Anna Maria Franziska of Saxe-Lauenburg

Who was Anna Maria Franziska of Saxe-Lauenburg?

Anna Maria Franziska of Saxe-Lauenburg was the legal Duchess of Saxe-Lauenburg in the eyes of the Holy Roman Emperor, the overlord of Saxe-Lauenburg, from 1689 until 1728; however, because her distant cousin George William, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, conquered the duchy by force in 1689, she exercised no control over the territory, instead living in her castle in Bohemia.

She was Grand Duchess of Tuscany as the wife of the last Medici Grand Duke, Gian Gastone.

Anna Maria Franziska was the elder surviving daughter of Julius Franz, Duke of Saxe-Lauenburg, and Maria Hedwig of the Palatinate-Sulzbach. She married Philipp Wilhelm August of the Palatinate in 1690, with whom she had her only child, Maria Anna, in 1691. She was widowed in 1693. Four years later, she married Gian Gastone de' Medici, a Prince of Tuscany. With her brother-in-law Ferdinando de' Medici's death in 1713, her husband became Tuscany's heir-apparent. She became Grand Duchess of Tuscany upon the incubment ruler's death in 1723. She was Grand Duchess for fourteen years before being widowed by Gian Gastone in 1737.