page_title: Sigismund I the Old
section_title: Early life and coronation
hierarchical_section_title: Sigismund I the Old / Early life and coronation
context_page_description: Sigismund I the Old was King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1506 until his death in 1548. Sigismund I was a member of the Jagiellonian dynasty, the son of Casimir IV and younger brother of kings John I Albert and Alexander I Jagiellon. He was nicknamed "the Old" in later historiography to distinguish him from his son and successor, Sigismund II Augustus.
  Sigismund was born in the town of Kozienice in 1467 as the fifth son of Casimir IV and his wife Elizabeth of Austria. He was one of thirteen children and was not expected to assume the throne after his father. Sigismund's eldest brother and rightful heir Vladislaus II instead became the King of Bohemia, Hungary and Croatia as the successor to George of Poděbrady in Bohemia and then to Matthias Corvinus in Hungary, thus temporarily uniting these kingdoms. When Casimir died, the Polish-Lithuanian realm was divided between the remaining two older sons, with John Albert being crowned King of Poland, and Alexander as Grand Duke of Lithuania. Alexander inherited Poland following John Albert's sudden death in 1501. Hence, Sigismund's reign only began when he succeeded Alexander to both titles in 1506 at the age of 39.
context_section_description: The son of King Casimir IV Jagiellon and Elisabeth 
  Habsburg of Austria, Sigismund followed his brothers John Albert and Alexander to the Polish throne. Their eldest brother Vladislaus became king of Bohemia, Hungary, and Croatia. Sigismund was christened as the namesake of his Habsburg maternal great-grandfather, Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund.
  After his father's death, Sigismund was the only son who did not hold any land titles. In the years 1495–1496, he addressed his older brother, the Lithuanian Grand Duke Alexander, and demanded the separation of a domain from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, but was refused. Queen Dowager Elisabeth Habsburg also tried without success to ensure the succession of her son to the throne of Austria. And the disastrous and unsuccessful invasion of Moldavia led by his older brother King John I Albert dispelled the plans for placing Sigismund on the Moldavian throne. Eventually Sigismund came under the care of his eldest brother Vladislaus II, King of Bohemia and Hungary, from whom he received the duchies of Głogów (1499) and Opava (1501), and in 1504 became governor of Silesia and Lower Lusatia.
  After the death of King Alexander I, Sigismund arrived in Vilnius, where he was elected by the Lithuanian Ducal Council on 13 September 1506 as Grand Duke of Lithuania, contrary to the Union of Mielnik (1501), which proposed a joint Polish-Lithuanian election of a monarch. On 8 December 1506, during the session of the Polish Senate in Piotrków, Sigismund was elected King of Poland. He arrived in Kraków on 20 January 1507 and was crowned four days later in Wawel Cathedral by Primate Andrzej Boryszewski.
caption: Sigismund (far right) with Emperor Maximilian I and brother Vladislaus II in Vienna, 1515. Woodcut by Albrecht Dürer
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