Bona Sforza
Bona Sforza | |
---|---|
Basilica di San Nicola | |
Spouse |
Sigismund I of Poland (m. 1517; died 1548) |
Issue Detail |
|
House | Sforza |
Father | Gian Galeazzo Sforza |
Mother | Isabella of Aragon |
Bona Sforza d'Aragona (2 February 1494 – 19 November 1557) was
Smart, energetic and ambitious, Bona became heavily involved in the political and cultural life of the
Childhood
Bona was born on 2 February 1494, in Vigevano, Milan, as the third of the four children of
Bona's family moved to the
By April 1502, Bona was the only surviving of her siblings. She and her mother settled at the Castello Normanno-Svevo in Bari more permanently, where Bona started an excellent education. Her teachers included Italian humanists Crisostomo Colonna and Antonio de Ferraris, who taught her mathematics, natural science, geography, history, law, Latin, classical literature, theology, and how to play several musical instruments.
Marriage proposals
When the
After Polish King
Jan Konarski,
Queen of Poland and Grand Duchess of Lithuania
The wedding and coronation took place on 18 April 1518, but celebrations continued for a week. Almost from the beginning of her life in Poland, the energetic queen tried to gain a strong political position and began forming a circle of supporters. On 23 January 1519,
In May 1519, the privilege was expanded to fifteen benefices. This was a very important privilege that allowed her to secure support of various officials. Three of her most trusted supporters, Piotr Kmita Sobieński, Andrzej Krzycki, and Piotr Gamrat, were sometimes known as the Triumvirate. She became openly involved in various state affairs, which did not agree with the traditional ideal of a royal wife to use discreet manipulation in government. Although the royal couple disagreed on many domestic and foreign issues, the marriage was a supportive and successful partnership.
Domestic policy
Believing that one of the most important things needed for strengthening royal authority was appropriate
Wanting to ensure the continuity of the Jagiellonian dynasty on the Polish throne, the royal couple decided to make the nobles and magnates to recognise their only son, the minor Sigismund Augustus, as heir to the throne. First, the Lithuanian nobles gave him the ducal throne (ca. 1527–1528). In 1529, he was then crowned Sigismund II Augustus. This led to huge opposition from Polish lords, which led to the adoption of the bill that the next coronation would take place after the death of Sigismund Augustus and only with the consent of all the noble brothers.
In 1539, Bona reluctantly presided over the burning of the 80-year-old Katarzyna Weiglowa for heresy, but that event ushered in an era of tolerance. The Queen's confessor, Francesco Lismanini, assisted in the establishment of a Calvinist Academy in Pińczów.
Foreign policy
Bona was instrumental in establishing alliances for Poland, but she was rumored to be a notorious conspirator because of her gender and Italian heritage. In addition of her good relationships with the Vatican, she sought to maintain good relations with the
Worried about the growing ties between the Habsburgs and Russia by 1524, Sigismund signed a Franco-Polish alliance with King Francis I of France to avoid a possible two-front war. Bona was instrumental in establishing an alliance between Poland and France with the objective of recovering Milan. The negotiations came to an end, and the alliance was disbanded after Francis' troops were defeated by Charles V at the Battle of Pavia in 1525.
Despite their blood relation, Bona sometimes was a fierce opponent of the Habsburgs. She advocated attaching Silesia to the Polish crown in return for her hereditary principalities of Bari and Rossano, but Sigismund the Old did not fully support this idea. Wanting to secure her eldest daughter in the Kingdom of Hungary, Bona successfully supported her son-in-law John Zápolya as successor against Ferdinand of Habsburg after Louis II of Hungary was killed at Mohács in 1526.
