She was born on May 9, 1892, the 17th child of Roberto I, Duke of Parma. in Lucca, Italy. Named after a famous Tuscan saint she was only a child when the unification of Italy dethroned the House of Bourbon-Parma and she grew up moving between family homes in Lucca and Lower Austria. Being from a French royal family, reigning in Italy and forced to spend alot of time on the move they were a very international group and Princess Zita grew up speaking Italian, French, Spanish, German, Portuguese and English. Like all her siblings she was given a strict religious education and was raised to be a devout Catholic where regular charitable work was a family tradition. It was this quality which particularly impressed the young Austrian Archduke Charles who she met during stays in Lower Austria. Charles was smitten right away but for Zita the relationship grew over time before the Archduke proposed for fear she might be married to someone else if he did not act quickly.
In 1916, when Francis Joseph died, Zita became the last Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary. She was very involved in national issues and was constantly at her husband's side. When they had to be apart Charles called her several times a day. She also played a major part in 1917 in the effort to make peace. Working secretly through her brother Prince Sixtus, an officer in the Belgian army, messages were sent via Switzerland to try to negotiate a seperate peace between Austria and France. Empress Zita also used her influence to stop a German plan to bomb the residence of the Belgian King and Queen. Unfortunately, the peace efforts went nowhere. King Albert I of the Belgians was in favor but the French and British were not and while Emperor Charles was in favor the Germans were not. The situation became worse when the Allies made the negotiations public which greatly endangered Austria and Charles and Zita in particular. There had never been any love lost between them and the Germans and the news that they had attempted a seperate peace brought threats of a German takeover of Austria.