Editing Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor (section)

==Grand Duke of Tuscany==
[[File:Pompeo Batoni 002.jpg|thumb|left|Leopold (left) with his brother [[Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor|Emperor Joseph II]]. ''[[Emperor Joseph II and Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo of Tuscany]]'' by [[Pompeo Batoni]], 1769, [[Vienna]], [[Kunsthistorisches Museum]]]]

For five years, Leopold exercised little more than nominal authority, under the supervision of counselors appointed by his mother. In 1770, he made a journey to Vienna to secure the removal of this vexatious guardianship and returned to Florence with a free hand. During the twenty years that elapsed between his return to Florence and the death of his eldest brother [[Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor|Joseph II]] in 1790, he was employed in reforming the administration of his small state. The reformation was carried out by the removal of the ruinous restrictions on industry and personal freedom imposed by his predecessors of the [[House of Medici]] and left untouched during his father's life, by the introduction of a rational system of taxation (reducing the rates of taxation), and by the execution of profitable public works, such as the drainage of the [[Valdichiana]].<ref name=";)Emperor)1873">{{Cite book |last1=Joseph II ((empereur germanique ;) |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jJU3zQEACAAJ |title=Joseph II., Leopold II. und Kaunitz: Ihr Briefwechsel |last2=Leopold II (Holy Roman Emperor) |publisher=W. Braumüller |year=1873}}</ref>{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=459}}

As Leopold had no army to maintain, and as he suppressed the small naval force kept up by the Medici, the whole of his revenue was left free for the improvement of his state. Leopold was never popular with his Italian subjects. His disposition was cold and retiring. His habits were simple to the verge of sordidness, though he could display splendour on occasion, and he could not help offending those of his subjects who had profited by the abuses of the Medicean régime.<ref name="Ingrao2000">{{Cite book |last=Charles W. Ingrao |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ccMmAAAAQBAJ |title=The Habsburg Monarchy, 1618–1815 |year=2000 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-107-26869-2}}</ref>{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=459}}

But his steady, consistent, and intelligent administration, which advanced step by step, brought the grand duchy to a high level of material prosperity. His ecclesiastical policy, which disturbed the deeply rooted convictions of his people and brought him into collision with the Pope, was not successful. He was unable to secularize the property of the religious houses or to put the clergy entirely under the control of the lay power.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=459}} However, his abolition of [[capital punishment]] was the first permanent abolition in modern times. On 30 November 1786, after having ''de facto'' blocked capital executions (the last was in 1769), Leopold promulgated the reform of the penal code that abolished the death penalty and ordered the destruction of all the instruments for capital execution in his land. [[Torture]] was also banned.<ref>In 2000 Tuscany's regional authority instituted an annual holiday on 30 November to commemorate the event. The November event is also commemorated by 300 cities around the world as [[Cities for Life Day]].</ref><ref name="Emperor)Crome1795">{{Cite book |last1=Leopold II (Holy Roman Emperor) |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=df94WAE1yO4C |title=Die Staatsverwaltung von Toskana unter der Regierung seiner Königlichen Majestät Leopold II |last2=August Friedrich Wilhelm Crome |publisher=Stahel |year=1795}}</ref>

In line with the theories of the [[Age of Enlightenment]], he enlarged [[La Specola]] with medical waxworks and other exhibits, aiming to educate Florentines in the empirical observation of natural laws.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Why these anatomical models are not disgusting |url=http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20160526-why-these-anatomical-models-are-not-disgusting |last=Macdonald |first=Fiona |website=bbc.com |access-date=25 March 2018}}</ref>

Leopold also approved and collaborated on the development of a political constitution, said to have anticipated by many years the promulgation of the French constitution and which presented some similarities with the [[Virginia Declaration of Rights|Virginia Bill of Rights]] of 1778. Leopold's concept of this was based on respect for the political rights of citizens and on a harmony of power between the executive and the legislative. However, it could not be put into effect because Leopold moved to Vienna to become emperor in 1790, and because it was so radically new that it garnered opposition even from those who might have benefited from it.<ref name="Mora1959" />

Leopold developed and supported many social and economic reforms. [[Smallpox]] inoculation was made systematically available, and an early institution for the rehabilitation of juvenile delinquents was founded. Leopold also introduced radical reforms to the system of neglect and inhumane treatment of those deemed [[history of mental disorders|mentally ill]]. On 23 January 1774, the "legge sui pazzi" (law on the insane) was established, the first of its kind to be introduced in Europe, allowing steps to be taken to hospitalize individuals deemed insane. A few years later Leopold undertook the project of building a new hospital, the {{Interlanguage link multi|Bonifacio Hospital|it|3=Ospedale Bonifacio}}. He used his skill at choosing collaborators to put a young physician, [[Vincenzo Chiarugi]], at its head. Chiarugi and his collaborators introduced new humanitarian regulations in the running of the hospital and caring for the mentally ill patients, including banning the use of chains and physical punishment, and in so doing have been recognized as early pioneers of what later came to be known as the [[moral treatment]] movement.<ref name="Mora1959">Mora, G. (1959) [https://web.archive.org/web/20100724052551/http://jhmas.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/citation/XIV/10/424 Vincenzo Chiarugi (1759–1820) and his psychiatric reform in Florence in the late 18th century (on the occasion of the bi-centenary of his birth)] J Hist Med. Oct;14:424–33.</ref>

During the last few years of his rule in Tuscany, Leopold had begun to be frightened by the increasing disorders in the German and Hungarian dominions of his family, which were the direct result of his brother's strict methods. He and Joseph II were tenderly attached to one another and met frequently both before and after the death of their mother. The portrait by [[Pompeo Batoni]] in which they appear together shows that they bore a strong personal resemblance to one another. But it may be said of Leopold, as of [[Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle|Fontenelle]], that his heart was made of brains. He knew that he had to succeed his childless eldest brother in Austria, and he was unwilling to inherit his unpopularity. When, therefore, in 1789 Joseph, who knew himself to be dying, asked him to come to Vienna and become co-regent, Leopold evaded the request.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=459}}

He was still in Florence when Joseph II died at Vienna on 20 February 1790, and he did not leave his Italian capital until 3 March 1790.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|pp=459–460}} Following the principle of [[secundogeniture]] which had allowed him to rule Tuscany, Leopold entrusted the grand duchy to his younger son [[Ferdinand III, Grand Duke of Tuscany|Ferdinand III]], who ruled until the French invasion in 1797 and then again from 1814 to 1824.