Artistic patronage
Alongside her husband's profound interest in the revival of classical antiquity, Bona was instrumental in developing the
Queen Mother
On the 1 April 1548, Sigismund I the Old died and was succeeded by Sigismund Augustus. The mother and the son had entered into a conflict over his marriage to
Neapolitan loans and death
In February 1556, Bona left Poland for her native Italy with treasures that she had accumulated over 38 years. In May, she reached Bari and took possession of her mother's duchy. She was soon visited by envoys of King
However, the Habsburgs were determined to obtain Bari and did not intend to repay the loan. On 8 November, Bona became ill with stomach ache. On 17 November, as she was losing consciousness, her trusted courtier Gian Lorenzo Pappacoda brought to her the notary Marco Vincenzo de Baldis, who wrote her last will. It left Bari, Rossano, Ostuni and Grottaglie to Philip II of Spain and large sums to Pappacoda's family. Her daughters would receive a one-off payment of 50,000 ducats except Isabella Jagiellon, who was to receive 10,000 ducats annually. Her only son, King Sigismund II Augustus, was named as the main beneficiary, but in the end, he would inherit only cash, jewelry, and other personal property. The next day, however, Bona felt better and dictated a new last will to Scipio Catapani that left Bari and other property to Sigismund Augustus.
Bona died in the early morning of 19 November 1557, at the age of 63. It is suspected she was poisoned by trusted household members.[3] She was buried in the Basilica di San Nicola in Bari, where her daughter, Anna, had a tomb erected for her in Renaissance style.[4]
Physical appearance
Bona was considered from her youth a very ugly woman, so much so that the proposal (advanced by Naples) of a marriage between her and the fourteen-year-old Federico Gonzaga was not even taken into consideration by his mother Isabella d'Este, nor by the archdeacon Alessandro di Gabbioneta, who considered it a sin to sacrifice the flourishing beauty of the young Federico to a "mature and ugly" woman like Bona. The latter, for her part, tried to make her face more graceful through jewelry and fabrics, but with little success, since "little or nothing has graced her."[5][6]
Affairs
During her youth in Bari, Bona Sforza took the young Ettore Pignatelli as her lover. He was the eldest son of Alessandro Pignatelli, who, in turn, was the lover of her mother Isabella d'Aragona, Duchess of Milan. However, Ettore died under mysterious circumstances. It is believed that he was poisoned by Bona after he refused to follow her to Poland, where she intended to marry Sigismund.[7] Widowed by her husband in 1548, Bona became involved in a romantic affair with Giovanni Lorenzo Pappacoda.[7]
Issue
Although she did not travel with her husband and spent three years alone in the
- Isabella (18 January 1519 – 15 September 1559): Married John Zápolya, King of Hungary.
- Grand Duke of Lithuania.
- Sophia (13 July 1522 – 28 May 1575): Married Henry V, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg.
- Anna (18 October 1523 – 9 September 1596): Eventually succeeded her brother as Queen of Poland and Grand Duchess of Lithuania in her own right.
- Catherine (1 November 1526 – 16 September 1583): Married John III of Sweden.
- Albert (born and died 20 September 1527): Died at birth after his mother gave birth prematurely.[8]
See also
References
- ^ a b Lepri 2019, p. 65.
- ^ a b Rūta Janonienė (2015): The Lithuanian Millennium: History, Art and Culture, VDA leidykla, pp. 121–122.
- ^ Kosior 2019, p. 170.
- ^ Grandolfo, Alessandro (2023). "The funerary monument of Bona Sforza in the Basilica of San Nicola in Bari: history and background of a royal mausoleum of Polish patronage". Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte. 86 (4): 477–504.
- ^ lombardo 1906, p. 155.
- ^ Ferrante 1924, p. 173.
- ^ a b "BRANI DI "LA VERITÀ SVELATA A' PRINCIPI O VERO SUCCESSI DIVERSI TRAGICI ET AMOROSI OCCORSI IN NAPOLI DALL'ANNO 1442 SIN ALL'ANNO 1688" DEDICATI A ISABELLA D'ARAGONA, A BONA SFORZA E COSTANZA DI CAPUA. DAL MS. ITAL. FOL 145" (PDF).
- ^ Grzybowski, Polish history and Lithuania (1506–1648), p. 47
Sources
- Ferrante, Giulio Marchetti (1924). Rievocazioni del rinascimento. G. Laterza & figli.
- Kosior, Katarzyna (2019). Becoming A Queen in Early Modern Europe. Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan.
- Lepri, Valentina (2019). Knowledge Transfer and the Early Modern University: Statecraft and Philosophy at the Akademia Zamojska (1596-1627). Brill.
- lombardo (1906). Archivio storico lombardo. Vol. 33. Società storica lombarda.