Bona Sforza’s Dark Legend: Unveiling the Queen Through Renaissance Art

mirecki_-_wprowadzenie_muzyki_wloskiej_na_dwor_zygmunta_i_1874.jpg, default, ‘Wprowadzenie muzyki włoskiej na dwór Zygmunta I przez Bonę’ by Kazimierz Mirecki, 1874, photo: Museum of Art in Łódź

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The only Italian woman on the Polish throne, the most powerful woman of the First Republic of Poland – well educated, intelligent, admired for her political skill and acuteness; evoking the antipathy of her contemporaries, then sentenced to almost 5 centuries of a dark legend, imputed to be a poisoner, an intriguer, even an aspiring tyrant.

We now perceive Bona Sforza (1494–1557) as a largely positive figure, one who played a considerable role in spreading Renaissance ideas on Polish lands – as well as the one who brought us sofrito from Italy. However, opinions on her remained extremely unfavourable, even hostile, for a long time. The dark legend of the queen already appeared during her lifetime and lasted throughout the following epochs, permeating contemporaneous literature. Among the writings of both professional historians and literary authors, it was difficult to find a text which didn’t demonise Bona. In 1984, in his introduction to a new edition of Józef Ignacy Kraszewski’s 1884 novel Dwie Królowe: Bona i Elżbieta (Two Queens: Bona and Elisabeth), Szymon Kobyliński explicitly stated that Bona was met with ‘a campaign of loathing, lasting for over half a millennium’.

It’s no wonder, then, that in the 19th century, a time of particularly strong and widespread interest in history, the opinions of previous periods kept being perpetuated, and Bona was still perceived in a negative light. Among the contemporaneous writers who derived literary inspiration from the story of Bona, her son Zygmunt August and her daughter-in-low Barbara Radziwiłłówna, were authors famous until this day, such as the aforementioned Józef Ignacy Kraszewski, as well as Lucjan Rydel and Stanisław Wyspiański. There were also others, now largely forgotten but rather widely read during their time, such as Alojzy Feliński, Franciszek Wężyk, Dominik Magnuszewski and Antoni Odyniec. The topic was also taken up by such painters as Jan Matejko, Henryk Rodakowski and Józef Simmler.

The figure of Bona was presented through the lens of several unfavourable stereotypes and references to selected events from her life, mostly interpreted to her disadvantage, which shaped the collective imagination’s idea of the queen.

A stunning portrait

In 1518 in Kraków, Bona Sforza, at the age of 22, married Zygmunt the Old, the over 50-year-old king of Poland. In accordance with the custom of the time, the marriage was arranged. Zygmunt’s messengers Jan Konarski and Stanisław Ostroróg, sent to Italy to handle the whole business, described Bona as a woman of nearly perfect beauty, educated well and broadly. She was considered almost the ideal Renaissance princess.

Thumbnail — Zygmunt I Stary, illustration by Ksawery Pilati from ‘Wizerunki książąt i królów polskich’, 1988, photo: Wikimedia.org

Furthermore, in their letter to the king, Konarski and Ostroróg noted that ‘when it comes to the beauty of the person herself, she doesn’t differ at all from the portrait brought to Your Majesty by Mr Crisostomo’. Sending the likeness of a young princess in advance of a marriage arrangement was a widespread custom back then. A scene related to this tradition also appears in Kraszewski’s 1888 text Wizerunki książąt i królów polskich (Images of Poland’s Princes and Kings), and it constituted a source of inspiration for Ksawery Pillati, the author of the text’s illustrations. The print depicts the king surveying Bona’s portrait with interest and relish: he gets up from his armchair and, almost in rapture, extends his hands towards the image of his future wife. At the time, no one could be likely to suspect that Bona Sforza would end up being so negatively judged and that history would perceive her husband (especially at the end of his reign) almost solely through her prism. The illustration proves exactly that – from the entire biography of Zygmunt the Old, Pillati happened to choose this particular scene. This motif, the motif of ‘Bona’s portrait in a painting’, will reappear in her history.

After Bona’s arrival, it turned out that the princess’s behaviour differed a great deal from how Poles viewed the role of a royal spouse. While they appreciated Bona’s education and intelligence, they also expected her to give birth to the royal heir, most importantly, but to remain in her husband’s shadow, not to become involved in public affairs.

