Isabel, Duchess of Braganza (néeIsabel Inês de Castro Curvello de Herédia; born 22 November 1966), is a Portuguese businesswoman who married Duarte Pio, Duke of Braganza, the current pretender to the defunct Portuguese throne.
Born into the family of the old Portuguese nobility, Isabel worked as an assets manager prior to her marriage. Since marrying Duarte Pio, Isabel has left the professional world, devoted her attention to her family, and become patron to several Portuguese charities and non-profit foundations. She and her husband have had three children together, thus securing the continuation of the House of Braganza.
Family
Isabel Inês de Castro Curvello de Herédia was born on 22 November 1966, in Lisbon, to Jorge de Herédia (b. 1934), an architect, and his wife, Raquel Leonor Pinheiro de Castro Curvello (b. 1935).[1]
Isabel lived between metropolitan Portugal and Portuguese Angola until 1975, when Angola was granted independence. Her family subsequently moved to São Paulo, Brazil. There, she studied at the Colégio São Luís, a Jesuit-run institution. In 1990, she obtained a degree in business administration from the Fundação Getúlio Vargas and returned to Portugal to a job in BMF — Sociedade de Gestão de Patrimónios, S.A. She specialized as an asset manager.
Following her marriage and the birth of her first child, Afonso, Isabel resigned from her professional life and devoted herself to the management of her family and the patronage of various causes.
^ ab(in Portuguese) "Nobreza de Portugal e do Brasil", Direcção de Afonso Eduardo Martins Zúquete, Editorial Enciclopédia, 2.ª Edição, Lisboa, 1989, Volume Terceiro, p. 214