Image by RGY23 on Pixabay · Pixabay License
Key facts
- Tenure
- 18 April 1518 – 1 April 1548
- Coronation
- 18 April 1518 , Kraków , Poland
- Predecessor
- Isabella
- Successor
- None (annexed by Naples )
- Born
- 2 February 1494, Vigevano , Duchy of Milan
- Died
- 19 November 1557 (1557-11-19) (aged 63), Bari , Kingdom of Naples
- Burial
- Basilica di San Nicola
- Spouse
- Sigismund I of Poland ( married</span>"}]]}'>m. 1517 ; died 1548 )
- Issue
- Isabella, Queen of Hungary Sigismund II Augustus, King of Poland Sophia, Duchess of Brunswick-Lüneburg Anna, Queen of Poland Catherine, Queen of Sweden Albertus, Prince of Poland
- House
- Sforza
- Father
- Gian Galeazzo Sforza
- Mother
- Isabella of Aragon
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- human
- Gender
- female
- Citizenship
- Poland
- Place of birth
- Vigevano
- Place of death
- Bari
- Spouse
- Sigismund I the Old
- Father
- Gian Galeazzo Sforza
- Mother
- Isabella of Naples
- Sibling
- Francesco Sforza
- Occupation
- art collector
- Languages spoken
- Italian
- Family
- House of Sforza
- Noble title
- queen
- Image
- Bona Sforza (12889691).jpg
Show 10 more facts
- place of burial
- Basilica of Saint Nicholas
- Commons category
- Bona Sforza
- date of birth
- 1494-02-02
- date of death
- 1557-11-20
- manner of death
- homicide
- cause of death
- intoxication
- name in native language
- Bona Sforza d'Aragona
- start of work period
- 1518-01-01
- end of work period
- 1556-01-01
- significant person
- Johannes Dantiscus
via Wikidata · CC0
~16 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Bona Sforza (2 February 1494 – 19 November 1557) was Queen of Poland and Grand Duchess of Lithuania as the second wife of Sigismund the Old, and Duchess of Bari and Rossano in her own right. She was a surviving member of the powerful House of Sforza, which had ruled the Duchy of Milan since 1450.
Smart, energetic and ambitious, Bona became heavily involved in the political and cultural life of the Polish–Lithuanian union. To increase state revenue during the Chicken War, she implemented various economic and agricultural reforms, including the far-reaching Wallach Reform in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. In foreign policy, she allied with the Ottoman Empire and sometimes opposed the Habsburgs. Her descendants became beneficiaries of the Neapolitan sums, a loan to Philip II of Spain that was never completely paid.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Bona Sforza” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.