That, however, wasn’t the role Bona wished to fulfil. Raised in an entirely different political tradition, in which the role of the monarch was much stronger, and well-aware of her own talents and goals, with time she started to exert her influence on politics. Maria Bogucka, author of the book Bona Sforza, notices:

With her political activity, Bona ran afoul of everyone: of magnates bribed for centuries by the Habsburgs as she formed an anti-Habsburg party; of the entire Polish nobility with her projects of reforms and of strengthening the monarch’s rule; and of everyone – with expanding the economic activity and the royal domain understood as the basis for strong leadership. In Poland, such a programme simply had to evoke anger and indignation.

There were also other arguments, not necessarily of a political nature but rather originating from the dislike of who Bona was. About Bona’s image in the eyes of the nobility, Bogucka wrote:

[…] as a wife leading her old, less-talented husband by the nose, as a woman openly interfering in politics and wanting to rule over men – she had to get on the nerves of Poles. What’s even worse, she was a foreigner – an impetuous, imperious Italian, unwilling to submit to Polish customs.

An Italian plotter

According to the historian, it was in the second half of the 1530s, as early as 20 years after Bona’s arrival in Poland, that negative descriptions of Bona started to appear: ‘the attacks intensified immeasurably in 1537, during the Hen War [rebellion by the Polish nobility against a strong monarchy, ed], and then built up throughout the 1540s as Zygmunt the Old’s health started to fail’.

In his book Włosi w Polsce XVI–XVII Wieku: Utracona szansa na modernizację (Italians in 16th–17th Century Poland: The Lost Opportunity for Modernisation), Wojciech Tygielski notes:

Starting from the second half of the 16th century, the majority of the Polish nobility had negative associations with Bona, considering her a monarch acting against the national interest, using deception, poison and the most sophisticated intrigues.

Meanwhile, Marek Wrede, in his work Królowa Bona: Między Włochami a Polską (Queen Bona: Between Italy and Poland), writes:

In foul rhymes, tabloid gossip questioned the financial profits of Zygmunt’s Italian marriage and the queen’s beauty and also accused Bona of sexual promiscuity. Her political activity and influence on her husband caused opposition among the nobility. The image of her as a plotter, a shrew unfettered by moral norms, even a thief and a poisoner acquired the status of a widespread opinion.

That’s how Bona was portrayed in Henryk Rodakowski’s 1872 painting Wojna Kokosza (Hen War). Interestingly, the artist painted the piece after his return from Italy, where not only did he get to know Italian Renaissance art, but he also became convinced about the necessity of painting historical scenes.

A review of the painting published on the pages of the weekly magazine Kłosy (Ears of Grain) mentioned that, when the picture was exhibited in Paris, the artist added the following description: ‘Zygmunt I, king of Poland, defeated by the unruliness of the nobles and the intrigues of Queen Bona Sforza, announces to the rebels a law confirming their privileges’. The Italian herself was thus described by the anonymous reviewer:

Adorned in white satin and draped in velvet, she stands leaning against the armrest of the royal chair. Proud of her victory, she turns her beautiful visage towards the courtiers. The golden ringlets of her hair spring beautifully from under her velvet beret.

Bona seems to be the most important figure in this painting – not only does she physically dominate over Zygmunt the Old as he sits and she stands, but her light-coloured robe also distinguishes her from among other figures, immediately drawing attention to itself. The fact that she’s positioned behind the king symbolically emphasises that she’s the one behind his decisions. There’s also a visible contrast between her reaction (a largely unspecified cynical smile directed at her supporters) and that of Zygmunt the Old (a face full of sadness and weariness). On the pages of Przegląd Lwowski (Lwów Review) in May 1873, Franciszek Lutrzykowski, describing the figure of Zygmunt the Old in the painting, noted that ‘married to a young wife, he sits entangled in a network of women’s intrigues, a defenceless victim of a sedition of the whole nobility and the cunning flatterers whom he endows with the highest offices’.

Here, one can clearly hear the echoes of Bona’s infamy, the perception of her as a woman who not only had a bad influence on her royal husband but also established her own party (not necessarily comprised of eminent figures) meant to serve her own political goals and with whom she engaged in a range of intrigues. The man leaning towards Bona is bishop Piotr Gamrat, the soon-to-be primate of Poland. The tall nobleman with a long beard standing next to him is Piotr Kmita. The three of them were considered a mutually supportive ‘triumvirate’ striving toward its own goals in Polish politics. It was one of the key elements of the dark legend of Bona – according to the Polish nobility, it was improper for the queen to create her own courtly faction influencing the fate of the Commonwealth behind the monarch’s back, so to speak.

