 Princess Zita of Bourbon @-@ Parma was born at the Villa Pianore in the Italian Province of Lucca , 9 May 1892 . The unusual name Zita was given her after a popular Italian Saint who had lived in Tuscany in the 13th century . She was the third daughter and fifth child of the deposed Robert I , Duke of Parma and his second wife , Maria Antonia of Portugal , a daughter of king Miguel of Portugal and Adelaide of Löwenstein @-@ Wertheim @-@ Rosenberg . Zita 's father had lost his throne as a result of the movement for Italian unification in 1859 when he was still a child . He fathered twelve children during his first marriage to Maria Pia of the Two Sicilies ( six of whom were mentally retarded , and three of whom died young ) . Duke Robert became a widower in 1882 , and two years later he married Infanta Maria Antonia of Portugal , Zita 's mother . The second marriage produced a further twelve children . Zita was the 17th child among Duke Robert 's 24 children . Robert moved his large family between Villa Pianore ( a large property located between Pietrasanta and Viareggio ) and his castle in Schwarzau in lower Austria . It was mainly in these two residences that Zita spent her formative years . The family spent most of the year in Austria moving to Pianore in the Winter and returning in the Summer . To move between them , they took a special train with sixteen coaches to accommodate the family and their belongings . 
