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Unlimited slows. It's April

0:32

18th, 1518, and another remarkable event is about to be uncovered by...

0:42

Aria, Rebecca and Ali,

0:44

the Retrospectors. Putting

0:48

together the invite list for your

0:50

wedding is always a tricky task.

0:52

Will we upset people by not

0:54

inviting them? A decision even tougher

0:56

when the brief is, let's invite

0:58

every important dignitary in Christendom. For

1:01

today in history in 1518 at Krakow

1:03

Cathedral was the union of Sigismund I, King of

1:05

Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, and

1:08

Italian princess Bonas Forcer. Yeah,

1:10

they must have looked like a bit

1:12

of an odd couple. Her, a delicate

1:14

Milanese woman and him, a rugged bearded

1:16

Polish king, which was exacerbated by the

1:18

fact that she was only 24 at

1:20

the time. Her husband,

1:22

who was known as King Sigismund the

1:24

Old, was true to his name, 51.

1:28

So, you know, there was a bit of a difference

1:30

between them in that respect. Polish

1:32

chroniclers of the events were certainly struck

1:34

by the bride, describing Bona as

1:37

highly educated and beautiful with blonde hair and

1:39

very dark eyes. Well, people always say, isn't

1:41

it? As she made it down the aisle,

1:43

we could all tell she was highly educated.

1:46

Yeah, right. Yeah. Yeah,

1:48

she wore a dress made of blue

1:50

Turkish satin, embroidered with little golden beehives,

1:52

which some sources say were a symbol

1:54

of her industriousness. But I feel like it's

1:56

probably more likely to be some sort of family emblem. I don't know if you want

1:58

to advertise your own. virtues on

2:00

your wedding dress. The groom wore

2:02

a red cloak. The next day

2:04

was like an entire day of reception so

2:06

they had the wedding and the coronation and

2:09

then there was a little party after that

2:11

and the next day was just a whole

2:13

day of party. It ended with the consummation

2:15

which was kicked off by a ritual we've

2:17

discussed this before in which the couple were

2:19

accompanied to their chamber by a handful of

2:21

selected guests complete with bawdy humour although from

2:23

what I read they did at least leave

2:25

before the act itself got underway. And

2:28

then yeah she took up her post as the

2:31

Queen of Poland and this was a huge change

2:33

for Bonner. She was coming from you know

2:35

the being in the cradle of Renaissance humanism.

2:37

She'd had a first-class education you know unusual

2:39

for a woman at the time but actually

2:41

kind of unusual for anyone at the time

2:43

and then she came to Poland and it

2:46

has been overstated a little bit. She didn't

2:48

bring the Renaissance to Poland you know Polish

2:50

intellectuals already knew these things were happening but

2:52

she certainly did bring this whole new wave

2:54

of Italian culture and thought and cuisine. Apparently

2:56

she was incredibly sick at first when she

2:59

arrived in Poland because the diet was all

3:01

heavy meat and root vegetables essentially. She was

3:03

like where's the salad and they were like

3:05

what's the salad? Also they had

3:07

had one lunch that lasted nine hours

3:09

straight as part of their wedding that

3:11

featured 29 courses and

3:14

1,500 different dishes served so that

3:16

may have contributed to her feeling a bit unwell.

3:18

She's like oh great more venison. Well she actually

3:20

grew her own veg when she moved in to

3:26

his castle and was credited with

3:28

introducing more vegetables to the Polish

3:31

diet more broadly. In fact the

3:33

Polish word for vegetables still translates

3:35

as things from Italy which

3:38

comes back to this moment where she

3:40

brings her things from Italy to

3:43

the Yagalonian Empire and it was

3:45

an empire it was a dynasty

3:47

of royals that ruled over an

3:49

area from Kiev to Prague 12

3:51

modern day nation

3:54

states Belarus Ukraine etc all of

3:56

that was part of Sigismund's domain

3:58

and the way of which that

4:00

the Yaglonian dynasty had actually expanded

4:02

over all of that land historically

4:04

was by marrying off their daughters

4:06

to powerful European neighbours. In this

4:08

case, it was marrying off

4:11

the man to Italy, which, as

4:13

you suggested, was kind of culturally

4:15

relevant because of the Renaissance, but

4:18

actually gave the Yaglonians even more

4:20

of a foothold across Southern Europe.

