Alfred
Prince of Montenuovo
Born(1854-09-16)16 September 1854
Vienna, Austrian Empire
Died6 September 1927(1927-09-06) (aged 72)
Vienna, Republic of Austria
SpouseCountess Franziska Maria Stephania Kinsky of Wchinitz and Tettau
IssueJuliana, Princess of Oettingen-Oettingen
Marie Felizia, Countess Franz of Ledebur-Wicheln
Ferdinand, 3rd Prince of Montenuovo
Franziska, Princess Leopold of Lobkowicz
Names
Alfred Adam Wilhelm Johann Maria
HouseHouse of Montenuovo
FatherWilliam Albert, 1st Prince of Montenuovo
MotherCountess Juliana Batthyány-Strattmann

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

Private life

Prince Alfred of Montenuovo was born in Vienna, Austrian Empire, the only son of Wilhelm, 1st Prince of Montenuovo (1819–1895; son of Adam Albert, Count of Neipperg, and Archduchess Marie Louise of Austria, Empress of The French), and his wife, Countess Juliana Batthyány von Németújvár (1827–1871; daughter of Count János Baptist Batthyány-Strattmann and Countess Marie Esterházy von 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 was married morganatically to his grandfather Adam Albert in 1821.

Alfred married on 30 October 1879 in Vienna Countess Franziska Maria Stephania Kinsky von Wchinitz and Tettau (26 December 1861 – 11 July 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 body was interred at his family's crypt 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 (1865–1906), brother of Archduke Franz Ferdinand (the heir to the Austrian throne from 1896).

In 1898 Emperor Franz Joseph made him Second Obersthofmeister of the imperial court, alongside 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 become First Obersthofmeister in 1909. The Obersthofmeisteramt, as his office was called, among other duties supervised the court theatres. Montenuovo supported the decision to make Gustav Mahler conductor and director (from 1897) of the I.R. Court Opera.

Montenuovo was a long-time enemy of Franz Ferdinand.[1] Following the assassination of the latter and his morganatic wife Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, at Sarajevo in 1914, and with the emperor's connivance, Montenuovo decided to turn the funeral into a massive and vicious snub.[2] Even though most foreign royalty had planned to attend, they were pointedly disinvited[3] 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 in the Imperial Crypt.[4]

In 1917, the new emperor Charles I (r. 1916–1918) replaced Montenuovo as Obersthofmeister with Prince Konrad of Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst.

Honours and arms

Arms of the Prince of Montenuovo
Austro-Hungarian orders and decorations[5]
Foreign orders and decorations[5]

Ancestry

References

  1. ↑ Winkelhofer, Martina (22 May 2012). The Everyday Life of the Emperor: Francis Joseph and his Imperial Court. Translated by McCabe, Jeffrey A. Haymon Verlag. ISBN 9783709974162. Retrieved 22 August 2023. [...] Alfred Montenuovo [...] was never part of the complexly intertwined aristocratic network of relatives. But his most implacable enemy was [...] the [...] heir to the throne, Franz Ferdinand, who hated Montenuovo's guts for cooly smothering every attempt of the heir to gain a certain say in court business. Franz Ferdinand also hated Montenuovo because he held him responsible for the suffering his own bourgeois wife went through at court, day in and day out, under the strict etiquette of daily court life. The animosity between them was well known to the court, and to the general public as well [...].
  2. ↑ King, Greg; Woolmans, Sue (3 September 2013). "'The Anguish Was Indescribable'". The Assassination of the Archduke: Sarajevo 1914 and the Romance That Changed the World. New York: St. Martin's Publishing Group. p. 222-223. ISBN 9781250038678. Retrieved 22 August 2023. That funeral [...] would be unlike anything Vienna had ever witnessed. [...] The ceremonies that unfolded for Franz Ferdinand and Sophie were as much a result of the old emperor's wishes as they were an expression of Montenuovo's hatred of the despised couple.
  3. ↑ "The Funeral of the Archduke". The Independent. New York. 13 July 1914. p. 59. Retrieved 22 August 2023. Nor did any of the other royalties attend. On an intimation from Vienna either that the aged Emperor desired to be alone with his grief, or that on account of the anarchists he feared for the safety of his guests, the visits were canceled.
  4. ↑ "The Funeral of the Archduke". The Independent. New York. 13 July 1914. p. 59. Retrieved 22 August 2023. Following a short ceremony at the Hofburg, attended only by members of the imperial family, the bodies were removed to Artstetten, in Lower Austria, where the archduke had exprest a wish to be buried, inasmuch as burial in the Hapsburg vaults under the Capuchin Church in Vienna was forbidden to his wife.
  5. 1 2 "Hofstaat Seiner Kaiserlichen und Koniglich Apostolischen Majestat", Hof- und Staatshandbuch der Österreichisch-Ungarischen Monarchie, 1916, p. 16, retrieved 2 November 2019
  6. 1 2 3 "Ritter-Orden", Hof- und Staatshandbuch der Österreichisch-Ungarischen Monarchie, 1918, pp. 51, 53, 81, retrieved 2 November 2019
  7. ↑ Hof- und Staats-Handbuch des Großherzogtum Baden (1910), "Großherzogliche Orden" p. 43
  8. ↑ Hof- und - Staatshandbuch des Königreichs Bayern (1908), "Königliche Orden". p. 89
  9. ↑ "Königliche Orden", Hof- und – Staatshandbuch des Königreichs Bayern (in German), 1914, p. 11 – via hathitrust.org
  10. ↑ Bille-Hansen, A. C.; Holck, Harald, eds. (1912) [1st pub.:1801]. Statshaandbog for Kongeriget Danmark for Aaret 1912 [State Manual of the Kingdom of Denmark for the Year 1912] (PDF). Kongelig Dansk Hof- og Statskalender (in Danish). Copenhagen: J.H. Schultz A.-S. Universitetsbogtrykkeri. p. 14. Retrieved 30 April 2020 – via da:DIS Danmark.
  11. ↑ "Den kongelige norske Sanct Olavs Orden", Norges Statskalender (in Norwegian), 1922, p. 1179-1180 – via hathitrust.org
  12. ↑ Sachsen (1901). "Königlich Orden". Staatshandbuch für den Königreich Sachsen: 1901. Dresden: Heinrich. p. 145 – via hathitrust.org.
  13. ↑ "Real y distinguida orden de Carlos III". Guía Oficial de España (in Spanish). 1925. p. 197. Retrieved 21 March 2019.
  14. ↑ Sveriges statskalender (in Swedish), 1915, p. 671, retrieved 2018-01-06 – via runeberg.org
  15. ↑ The London Gazette, issue 27604, p. 6148
  16. ↑ "Königliche Orden", Hof- und Staats-Handbuch des Königreich Württemberg, Stuttgart: Landesamt, 1907, pp. 50

Sources

  • The Royal House of Stuart, London, 1969, 1971, 1976, Addington, A. C., Reference: I 65
  • Genealogisches Handbuch des Adels, Fürstliche Häuser, Reference: 1955 425
  • Franz Ferdinand - The ruling prevented. Kapitel Die Schüsse von Sarajewo . Chapter The shots of Sarajevo. Österreichischer Bundesverlag, Wien 1983, ISBN 3-215-04828-0 . Austrian Federal Verlag, Wien 1983, ISBN 3-215-04828-0
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