Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor

Biography

Leopold was born in 1747, a younger son of Empress Maria Theresa and Emperor Francis I. On his father's death in 1765 he became Grand Duke of Tuscany, which he ruled for twenty-five years as a moderate enlightened reformer and patron of the Accademia dei Georgofili.

On 30 November 1786 he issued a new penal code that abolished both torture and the death penalty, making Tuscany the first modern state to end capital punishment. The anniversary is still marked as the Feast of Tuscany.

When his brother Joseph II died in February 1790, Leopold inherited the Habsburg lands and was later elected Holy Roman Emperor. He calmed the opposition Joseph's reforms had stirred by concessions to the estates, pacified Hungary and Bohemia, and sent troops to restore his authority in the Austrian Netherlands. He ended the war with the Ottoman Empire with the Treaty of Sistova in August 1791.

That same month he and King Frederick William II of Prussia issued the Declaration of Pillnitz in support of Louis XVI, while Leopold still hoped to avoid war with revolutionary France. He died on 1 March 1792 after a reign of two years.