4:22

Meanwhile, Bronas Forza was the second

4:24

child of the Duke of Milan.

4:26

Her mother was the Spanish Princess

4:28

Isabella of Naples, who some people

4:30

think could have been the model for

4:32

the Mona Lisa. Oh, great

4:35

little titbit. She had perfect credentials, but her

4:37

family weren't super important anymore. You know, they

4:39

had the Duchy of Bari, they were connected

4:41

to other duchies, but they weren't, you know,

4:43

at the very top, they were unlikely to

4:45

disturb the wider Holy Roman Empire. The King

4:48

of Poland, Sigismund, had been widowed, he had

4:50

two daughters, and so he still needed a

4:52

male heir, so a remarriage was advisable. She

4:54

finally laid eyes on Sigismund just a couple

4:56

of days before this joint wedding coronation. It's

4:58

interesting to think, you know, what did they

5:00

make of each other? He was

5:02

easily old enough to be her father, and

5:04

she, despite what Polish commentators said chivalrously on

5:06

her wedding day, she was famous for being

5:08

pretty plain, you know, probably neither of them

5:10

was wildly excited, which makes it all the

5:12

more remarkable that despite all of this, it

5:14

seemed like the marriage was actually

5:16

pretty okay, you know? They had six children,

5:19

which I'll say in this era is not

5:21

necessarily a sign of a happy marriage, but

5:23

the surviving accounts just that Sigismund really admired

5:25

his wife, she was very intelligent, very energetic,

5:27

and that he really respected her opinions. Yeah,

5:30

I mean, well, she had been well educated. I

5:32

know we often say this about princesses of this

5:34

era, but actually, if you look at who her

5:36

teachers were, the famous Italian

5:38

humanist Antonio De Ferraris and Cristómo

5:41

Colonna, she was interesting

5:43

to be around, I think, you know,

5:45

if you're a 51-year-old King of Poland,

5:47

and it's interesting that the

5:49

plainness that you describe, I don't think we

5:52

have a fair representation of what she looked

5:54

like, because the paintings of her fall into

5:56

one of two categories, either people who were

5:58

ass-kissing her, and A look

6:00

like the Mona Lisa or people who

6:03

despised her and made to look really

6:05

very fast and unattractive. And she was

6:07

actually wildly unpopular with quite a lot

6:09

of people. As she was

6:12

could have admired for her

6:14

ability to. Participate

6:16

in the decisions. That.

6:18

Sigismund was making, but as as ever

6:20

with powerful women besotted, be remiss that

6:22

she was actually making the decisions behind

6:24

the scenes. Yeah but having set up

6:26

an interesting with that when see married for

6:28

twenty grand to past several towns in Poland

6:31

it's most people would probably have seen as

6:33

a symbolic to see was very keen to

6:35

get stuck in of exercises us personal power

6:37

as possible as it imagine this cause that's

6:39

and didn't make. Her laugh friends and on

6:42

the predecessor preseason. So currently that she

6:44

was trying to sideline Mom from Palace.

6:46

And sizzles infancy invested in ensuring that

6:48

their only son sick and and Augustus

6:50

would inherit the crown without incident. At

6:52

this point, Polish kings, the technically elected

6:54

by their stock states say much say

6:56

that. And fifteen thirty when he was

6:58

times he was crowned while his father

7:00

was a lie if indeed almost twenty

7:02

years the voice on the staff to

7:04

secure his to this and this is

7:06

causes and say read. Say. King says

7:08

nothing to see here. just a couple of kings

7:10

or games I'll it misses the site was. Technically

7:13

possible under Polish law That as

7:15

you can imagine, wildly. Unpopular with an

7:17

ability but despite about you know she

7:19

actually protects its of the country from

7:21

one am really significant threads which was

7:23

at attack from the Ottoman army. She

7:25

had a correspondence with Haram Sultan, the

7:28

legal wife of Sullivan the Magnificent. He

7:30

was Polish hostesses you have been man

7:32

and but I'm in that letter writing.

