Infante Carlos, Duke of Calabria Has Died in Ciudad Real

On October 5, Infante Carlos, Duke of Calabria died at his farm La Toledana in Retuerta del Bullaque, near the city of Ciudad Real, at the age of 77 after a long neurological illness and a stroke in 2012. He was one of two claimants to the headship of the House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies.

Born in Switzerland in 1938, Carlos was the only son of Infante Alfonso, Duke of Calabria (himself the son of Mercedes, Princess of Asturias) and his wife, Alicia of Bourbon-Parma. The family moved shortly thereafter to Madrid, where Carlos lived for the rest of his life, attending school and establishing a close friendship with the future King of Spain, Juan Carlos I, who was his cousin.

Infante Carlos, May 2013

He married Princess Anne of Orléans, one of Henri, Count of Paris’s daughters, in 1965. The couple had five children: Cristina, Maria, Pedro, Ines and Victoria. In 1994, King Juan Carlos bestowed upon Carlos the title ‘Infante of Spain’ as a “representative of a line linked historically to the Spanish Crown.”

The Infante will be buried at the Pantheon de los Infantes in the Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial on Thursday.

Filed under Italy
Tagged Carlos Duke of Calabria, Death, House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies.

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