Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor

Leopold was born in Vienna as his parents' third son. Initially selected for a clerical career, he received an education with a focus on theology. In 1753, he was engaged to Maria Beatrice d'Este, heiress to the Duchy of Modena. The couple never married, however, as, after the death of his second eldest brother Charles Joseph, he became the heir presumptive of his eldest brother, Joseph, and the treaties had to be revised. Maria Beatrice instead married Leopold's brother, Archduke Ferdinand.

Upon the early death of his older brother Archduke Charles in 1761, the family decided that Leopold was going to succeed his father as Grand Duke of Tuscany. Tuscany had been envisioned and designated as a secundogeniture, a territory and title bestowed upon the second born son, which was greater than an appanage. On 5 August 1765, Leopold married Maria Luisa, daughter of King Charles III of Spain and Maria Amalia of Saxony; however, they were already married by proxy on 16 February 1764 in Madrid, more than a year before their in-person marriage. Upon the death of his father, Francis I, on 18 August 1765, he became Grand Duke of Tuscany.

Illegitimate children

With Livia Raimondi, a ballerina, he had:

Luigi von Grün (1788–1814).