Luitpold was born in Würzburg, the third son of King Ludwig I of Bavaria and his wife, Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen.

With the reign of his nephew Ludwig II (1864–1886), Prince Luitpold had increasingly to represent the royal house due to the king's long absence from the capital.

It had long been speculated that Ludwig and Otto's diagnoses of mental incapacity were pretexts to shunt them aside, given that they were rather cool toward Prussia while Luitpold was thought to be pro-Prussian.

However, during Luitpold's regency, relations between Munich and Berlin remained cold as Bavarians resented Prussia's strategic dominance over the empire.

In 1913, the constitution was amended to add a clause stating that if a regency for reasons of incapacity had lasted for at least 10 years with no prospect of the king being able to actively reign, the regent could assume the throne in his own right.

The Prinzregentenzeit ("prince's regent's time"), as the regency of Luitpold is often called, marked the gradual transfer of Bavarian interests behind those of the German empire.

In connection with the unhappy end of the preceding rule of King Ludwig II, this break in the Bavarian monarchy looked even stronger.

Today the connection of these two developments is regarded as a main cause for the unspectacular end of the Bavarian kingdom without opposition in the course of the November revolution of 1918.

However the course of his 26-year regency Luitpold grew to overcome, by modesty, ability and popularity, the initial uneasiness of his subjects.

These prince's regent's years were transfigured, finally – above all in the retrospect – to a golden age of Bavaria, even if one mourned the "fairy tale king" Ludwig II furthermore what happens in a folkloric-nostalgic manner till this day.

[clarification needed] Tutored as a child by Domenico Quaglio the Younger, Luitpold had a great feeling for the arts.