Bona Sforza

Bona Sforza was born on 2 February 1494 into the House of Sforza, which had held Milan since 1450. She became Queen of Poland and Grand Duchess of Lithuania in 1518 as the second wife of Sigismund the Old, and held the Duchy of Bari and Rossano in her own right. Smart, energetic, and ambitious, she plunged into the political and cultural life of the Polish-Lithuanian union. During the Chicken War she pushed through economic and agricultural reforms to increase state revenue, including the sweeping Wallach Reform in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. In foreign policy she allied with the Ottoman Empire and at times opposed the Habsburgs. Her descendants became beneficiaries of the Neapolitan sums, a loan to Philip II of Spain that was never fully repaid. She died on 19 November 1557.