"[1][2] Anna Maria Luisa was the only daughter of Cosimo III de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and Marguerite Louise d'Orléans, a niece of Louis XIII of France.

In 1713 Cosimo III altered the Tuscan laws of succession to allow the accession of his daughter, and spent his final years canvassing the European powers to agree to recognise this statute.

However, in 1735, as part of a territorial arrangement, the European powers appointed Duke Francis Stephen of Lorraine as heir, and he duly ascended the Tuscan throne in her stead.

After the death of Johann Wilhelm, Anna Maria Luisa returned to Florence, where she enjoyed the rank of first lady until the accession of her brother Gian Gastone, who banished her to the Villa La Quiete.

When Gian Gastone died in 1737, Francis Stephen's envoy offered Anna Maria Luisa the position of nominal regent of Tuscany, but she declined.

[4] It is thought incorrectly by some historians that soon after arrival she contracted syphilis from the Elector, which they think explains why Anna Maria Luisa and Johann Wilhelm failed to produce any children.

Agostino Steffani, a polymath, was sponsored by the Electress from his arrival in Düsseldorf, in 1703, until her return to Tuscany; the Conservatorio Luigi Cherubini library in Florence houses two editions of his chamber duets.

[28] Some years later, as the question of the succession became more urgent, Cardinal Francesco Maria de' Medici, Cosimo III's brother, was released from his vows and coerced into marrying Vincenzo Gonzaga, Duke of Guastalla's elder daughter, Eleanor, in 1709.

[32] To complicate things further, Elisabeth Farnese, heiress of the Duchy of Parma, the second wife of Philip V of Spain, as a great-granddaughter of Margherita de' Medici, exercised a claim to Tuscany.

[32][33][34] In May 1716, Charles VI, who constantly changed his stance on the issue, told Florence that the Electress's succession was unquestioned, but added that Austria and Tuscany must soon reach an agreement regarding which royal house was to follow the Medici.

Upon hearing of Anna Maria Luisa's intention to return, Violante Beatrice prepared to depart for Munich, her brother's capital, but Gian Gastone wished her to stay, so she did.

[43] On 25 October 1723, six days before his death, Cosimo III distributed a final proclamation commanding that Tuscany shall stay independent; Anna Maria Luisa shall succeed uninhibited after Gian Gastone; the Grand Duke reserves the right to choose his successor.

He despised the Electress for engineering his unhappy marriage with Anna Maria Franziska of Saxe-Lauenburg, while she detested his liberal policies: he repealed all of his father's anti-Semitic statutes and revelled in upsetting her.

[51] In 1736, during the War of the Polish Succession, Infante Charles was banished from Tuscany as part of a territorial swap, and Francis III of Lorraine was made heir in his stead.

[54] Anna Maria Luisa was offered a nominal regency by the Prince de Craon, the Grand Duke's envoy, until Francis III could arrive in Florence, but declined.

[55] At Gian Gastone's demise, all the House of Medici's allodial possessions, including £2,000,000[note 1] liquid cash, a vast art collection, robes of state and lands in the former Duchy of Urbino, were conferred on Anna Maria Luisa.

[57] In collaboration with the Holy Roman Emperor and Francis of Lorraine, she willed all the personal property of the Medici's to the Tuscan state, provided that nothing was ever removed from Florence.

[59][60] She occupied herself financing and overseeing the construction of the Cappella dei Principi, started in 1604 by Ferdinando I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany—to the tune of 1,000 crowns per week, and she donated much of her fortune to charity: £4,000 per annum.

[62] Sir Horace Mann, 1st Baronet, a British resident in Florence, recalled in a letter that "The common people are convinced she went off in a hurricane of wind; a most violent one began this morning and lasted for about two hours, and now the sun shines as bright as ever..."[63] The royal line of the House of Medici became extinct with her death.

[62] Her will, having been completed just months before, according to Sir Horace Mann, left £500,000[note 2] worth of jewellery to the Grand Duke Francis and her lands in the former Duchy of Urbino to the Marquis Rinuccini, her main executor and a minister under her father, Cosimo III.

Cynthia Miller Lawrence, an American art historian, argues that Anna Maria Luisa thus provisioned for Tuscany's future economy through tourism.