page_title: Bona Sforza
section_title: Neapolitan sums
hierarchical_section_title: Bona Sforza / Queen Mother / Neapolitan sums
caption_attribution_description: Polski: Otrucie królowej Bony. Беларуская: Атручэньне каралевы Боны. Ян Матэйка English: Poisoning of Queen Bona Italiano: L'avvelenamento della regina Bona Sforza Русский: Отравление королевы Боны. Ян Матейко
context_page_description: Bona Sforza d’Aragona was Queen of Poland and Grand Duchess of Lithuania as the second wife of Sigismund I the Old, and Duchess of Bari and Rossano by her own right. She was a surviving member of the powerful House of Sforza, which ruled the Duchy of Milan since 1447.
  Smart, energetic and ambitious, Bona became heavily involved in the political and cultural life of Poland–Lithuania. To increase state revenue during the Chicken Rebellion, she implemented various economic and agricultural reforms, including the far-reaching Wallach Reform in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. In foreign policy, she was allied with the Ottoman Empire and sometimes opposed the Habsburgs. Her descendants became beneficiaries of the Neapolitan sums, a loan she gave to Phillip II of Spain which was never completely paid.
context_section_description: In February 1556, Bona departed Poland to her native Italy with treasures she had accumulated over 38 years. In May, she arrived to Bari and formally inherited her mother's title as Duchess. She was soon visited by envoys of King Philip II of Spain, who tried to convince her to give up the duchies of Bari and Rossano in favor of the Habsburg Spain, though she refused. However, Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, 3rd Duke of Alba, who at the time was the Viceroy of Naples, feared a French attack and was raising money for troops. Perhaps having ambitions of becoming a Viceroy of Naples herself, Bona agreed to lend the Duke of Alba a huge sum of 430,000 ducats at 10% annual interest. The loan was guaranteed by custom duties collected in Foggia and the agreements were signed on both 23 September and 5 December 1556.
  However, the Habsburgs were determined to obtain Bari and didn't intent on paying the loan. On 8 November, the Polish Queen Mother became ill with stomach ache. On 17 November, when she was losing her consciousness, her trusted courtier Gian Lorenzo Pappacoda brought notary Marco Vincenzo de Baldis who wrote her last will. This will left Bari, Rossano, Ostuni, and Grottaglie to Philip II of Spain and large sums to Pappacoda's family. Her daughters would receive a one-time payment of 50,000 ducats, except Isabella Jagiellon, who was to receive 10,000 ducats annually. Her only son, King Sigismund II Augustus, was named as the main beneficiary but at the end he would inherit only cash, jewelry, and other personal property. The next day, however, Bona felt better and dictated a new last will to Scipio Catapani, leaving Bari and other property to Sigismund Augustus. 
  Bona Sforza died in the early morning of 19 November 1557, at the age of 63. Several of her servants (cook, page, majordomo, and scribe) mysteriously died as well. She was buried in St. Nicholas' Basilica in Bari, where her daughter, Queen Anna, had a tomb made in the current Renaissance style for her remains.
caption: Poisoning of Queen Bona painted by  Jan Matejko.
exif: {"Image Tag 0x000B": "Windows Photo Editor 10.0.10011.16384", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image Software": "Windows Photo Editor 10.0.10011.16384", "Image DateTime": "2016:12:24 18:07:42", "Image ExifOffset": "2242", "Image Padding": "[]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "96", "Thumbnail YResolution": "96", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "4516", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "8686", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2016:12:24 18:06:31", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2016:12:24 18:06:31", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "96", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "96", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF Padding": "[]"}