Marriage
In late 1626, Maria Anna was betrothed to Archduke Ferdinand, the younger brother of her first fiancé and the new heir of Emperor Ferdinand II. He was her first cousin and was the son of her mother's brother. The formal engagement was preceded by a series of negotiations, which were conducted in 1625. The same year, Ferdinand was crowned King of Hungary, and in 1627, he was crowned King of Bohemia. In the negotiations were included all the life aspects of the infanta at the court of her future spouse. Despite the desire of the groom for Maria Anna's confessor to be the Jesuit Ambrosio de Peñalosa, the appointment eventually went to Capuchin Diego Quiroga. In the marriage contract signed by both parties in 1628, it was noted that Maria Anna could retain her rights of inheritance over the Spanish throne, but her older sister Infanta Anna, who married to King Louis XIII in 1615, was forced to renounce her rights.
Maria Anna had left Madrid for Vienna in December 1629, fully three years after her engagement and nearly five years after the proposal for marriage was first mooted. The journey, once it was embarked upon, took more than a year to complete. On route by sea, in Genoa, complications arose from an epidemic of the plague that erupted in the Italian Peninsula. For that reason, the party was unable to stop in Bologna, where Cardinal Antonio Barberini, nephew of Pope Urban VIII, was waiting for the infanta to give her the Golden Rose. The party moved to Naples, where Maria Anna finally received the award. Leaving Naples, the Infanta crossed the Papal States after she had made a pilgrimage to the Basilica della Santa Casa. On that section of her journey, Maria Anna was accompanied by Roman aristocracy, led by another nephew of Pope Urban VIII, Taddeo Barberini, Prince of Palestrina. On 26 January 1631, she arrived in Trieste, where she met Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria, her future brother-in-law, who would first stand in for his brother at a wedding by proxy and then escort the infanta to Vienna. The very day, Maria Anna was married to King Ferdinand of Hungary and Bohemia per procura, with Archduke Leopold Wilhelm serving as the proxy.
Before the official wedding, King Ferdinand, not trusting the previous portraits that he had seen of the infanta, decided to view his bride secretly. The Royal Oberhofmeister asked for an audience with Maria Anna. On that visit, he was accompanied by some nobles, one of whom was her groom. Struck by the beauty of the infanta, King Ferdinand immediately revealed his identity and began a conversation with Maria Anna in Spanish. The love and respect that the future emperor felt for his wife lasted throughout their marriage. He was never unfaithful to her and never had any illegitimate children.
In Vienna on 20 February 1631, Maria Anna was married to King Ferdinand of Hungary-Bohemia. The festivities lasted a whole month. The marriage was described as friendly. Maria Anna was described as happy-tempered, friendly and intelligent, and she relieved the feelings of the rather melancholic Ferdinand.
