The infant Princess only lived three months. For a whole week Maria Sophia had sat by her cradle without undressing or going to bed, and after the child’s death in the evening she clung to the little corpse all night in a frenzy of despair. The Marquise de Sassenay has related that the French sculptor Prosper d’Epinay was to have done a portrait of the child. ‘One night he was suddenly wakened and told that Francis II wanted him to come at once. He hurried to the Farnese palace, where he found the King in tears. “My child has just died,” he said, “the Queen and I both wish you to make a cast of her face.” Never having practised this special art, d’Epinay went off to find one of the men he usually employed for such work. He could find nobody. Much upset but anxious to grant the King’s wish, he decided to run home and collect the necessary material for making the cast himself. On returning to the Farnese palace he was ushered into a large room dimly lighted. Its only piece of furniture was the cradle in which the dead Princess was lying. The Queen was weeping and praying on her knees, and the King knelt beside her. D’Epinay approached the royal couple and knowing how painful the process was to witness, he begged Francis to retire and escort the Queen from the room during the operation. The King then whispered to his wife, who made a gesture of refusal. D’Epinay insisted that he could not perform his task in the presence of their Majesties, who then decided to withdraw. Alone, the artist applied the plaster and waited for it to dry before removing it; but in his flutter he had forgotten to smear oil over the dead child’s face previously, so that when he wished to remove the plaster he failed. D’Epinay then had a moment of panic, and setting himself astride the cradle to increase his efforts he struggled to make the mask yield. While intent on this tragic task he thought of the parents’ anguish if the face of their child were disfigured by the operation. Mercifully their Majesties were spared this affliction, for eventually the mask yielded and the features remained intact.’ The Princess was buried in the church of Santo Spirito dei Napoletani behind the Farnese palace.
Acton, Harold Mario Mitchell (1961). The Last Bourbons of Naples (1825-1861)
ON THIS DAY, IN 1870, PRINCESS MARIA CRISTINA OF BOURBON-TWO SICILIES DIED AGED THREE MONTHS OLD. She was the only child of the last King of the Two Sicilies, Francesco II, and his wife Queen Marie Sophie (née Duchess in Bavaria). In 1984 her and her parents remains were moved to the Basilica of Santa Chiara, in Naples, and to this day they rest there.
[Giancarlo Giannini as Francesco II and Ornella Muti as Marie Sophie in ‘O re (1989)]
