France, Lorraine, Germany, Lothringen, Charles V & Eleonora Maria of Austria Medal
LORRAINE, Charles V & Eleonora Maria of Austria, a copper medal by F. de Saint-Urbain, undated, 47mm (BDM V, 310, no. 53).
Charles V, Duc de Lorraine was born in 1643 at Vienna, Austria. He was the son of Nicholas François, Duc de Lorraine and Claude de Lorraine. Charles V succeeded to the title of Duc de Lorraine in 1675. He married Eleonora Maria Josefa Erzherzogin von Österreich in 1678 at Wiener Neustadt, Austria. He died in 1690 at age 47 at Welzen, Austria.
Archduchess Eleonora Maria Josefa of Austria (1653-1697) was the daughter of Ferdinand III von Habsburg, Holy Roman Emperor and Eleanor Gonzaga Principessa di Mantova.
Charles V was Eleonora’s second husband. They were the parents of 6 children: Léopold Joseph Charles, Duc de Lorraine, Charles Joseph Ignatius Kurfürst von Trier, Eleanor de Lorraine, Charles Ferdinand de Lorraine, General Joseph Innocent Emanuel de Lorraine, and Francis Anthony Joseph de Lorraine.
Eleonora Maria died at the age of 44, having outlived both of her husbands and 2 of her children. She passed to her heirs the inheritance of the Gonzaga of Mantua.
Ferdinand de Saint-Urbain, born in 1654 or 1658 in Nancy and died in the same city on January 10, 1738, was a designer, engraver and architect from Lorraine who worked in Rome and Nancy and who worked for other princes of the courts of Europe. One of the best known Medallists of the end of the seventeenth and first four decades of the eighteenth century. In 1673 he was Appointed Mint-engraver at Bologna. In 1683 Pope Innocent XI named him chief Engraver of the Mint at Rome. In 1704 Urbain returned to the Nancy mint in Lorraine. He is said to have executed over 120 medals, which include a series of the Dukes and Duchesses of Lorraine.
