Albany Louisa Maeia Caeoline

Albany, Louisa Maeia Caeoline, Countess of, born in 1753, of the family of the reigning princes of Stolberg-Geldern. In 1772 she married Prince Charles Edward Stuart, the Young Pretender. For eight years, owing to disparity of age and tastes, they lived a wretched life, and in 1780 the unhappy wife left her husband. She had before this met in Florence the young poet, Alfieri, and she joined him in Switzerland. In 1803, Alfieri, worn out with unremitting labour, died at the early age of fifty-four. The countess erected to his memory a handsome monument by Canova in the church of Santa Croce, at Florence, where twenty years later (in 1824) she was laid by his side.