Bona & the Polish Golden Age

Even the queen’s staunchest opponents and later prejudiced writers noted that her arrival resulted in some changes to the way of life at the Kraków royal court. The period between 1518 and 1556 were those of Bona’s political and cultural activity. Tygielski considers it a ‘significant civilisational impetus’ and believes that ‘Bona brought to the Polish court a group of extraordinary figures, who formed an important circle shaping cultural patterns and opinions’.

It turns out, then, that it was not only a question of the Renaissance ideals and trends associated with Bona, which Zygmunt the Old had already introduced to the Jagiellonian court earlier, but of making the court more cultured and drawing more attention to the role of artists. A scene in this vein can be observed in Kazimierz Mirecki’s painting (made, by the way, in Italy) Wprowadzenie muzyki włoskiej na dwór Zygmunta I przez Bonę (Bona Introducing Italian Music to the Court of Zygmunt I). In the background, the royal couple sits on a dais, while the central place among the courtiers is occupied by an Italian musician playing the lute. The artwork emphasises the role of the artist – he does not provide a background for courtly festivities but rather occupies the most important spot.

However, as one of the reviews published in Bluszcz (Ivy) in November 1874 points out:

Music was already present at the Polish royal court before the time of queen Bona. […] Yet the title of the painting could mislead less-aware viewers into thinking that music came to Poland along with celery and parsley, allegedly brought here by Queen Bona.

The disapproval of Bona is clearly visible in this quote. Even though the scene certainly highlights her culture-making role, the dark legend prevailed, and the anonymous reviewer was essentially deriding the queen. While discussing a positive and cheerful scene, he did not forego disparaging Bona’s role.

The period of Zygmunt the Old’s reign was, as we know, considered Poland’s Golden Age. It was an inspiration for a range of painters, including Matejko, whose paintings depict the splendour of the royal court, which was meant to showcase the past greatness of the Republic and the flourishing of culture and art. These paintings, such as Dzwon Zygmunta (The Zygmunt Bell) and Hołd pruski (The Prussian Homage), also feature Bona. Although she doesn’t play a particularly large role, being just part of the royal court during important moments, it is impossible to deny that she was an important figure of that period. Even artists and authors averse to her had to take that into consideration.

Zygmunt’s upbringing

An important element of the dark legend of Bona is her bad influence on the upbringing of her only son, Zygmunt August. One should add that Bona and Zygmunt the Old also had as many as 4 daughters, one of whom, Anna Jagiellonka, was later elected the Queen of Poland.

According to the opinions frequently repeated throughout the 19th century, Bona Sforza was supposed to have been responsible for serious gaps in the education of young Zygmunt August, his lack of firmness of character (necessary for making difficult decisions), as well as his effeminacy, excessive erotic arousals and taste for luxury. All of that would later influence his governance of the country.

This is what Kraszewski wrote about the youth of Zygmunt August in Wizerunki książąt i królów polskich:

According to everyone, and despite all his talents, his upbringing may have had an adverse influence on his future. The queen-mother did not allow him outside her circle of ladies-in-waiting, her court, her rabble of servants and flatterers. Just as with his father, she wished to exert control over her son’s mind beforehand to later make him her tool. It was eventually necessary to draw the old king’s attention to this unbefitting, feminine upbringing – but it was already too late.

In 1861, Józef Simmler created a painting on this topic. The piece, lost during World War Two and now known only from photographs, was titled Wychowanie Zygmunta Augusta przy matce z kobietami (Zygmunt August’s Upbringing by His Mother Among Women). Interestingly, figures from the social circles of contemporaneous Warsaw where the ones who posed for the painting.

There are three scenes. On the right, the young prince is surrounded and entertained by young women. On the left, Bona is consulting on some matter with a courtier. In the background, we see Zygmunt the Old entering the chamber. Considering the behaviour of one of the ladies-in-waiting, who startles hearing his footsteps, he must be surprised by what he sees, whereas she is aware of the inappropriateness of what’s happening. This gesture summarises both the painter’s intention and the perception of the time of Zygmunt August’s upbringing – Bona’s feminised and Italian circle was perfectly aware that such a way of behaving toward the prince was unsuitable, but they still behaved that way by the queen’s order.

That’s what Tadeusz Jaroszyński points to in his 1915 monograph on the artist, saying:

The aged king must undoubtedly have disapproved of those ladies’ coquettish behaviour towards his son, whom he wanted to raise as a tough, strong and masculine ruler of the state. He suddenly caught them red-handed demoralising young Zygmunt August. The lady who first noticed his appearance alerted the rest in alarm. Alarm will soon contort all those beautiful faces previously animated with tempting flirtatiousness. Only Queen Bona, always glorious and majestic, will remain unfazed. Busy with some devious plotting with her Italian advisor, she makes nothing of the Polish king’s bad humour.

