Bona Sforza

Bona Sforza ( born February 2, 1494 in Vigevano, † November 19, 1557 in Bari, Italy) was an Italian princess of the noble Sforza and from 1518 by marriage Queen of Poland and Grand Duchess of Lithuania.

Life

She was the youngest daughter of Duke Gian Galeazzo Sforza of Milan. 1518 she married King Sigismund of Poland, who was also Grand Duke of Lithuania in a personal union. After their arrival in Krakow Bona Sforza on April 18, Sigismund 's second wife and Queen of Poland was crowned. From 1524, after the death of her mother Isabella of Aragon, princess of Naples, she was sovereign Duchess of Bari and Princess of Rossano.

Bona Sforza showed remarkable properties as king wife: She was very ambitious, led an independent and wise economic and cultural policy, let castles (eg the lock bar or in the castle Ciechanów ), schools and hospitals to build but also generated corruption and intrigue at the Polish court. You also never understood the landed gentry, who rebelled against her and Sigismund's reforms in the " chicken war". In this film she was very unpopular, and again slanderous rumors about her rumored. So Bona was in 1551 after the sudden death of her unloved daughter, Queen Barbara Radziwill, suspected by their opponents without evidence of poisoning them. It was said you also have a special sympathy for the Silesians Peter Prittwitz. This was done to their personal commitment to his son Bernard of Prittwitz, terror explain Tartarorum ( " terror of the Tartars " ), which successfully fought under King Sigismund I and his successor Sigismund II against the Tatars and therefore in 1538 with large estates and in 1540 rewarded with the post of starosta of Bar.

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

Progeny

  • Isabella ( * January 18, 1519, † September 15, 1559 ), married since 1539 with the Hungarian King John Zápolya
  • Sigismund (* August 1, 1520; † July 7, 1572 ), King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania
  • Sophia ( born July 13, 1522 † May 28, 1575 ), married in 1556 with Henry II, Duke of Brunswick- Wolfenbüttel;
  • Anna ( born October 18, 1523 † September 9, 1596 ), married since 1576 with the Polish King Stephen Báthory
  • Catherine ( born 1 November 1526 † September 16, 1583 ), married since 1562 with the Swedish King John III.
  • Albrecht Jagiello († September 20, 1527 )
House of Sforza Duchy of Milan Personalunion Bar, Ukraine Isabella Jagiellon Sigismund II Augustus Sophia Jagiellon, Duchess of Brunswick-Lüneburg Anna Jagiellon John III of Sweden Integrated Authority File
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