Empress Anna of Tyrol was born on 4 October 1585. She was the youngest daughter of Archduke Ferdinand — brother of Emperor Maximilian II — and his niece Anna Caterina Gonzaga. Owing to their parents’ close kinship, the children suffered from fragile health. Their mother kept them on a special diet and, during her frequent pilgrimages, caringly left them at home in Innsbruck. Considering Anna Caterina’s piety, the girls’ condition must indeed have been delicate.
Their Catholic faith, however, was strong. In 1611, Emperor Rudolf and his brother Matthias, both lifelong bachelors in their fifties, considered Anna, their 26-year-old first cousin, as a potential wife for one of them. Rudolf soon abandoned the plan, and Anna married Matthias, who became emperor only a few months later.
As Empress, Anna displayed a rather fanatical religious devotion: she collected relics, ignored Protestants at court, and practised self-flagellation whenever she thought she had committed a sin. Curiously, her supposedly fragile health and strict faith did not prevent her from overindulgence in food — an odd detail in her character, considering that gluttony was among the seven deadly sins.
Anna remained childless and died at the age of thirty-three. Her decision to move the imperial court from Prague to Vienna and to establish the Capuchin Church — which since then has served as the Habsburgs’ traditional burial place — remains her lasting contribution to the dynasty.
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