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Leopold II (Peter Leopold Josef Anton Joachim Pius Gotthard; 5 May 1747 – 1 March 1792) was the penultimate Holy Roman Emperor, as well as King of Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia, and Archduke of Austria from 1790 to 1792, and Grand Duke of Tuscany from 1765 to 1790.[1] He was a son of Empress Maria Theresa and Emperor Francis I, and the brother of Queen Marie Antoinette of France, Queen Maria Carolina, Duchess Maria Amalia of Parma, and Emperor Joseph II. Leopold was a moderate proponent of enlightened absolutism.[2] He granted the Academy of Georgofili his protection. Unusually for his time, he opposed the death penalty and torture and abolished it in Tuscany on 30 November 1786 during his rule there, making it the first nation in modern history to do so. This act has been commemorated since 2000 by a regional custom known as the Feast of Tuscany, held every 30 November.[3][4] Despite his brief reign, he is highly regarded. The historian Paul W. Schroeder called him "one of the most shrewd and sensible monarchs ever to wear a crown".[5]
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- ^ "Leopold II | Holy Roman emperor". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 4 October 2018.
- ^ Eberhard Weis, "Enlightenment and Absolutism in the Holy Roman Empire: Thoughts on Enlightened Absolutism in Germany", The Journal of Modern History, vol. 58, Supplement pp. S181–S197, 1986.
- ^ Grziwotz, Herbert (30 November 2016). "Ohne Todesstrafe: die fortschrittliche Toskana von 1786". Legal Tribune Online (in German). Retrieved 30 October 2020.
- ^ "Feast of Tuscany" (PDF). Retrieved 24 November 2023.
- ^ The Transformation of European Politics, 1763–1848 (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1994), p. 64.