Elisabeth in Bayern

Elisabeth (Elisabeth Amalie Eugenie), nicknamed Sisi, was born on 24 December 1837 in Munich and died on 10 September 1898. She was Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary from her marriage to Emperor Franz Joseph I on 24 April 1854 until her assassination in 1898, and became famous for her beauty, slender figure, charitable interests and tragic life.

Born into the Bavarian House of Wittelsbach, she enjoyed an informal upbringing before marrying her first cousin, Franz Joseph I, at 16. The marriage thrust her into the much more formal Habsburg court, for which she was unprepared and which she found suffocating. The couple had four children. Early in the marriage she was at odds with her aunt and mother-in-law, Archduchess Sophie, who took over the rearing of her children, and the strain harmed her health. She therefore often visited Hungary for its more relaxed environment, developed a deep kinship with it, and helped bring about the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary in 1867.

The death of Crown Prince Rudolf and his mistress at his hunting lodge at Mayerling in 1889 was a blow from which she never fully recovered. She withdrew from court duties and travelled widely, unaccompanied by her family, and in 1890 had the palace Achilleion built on the Greek island of Corfu. She was devoted to preserving her youthful figure and appearance, keeping to a strict diet and wearing tightly laced corsets.

In September 1898, while travelling in Geneva, Switzerland, she was stabbed in the heart by the Italian anarchist Luigi Lucheni and died, aged 60. She had been empress for more than 44 years, the longest-serving empress consort in Austrian history.