Queen of Poland and Grand Duchess of Lithuania (since 1518).
Queen Bona descended from the powerful Italian family of the Dukes of Sforza. She was the daughter of Gian Galeazzo Sforza, the sixth Duke of Milan, and the niece of Bianca Maria Sforza, who married Maximilian I, Emperor Maximilian of the Holy Roman Empire in 1493. Bona, niece of the Empress, was a patron of Renaissance culture and is also considered the mother of modern Polish and Lithuanian cuisine, bringing tomatoes, potatoes and cucumbers from Italy to Poland and Lithuania. She supported the majority of Catholic Poland and Lithuania by opposing the marriage of her son, Sigismund Augustus, to Barbara Radvilaitė, and it is believed, although there is no evidence, that it was she who poisoned the new queen, who died a short time after her coronation.
After a falling out with Sigismund Augustus, in 1556 Bona Sforza left for the Principality of Bari with her money and jewels. She died after being robbed by her servants, mainly by her agent G.L. Pappacoda, who aggravated her illness with poison.
