Infanta: The Short, Remarkable Life of Catalina Micaela

The first full biography of Catalina Micaela, infanta of Spain and duchess of Savoy

Catalina Micaela was the younger daughter of Philip II and granddaughter of Catherine de Medici. Aged just seventeen, Catalina married Carlo I, duke of Savoy, and moved from the royal court in Madrid to Turin to begin a new life as a duchess.

Overlooked by historians and little known today, Catalina was nonetheless a key figure in sixteenth-century Europe. A woman of intelligence, forceful personality, and strong feeling, she energetically and effectively governed her husband’s dukedom during his long absences from Turin on military campaigns. In this widely researched account, Magdalena Sánchez traces Catalina’s life from her childhood to her early death shortly after giving birth to her tenth child. Drawing on thousands of letters Catalina exchanged with her husband, Sánchez paints an intimate portrait of a young Spanish woman adapting to a new husband, a new land, and the demands of governance.

Magdalena S. Sánchez is professor of early modern European history at Gettysburg College and the author of The Empress, the Queen, and the Nun: Women and Power at the Court of Philip III of Spain.