Both the painting and Jaroszyński’s description summarise the whole negative, 19th-century perception of Bona: intrigues, acting according to her own will, not necessarily with Polish national interests in mind, sometimes even working against them; on top of that, surrounding herself with Italian courtiers, awareness of her own power and complete disregard for the opinions of others, most of all those of Zygmunt the Old himself. Attention was also drawn to her haughtiness.

Evil & cunning mother-in-law

However, it wasn’t the upbringing of Zygmunt August that became the darkest element of Bona’s legend but his later relationship with Barbara Radziwiłłówna. The young king fell in love with Barbara and wished to marry her. The nobility was opposed to this idea, considering the marriage to be improper (a monarch shouldn’t marry his subject) and fearing the growing importance of the Radziwiłłs. Queen Bona was of a similar opinion. Eventually, Zygmunt brought about the wedding and Barbara’s coronation, but she died shortly afterward.

Although opinions on the marriage were divided up until the 19th century, with time the relationship started to be perceived mainly as a love story. A special role in forming a positive image of Barbara was played by theatrical performances, mostly those authored by Alojzy Feliński. Basically, no other Polish monarch’s relationship evoked such strong emotions – a couple rejected by their milieu finally gets married, after which the woman nonetheless dies.

In this story, Bona is cast in the role of the ‘evil mother-in-law’. First, she plots against the couple, then she makes the lives of her son and her daughter-in-law miserable, going so far as to incite an open conflict with Zygmunt.

Some have even suggested that Bona poisoned Barbara. The queen-mother appears in almost every theatrical play about the couple – always as a negative character.

Most 19th-century painters focused on the moment of Barbara’s death (such a scene was painted, for instance, by Simmler) but also on the scene of master Twardowski summoning her ghost (painted by Jan Matejko). Other paintings devoted to the couple also feature Bona, sometimes in a somewhat camouflaged way. In his work titled Zygmunt August z Barbarą na dworze radziwiłłowskim w Wilnie (Zygmunt August with Barbara at the Radziwiłł Court in Vilnius), Matejko depicts the lovers in a tight embrace. According to legend, the couple met during the king’s stay in Lithuania in the autumn of 1534, which would mean that viewers are presented with the moment they fell in love. The painting also reveals what would happen later. A falling star is an ominous sign of the misfortune awaiting Zygmunt and Barbara. We can only suspect who’s responsible for that – Bona glancing at the lovers from a portrait, like a shadow accompanying them. We might ask – what would her painting be doing in the court of the Radziwiłłs in Vilnius? If we assume that the painting is not just a portrait of the lovers but a symbolic summary of their fate, it simply had to include Bona. Matejko clearly wished to make the viewer feel that she was the one who would play a negative role in the story.

simmler smierc barbary radziwillowny mnw_6451759.jpg — ‘Śmierć Barbary Radziwiłłówny’ by Józef Simmler, 1860, oil on canvas, 205x234cm, owner: National Museum in Warsaw, photo: MNW

Return to Italy & the ‘Neapolitan sums’

Bona’s activity in Poland ended in 1556, when the widowed queen decided to leave the country and return to the southern Italian duchy she had inherited. The official reason was related to her health, but the unofficial one was the conflict with her son and her delusion that she could still play some political role on the Italian Peninsula.

Prior to her journey, to which her son and the Polish nobility were initially opposed, the queen was forced to relinquish all her estates, but she could take all her movable assets with her. As early as the moment of her departure, rumours about the cash in her possession started to circulate – they were supposed to be enormous sums of money.

The scene of her leaving Poland, a choice that in the 19th century was considered Bona’s colossal mistake, even a plundering of the Republic, was depicted by such Polish painters as Karol Miller and Bronisław Abramowicz. While these particular paintings have been lost, we can imagine those of the latter painter thanks to a review published in Tygodnik Powszechny in November 1881, which says:

Here we have the decline of this Jagiellonian age […]. Abramowicz’s Bona is busy sorting and surveying the treasures with which she is setting off to her native Italy. Some Italian confidant of hers is spreading those treasures before her, while in the background a servant is approaching with new ones. Bona herself is characterised according to tradition, which, as we know, paints an unfavourable picture of the figure of the queen. The face of this wife and mother of kings expresses pride, greed and repulsive cold-heartedness.

Clearly, it was already noticed then that the negative depictions of Bona belong to a certain tradition, which prioritised highlighting her shortcomings – the aforementioned ‘pride, greed and cold-heartedness’. This description also indicates that the painting did not depict the dramatic moment of the queen’s departure from the country (in which she had spent many years) following a conflict with her beloved only son but focused on the fact that the queen was simply leaving, taking a huge fortune along with her.

