Maria I of Portugal

Portuguese monarch l (1777-1816)

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Portugal rank#126

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Fame57.8
Momentum2.5
Portugal rank#126
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Lived 1734–1816, aged 82Portugal

Portugal ModelsModel

Wikipedia
54 languages
Cross-language footprint
Rank in Portugal
#126
Models
Era
1734–1816
Aged 82
Awards
4
recognised works

Summary

Updated 2026-06-09

Portugal's first undisputed queen regnant, remembered in her homeland as "the Pious" and in Brazil as "the Mad" — a split verdict that maps exactly onto the arc of her forty-year reign, which began with economic growth and ended with clinical depression and exile across the Atlantic.

Biography

About

Born in 1734, Maria was the eldest daughter of José I and spent her first forty-two years as heir, marrying her uncle Pedro in 1760 and bearing six children. When she took the throne in 1777, she swiftly dismissed her father's feared chief minister, the Marquis of Pombal, and presided over a period of prosperity and construction — the Palace of Queluz was finished, new monuments rose. Then the scaffolding collapsed: her husband died in 1786, her eldest son and confessor both in 1788, and Maria fell into clinical depression. Her second son João took over as prince regent while she remained nomi…

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