Juana La Loca

I have been very interested lately in the story of Juana La Loca, known in English as Joan/Joanna The Mad, or Joanna I of Castile.

Juana was the third child and second daughter of King Ferdinand of Aragon and Queen Isabella of Castile. She was married off at around 15 years of age to Philip The Handsome, the son of Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, and a member of the Habsburg dynasty. Apparently it was lust at first sight for these two teenagers - upon their first meeting, that Handsome Phil insisted that they be married right away by a priest, after which the two proceeded to get their groove on in the nearest bedroom. Unfortunately, Philip was quite the ladies' man and after their marriage he continued sleeping with women right and left, which was quite a problem for Juana, who was strangely obsessed with her husband and thus prone to bouts of extreme jealousy - she would totally beat down any ho who got it on with her man, and took on only really ugly ladies-in-waiting in the hopes that her husband wouldn't be tempted. When Queen Isabella died, Juana inherited the kingdom of Castile, as her two elder siblings had died, leaving Juana as the next heiress in line. King Ferdinand had a real problem with his crazy daughter being on the throne, so he plotted with that gorgeous Philip to take over Castile without Juana. Philip died shortly after, and Juana wandered the countryside of Spain with her husband's casket, occasionally ordering the coffin to be opened so she could make sure his body was still there - then she would kiss his decaying body several times. Poor Juana ended up locked up in a castle for the rest of her long life, held captive first by her father, and then by her son, the Emperor Charles V.

A movie was made about the life of Juana - a Spanish movie that was released several years ago under the title "Juana La Loca" in Spain and "Mad Love" in English (not to be confused with that other movie called "Mad Love" that starred Drew Barrymore and which I did not see). It was really quite a good movie, although Philip the Handsome was played by an actor who had an eerie resemblance to Fabio - which kind of made me think that Juana had some questionable taste in men. I sincerely hope that in real life, Philip was much better looking - but one must note that he was a Habsburg and good looks were not known to run in this family. I suspect Philip got his title "The Handsome" because he probably did not have that weird Habsburg Jaw going on.

I haven't been able to find any biographies of Juana La Loca, so if anyone knows of one let me know!