In his book, Wrede notes that, after returning to Italy, Bona didn’t play the role she had planned to play:

[and that her departure] was a disaster for her, both politically and personally. […] It turned out that, on her own, without the authority of her husband and the potential offered by her adopted country, she means very little, and, with her ‘Polish treasures’, which evoked widespread interest, she might easily fall prey to robbers.

Moreover, her duchy was threatened with being taken over by Phillip II, the king of Spain and Naples. According to Wrede, ‘not wanting to give up her property, she was forced to show her good will and declare loyalty yet again […] Bona was pressed […] to lend Phillip what for those times was an enormous sum: 430 thousand ducats’.

Bona thereby lost the majority of her wealth, as she ended up never getting the loan back. The large sum was later named the ‘Neapolitan sums’, which in colloquial language has come to mean wealth owned by someone only theoretically, as in reality the owner has no access to it. The loan, and then its uncollectibility, obviously became yet another element of the dark legend of the queen, who left Poland unnecessarily and allowed for such a treasure to get into foreign hands.

The poisoned ‘poisoner’

Zygmunt August quickly realised the difficult situation his mother found herself in, which is why it was decided that she would return to Poland after all. Her return didn’t suit the Spanish, then ruling over southern Italy. Plotting with the queen’s trusted courtiers, they brought about her poisoning in November 1557. In agony for 10 days, Bona was tricked into signing a will whereby her duchy would pass to Phillip II, while her confidantes and courtiers were to receive substantial land grants and sums of money. However, in a momentary flash of consciousness, the queen changed the will, making her son and daughters her heirs. She died on 19 November.

This story was particularly fascinating for Poles in the 19th century because regicide occurred relatively infrequently in our history, and there were essentially no attempts to poison a monarch (widely considered to be particularly heinous). Another important context is the well-known story of the attempt to falsify the will with the intention of robbing the Polish king. It’s a sort of paradox that Bona – falsely suspected of poisoning – eventually dies in this very way.

The scene of her death was painted by Matejko. Otrucie królowej Bony (The Poisoning of Queen Bona), one of the artist’s first works, painted in 1859, depicts the moment when a courtier hands the poisoned glass to the queen. According to the conventions of historical painting, it’s important to choose a scene so that the viewer can figure out what happens later. We don’t see the poisoned, dying Queen but only the moment when she takes the glass into her hand, forcing us to wonder whether she will take a sip of the poisoned beverage.

As Maria Poprzęcka notices in her article ‘Otruta trucicielka’ (The Poisoned Poisoner), the tension in Matejko’s painting is built with the use of glances and gestures which evoke uncertainty and suspicion:

Why does the man handing her the cup bow servilely while at the same time ominously piercing the sitting woman with a penetrating gaze? Why does she hesitate in reaching for the cup, as if struck by a bad premonition? What’s the meaning of the gazes of the courtiers who observe these seemingly trivial actions with such suspense?

Here the painter also used the device of placing a suggestive painting inside the painting. What surely hangs behind Bona is the likeness of her husband, as if watching the scene. Thereby the story of Bona and Zygmunt the Old gets a symbolic closure – he was the one looking at her portrait at the beginning of the story, while at the end he is the one in the portrait, ‘gazing’ at his wife’s death.

Looking at 19th-century paintings, there’s no doubt that in the eyes of their authors Bona was a negative figure. In each of them, her role is either downplayed or it’s suggested that she was the cause of misfortune – either to her loved ones or to the Polish Republic. As we’ve read, depicting her in an unfavourable light, highlighting her shortcomings and weaknesses was almost a sort of visual tradition. Even in Matejko’s work depicting her death, there is no sign of compassion for the abandoned queen betrayed by her closest entourage but only interest in the sensational event from the history of Polish monarchs.

What’s missing from the legend of Bona is her far-sightedness, her ability to perceive the threat that the Habsburgs posed, as well as her genuine love for her husband and son. For the strengthening of the Jagiellonian dynasty, to which she was basically a new addition and a stranger, she was prepared to sacrifice and even risk a lot. Her political activities weren’t seen as striving towards any particular goals but only as mischief, which was supposed to have appeared only with her arrival in Poland, as if it had been absent from Kraków prior to that. Now, years later, it turns out that popular opinion associates one of the most powerful and fascinating women in the history of the First Republic first and foremost with vegetables.

Translated from Polish by Anna Potoczny

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