Bona Sforza

Bona as the Queen Mother

Bona Sforza (born February 2, 1494 in Vigevano , † November 19, 1557 in Bari , Italy ) was an Italian princess from the noble family of Sforza , Duchess of Bari and Princess of Rossano from 1524 and Queen of Poland and Grand Duchess from 1518 by marriage of Lithuania . As a descendant of Hugo von Brienne , she laid claim to the Kingdom of Jerusalem .

Life

She was the youngest daughter of Duke Gian Galeazzo Sforza of Milan and Isabella of Aragón , Princess of Naples. Her father was murdered the year she was born. Her mother moved from Pavia to Bari with her daughters . She tried unsuccessfully to defend her claims against Ludovico Sforza , her father's uncle. In the course of the Italian wars , Bona's brother Francesco was ousted from the succession of the duchy and in 1499 was brought to France by French troops who conquered Milan, where he died in 1511/12. Her sister Ippolita also died young. Bona received a good education in Naples , u. a. by Crisostomo Colonna from the Accademia Pontaniana . From 1524, after the death of her mother, she was the sovereign Duchess of Bari and Princess of Rossano .

In 1518 Bona married King Sigismund of Poland , who was also Grand Duke of Lithuania in personal union. After arriving in Krakow , Bona Sforza was crowned Sigismund's second wife and Queen of Poland on April 18.

Bona Sforza showed remarkable qualities as a royal consort: she was very ambitious, led an independent and intelligent economic and cultural policy, had castles (e.g. the castle in Bar or the castle Ciechanów ), schools and hospitals built, but also caused corruption and Intrigues at the Polish court. She never understood the landed gentry who rebelled against her and Sigismund's reforms in the “ chicken war ”. She was very unpopular with this shift and slanderous rumors were spread about her. In 1551, after the sudden death of her unloved daughter-in-law, Queen Barbara Radziwiłł , her opponents suspected, without evidence, of poisoning her. She was also said to have a special sympathy for the Silesian Peter von Prittwitz. They wanted to explain their personal commitment to his son Bernhard von Prittwitz , the Terror Tartarorum ("Terror of the Tatars"), who fought very successfully against the Tatars under King Sigismund I and his successor Sigismund II and therefore fought with large estates in 1538 and in 1540 was rewarded with the office of Starost von Bar .

After the death of her husband in 1548, she moved from the Royal Castle in Kraków to Warsaw and in 1556 returned to Italy, where she was poisoned by her confidante Pappacoda in 1557 on behalf of King Philip of Spain . Queen Bona died in Bari and was buried in the Basilica di San Nicola.

progeny

• Isabella (born January 18, 1519 - † September 15, 1559), married to the Hungarian King Johann Zápolya since 1539
• Sigismund (born August 1, 1520, † July 7, 1572), King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania
• Sophia (* July 13, 1522; † May 28, 1575), married since 1556 to Heinrich II., Duke of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel ;
• Anna (October 18, 1523 - September 9, 1596), married to the Polish King Stephan Báthory since 1576
• Katharina (born November 1, 1526 - † September 16, 1583), married to the Swedish King John III since 1562 .
• Albrecht Jagiełło († September 20, 1527)

Web links

Commons : Bona Sforza  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Bona Sforza in the catalog of the German National Library
• Publications about Bona Sforza in the Litdok East Central Europe / Herder Institute (Marburg)

predecessor	Office	Successor
Barbara Zápolya	Queen of Poland 1518–1548	Elisabeth of Austria