Bona Sforza

Bona Sforza, born on February second, fourteen ninety-four, was a prominent figure in European history, serving as Queen of Poland and Grand Duchess of Lithuania. As the second wife of Sigismund the Old, she brought with her the legacy of the powerful House of Sforza, which had ruled the Duchy of Milan since fourteen fifty.

Her intelligence, energy, and ambition allowed her to play a significant role in the political and cultural landscape of the Polish–Lithuanian union. During the Chicken War, she took decisive action to bolster state revenue through a series of economic and agricultural reforms, most notably the Wallach Reform in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

In the realm of foreign policy, Bona was strategic in her alliances, forging a partnership with the Ottoman Empire while often finding herself at odds with the Habsburgs. Her descendants would later benefit from the Neapolitan sums, a loan to Philip the Second of Spain that remained partially unpaid, further intertwining her legacy with the financial intricacies of European politics.