7:34

She was able to make it very

7:36

clear that she was a real tub

7:38

thumping flag waving fan of the Ottoman

7:40

Empire. but all of this success came

7:42

a little bit on stuck at the

7:44

point at which her husband's. health started

7:47

to fail and my fifteen forty

7:49

eight died at the age of

7:51

eighty two to been a satisfaction

7:53

her twenty eight year old son

7:55

also the king succeeded to the

7:57

throne peacefully but soon sadly her

8:00

relationship with her son Soward, a

8:02

fact that became obvious when his new

8:04

wife the Polish-born Barbara Radzeweld died in

8:06

1551. It was known

8:09

that Bonner had opposed

8:11

Sigismund Augustus' marriage to

8:13

her, but public opinion accused Bonner of having

8:15

poisoned the young queen, who actually died of

8:18

cancer, so it wasn't her fault whatsoever. But

8:20

despite the lack of evidence, she was pretty

8:22

much driven out of town. I mean, look

8:24

at it now, and it's just outright

8:27

misogyny, really. She was overly

8:30

emotional. She was

8:33

outspoken, hot-tempered. Look,

8:36

I admire her spunkiness, but she's probably a witch.

8:38

That was basically the vibe. There's something really

8:40

poignant about it. You know, 1556, she's 61. She goes back to Bari

8:45

after almost 40 years. It's

8:47

funny, though, isn't it? In Italy, no one took

8:49

her journey in reverse in quite the same celebratory

8:51

way. They went like, what are these dumplings? We

8:53

need a new word for this. Her

8:58

enormous wealth made her a coveted ally, and

9:00

this was kind of her final undoing. She

9:03

agreed to loan Habsburg King Philip II Spain

9:05

430,000 ducats, which some sources give as equivalent

9:10

to 50 million euros today. The

9:12

problem was that Philip II seems to have

9:14

had no intention to pay this back. And

9:17

quite soon after, she fell ill with a

9:19

mysterious stomach ache, which grew worse and worse

9:21

over the next 10 days until her death

9:23

in the early hours of the 19th of

9:25

November, 1557. Several

9:28

members of her household staff sickened and died

9:30

in the same period, which makes poisoning seem

9:32

like the most likely cause. And the most

9:34

likely suspect is a guy called

9:37

Jan Lorenzo Papacoda, who was one of her

9:39

most trusted advisors. But the theory goes that

9:41

he had been enlisted on behalf of the

9:43

Habsburgs. You know, they not only owed her

9:45

a huge amount of money, they also openly

9:47

wanted her land. They wanted the Duchy of

9:49

Bari. And a will she made out a

9:51

few days before her death under Papacoda's supervision

9:53

left the Duchy of Bari and Rosano, which

9:55

she also owned, to King Philip of

9:58

Spain. Dramatically, she then had once final

10:00

rally before her death, during which she made out a

10:02

new will, leaving them to her son.

10:05

Meanwhile, Bona Sforza is still

10:07

known by many Poles today

10:09

because of the really shifting

10:11

representation of her in popular

10:13

culture over the centuries. First,

10:16

there was this character assassination in

10:18

her lifetime from the Polish and

10:20

Lithuanian oligarchs, but over the centuries

10:23

that narrative began to shift and

10:25

she was celebrated as a great

10:27

leader who loved and advanced her

10:30

adopted countries. And then

10:32

this other narrative emerged in the 19th

10:34

century, romanticising a Sforza black legend which

10:36

is really well known and influential in Poland

10:38

to this day, that has kind of both

10:40

characteristics simultaneously, one that she was very powerful

10:42

but also that she was a bit of

10:44

a meddlesome hag. It's

10:47

kind of like, well, maybe she was a witch,

10:50

but witches are kind of cool, no? Yeah,

10:54

exactly. She

10:57

hid on the sidelines until the starting gun and then

11:00

kind of snuck into the pack. She's wearing a hoodie.

11:03

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