The Grand Duke was deposed briefly by a provisional government in 1849, only to be restored the same year with the assistance of Austrian troops, who occupied the state until 1855.

Born in Florence, Leopold II was the son of Ferdinand III, Grand Duke of Tuscany and Princess Luisa Maria Amelia Teresa of the Two Sicilies, who were double first cousins.

The election of Pope Pius IX gave fresh encouragement to Liberalism, and on 4 September 1847 Leopold instituted the National Guard – a preparation for a constitution; soon afterward the marchese Cosimo Ridolfi (1794–1865) was appointed prime minister.

On 26 June, the first Tuscan parliament assembled but the disturbances consequent on the failure of the campaign in Lombardy resulted in the resignation of the Ridolfi ministry, which was succeeded by that of Gino Capponi.

The riots continued, especially at Livorno, which was prey to actual civil war, and the democratic party of which Francesco Domenico Guerrazzi and Giuseppe Montanelli were organizers became every day more influential.

There was talk of instituting a central Italian kingdom with Leopold as king, to form part of a larger Italian federation, but in the meanwhile the grand-duke, alarmed at the revolutionary and republican agitations in Tuscany and encouraged by the success of the Austrian troops, was, according to Montanelli, negotiating with Field Marshal Radetzky and with Pius IX, who had now abandoned his liberal tendencies, and fled to Gaeta.

Leopold had left Florence for Siena, and eventually for Porto Santo Stefano, leaving a letter to Guerrazzi in which, on account of a protest from the pope, he declared that he could not agree to the proposed constituent assembly.

In April 1850 he concluded a treaty with Austria suspending the continuation for an indefinite period of the Austrian occupation with 10,000 men; in September he dismissed parliament, and the next year established a concordat with the Church of a very clerical character.

He feebly asked Austria if he might maintain the constitution, and the Austrian premier, Prince Felix of Schwarzenberg, advised him to consult the pope, the king of Naples and the dukes of Parma and Modena.

Political trials were held, Guerrazzi and many others being condemned to long terms of imprisonment, and although in 1855 the Austrian troops left Tuscany, Leopold's popularity was gone.

When in 1859 France and Piedmont made war on Austria, Leopold's government failed to prevent numbers of young Tuscan volunteers from joining the Franco-Piedmontese forces.

On 27 April there was great excitement in Florence, Italian colours appeared everywhere, but order was maintained, and the grand duke and his family departed for Bologna undisturbed.

Leopold of Tuscany was a well-meaning, not unkindly man, and fonder of his subjects than were the other Italian despots, but he was weak, and too closely bound by family ties and Habsburg traditions ever to become a real Liberal.

Leopold ordered the construction of La Botte, a water tunnel under the Arno river, which allowed for the final drainage of the Lago di Bientina, which had previously been the largest lake in Tuscany.