Belgrade and Wallachia). He maintained a cautious and moderate stance toward the French Revolution of 1789, being prepared to act only within the framework of a European concert; the Pillnitz Agreement (1791) and the alliance of 1792 with Prussia were by Leopold II always intended in a defensive capacity. He died suddenly before the conflagration broke out.