Leopoldina was born at 6:45 am on 13 July 1847, in the Imperial Palace of São Cristóvão, the second daughter of Pedro II and Teresa Cristina of the Two Sicilies.

[1] She was baptized in the Cathedral and Imperial Chapel on 7 September 1847, by the bishop chief chaplain and diocesan gift Manuel do Monte Rodrigues de Araújo, Count of Irajá, and her name was given in honor of her paternal grandmother.

Numerous teachers were instructed to educate the two young women, who followed an elaborate and rigorous system of studies constantly monitored by the Emperor.

The subjects they studied were diverse: Portuguese and its Literature, French, English, Italian, German, Latin, Greek, Algebra, Geometry, Chemistry, Physics, Botany, History (whose subjects were divided by country and period), Cosmography, Drawing and Painting, Piano, Philosophy, Geography, Political economy, Rhetoric, Zoology, Mineralogy, and Geology.

[4] However, the two candidates chosen by the emperor—his nephew, Pierre, Duke of Penthièvre, and Philippe, Count of Flanders (son of Leopold I of Belgium)—refused the proposed consortium, leading the monarch to opt for the Princes Ludwig August of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, the second son of August of Saxe-Coburg-Gota and Princess Clémentine of Orléans, and Gaston of Orléans, Count of Eu.

[5][6][7] At first it was thought that Ludwig August was to be betrothed to the Princess Imperial and Gaston to Leopoldina, but Pedro II refused to proceed with the negotiations before hearing the opinion of his daughters about the suitors.

The contract provided, in articles 3, 4 and 5 that, as long as Dom Pedro II did not consider Princess Isabel's succession assured, the couple should—among other things —reside part of the year in Brazil and have their children in Brazilian territory.

The couple received a grant of $300,000,000 for the acquisition of a residence in Rio de Janeiro, from which they and their descendants would have the usufruct, but which would remain as national patrimony.

When she discovered she was pregnant with the fourth child, she and her husband decided that they would not return to Brazil, and on 15 September 1870, Prince Luís Gastão was born at Ebenthal Castle in Austria.

The picture evolved rapidly and Leopoldina began to suffer delusions and convulsions, a situation witnessed by Princess Isabel and the Count of Eu.

Clémentine of Orléans described the agony of her daughter-in-law in a letter sent to the Princess of Joinville: May God's will be done, my good Chica, but the blow is hard and we are very unhappy.

The abbot Blumel recited the prayer of the dying, we were all kneeling around her bed, and at 6 p.m. her breathing ceased, without the slightest contraction of her physiognomy.

After the solemn funeral rites celebrated by the apostolic nuncio, Monsignor Mariano Falcinelli Antoniacci, her body was transferred to Coburg, where representatives of all the royal houses of Europe attended its burial.