Medici, Anna Maria de (d. 1741)

Grand duchess of Tuscany . Name variations: Anna Maria of Saxe-Lauenburg; Anne of Saxe-Lauenburg. Died in 1741; daughter of the duke of Saxe-Lauenburg; married Philip of Neuberg, count Palatine (died); married Giovan also known as Giovanni or Gian Gastone de Medici (1671–1737), grand duke of Tuscany (r. 1723–1737), in July 1697; no children.

Daughter of the duke of Saxe-Lauenburg and widow of the count Palatine, Anna Maria was "more like a Bohemian peasant than a princess," writes C.G. Young, when she married Gian Gastone de Medici in Dusseldorf. Gian Gastone had vigorously opposed the match, but his father Cosimo III had won out. Since Anna Maria much preferred living on her inherited property in Reichstadt, a small village isolated in the mountains of Bohemia, to living in Tuscany, Gian Gastone was forced to settle in the remote Bohemian village. To add to his misery, Anna Maria's interests tended toward horses, dogs, and field sports, while he was more inclined toward intellectual pursuits. He soon took to drink and within one year was fleeing to Paris to be with his mother Marguerite Louise of Orleans . Though compelled to return by his father, Gian Gastone began to spend more time in Prague in intemperate pursuits than in his wife's tiny castle.

Cosimo, with his health failing and aware that his son would soon be heir, tried to convince Anna Maria to come to Tuscany, but she would have none of it. Cosimo finally allowed his son to return to Florence without her, and from then on, they lived apart. Instead, Gian Gastone's sister-in-law,Violante Beatrice de Medici , served as his host at court.