Archduchess Barbara of Austria

Barbara of Austria (30 April 1539 – 19 September 1572), was an Archduchess of Austria as a member of the House of Habsburg and by marriage Duchess consort of Ferrara, Modena and Reggio during 1565–1572. Life Early years Born in Vienna on 30 April 1539, Barbara was the eleventh child and eighth daughter of Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor and Anna of Bohemia and Hungary. On her father's side she was the granddaughter of King Philip I of Castile (also Duke of Burgundy) and Queen Joanna of Castile. On her mother's side, she was the granddaughter of King Vladislaus II of Hungary and Anne of Foix-Candale (who in turn was through her own mother Infanta Catherine of Navarre, a granddaughter of Queen Eleanor of Navarre and Gaston IV, Count of Foix). In the winter of 1547, the widowed Emperor Ferdinand I entrusted all his unmarried daughters to the care of nuns in the monastery in Innsbruck, where Barbara lived until her marriage. Only once, in 1552, during the invasion of the Tyrol by the Protestant army under the command of Maurice, Elector of Saxony, did Barbara and her sisters Magdalena, Margaret, Helena and Joanna, spend some time outside the monastery at Bruneck Castle.