Queen Bona Sforza as Part of the Blended Family Not Obvious Relationships at the Royal Court in Cracow

Abstract

Historiography has tried to break, not without difficulties and, so far, with rather limited success, the centuries-old ”black legend” concerning Bona Sforza (1494–1557), Queen of Poland from 1518. One of the most long-lasting and distinct components of the Queen’s image is the assessment that she was a bad mother, overprotective and toxic toward her elder children, and distant and indifferent toward her younger daughters, as well as a bad mother-in-law. Bona was a significant part of what we would nowadays refer to as a blended family. After her marriage to Sigismund the Old, Bona Sforza became a mother to his daughters from his first marriage. She gave birth to five children of her own between 1519 and 1526. The King’s daughter by his lifelong, pre-marriage concubine, Katarzyna Telniczanka, was brought up at the royal court in Cracow; so was the daughter of Katarzyna and her husband. The son of the King and Katarzyna, Jan, Bishop of Vilnius, had a close relationship with the royal family, and Queen Bona even established friendly relations with her husband’s illegitimate son. Bona’s means of functioning within the blended family, so typical of her, along with other elements of the extensive model of queenship established by her in Poland for the first time, were later continued by her daughters. The example of Bona’s queenship and motherhood seems to indicate that the skill of functioning within a blended royal family could be a cultural and dynastic investment, as well as an asset that provided benefits.