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Portraits of Hedwig Jagiellon and Anna Jagellonica by Lucas Cranach the Elder
Despite numerous suitors for her hand, the Crown Princess Hedwig Jagiellon remained unmarried at the age of 17. In 1529, Krzysztof Szydłowiecki and Jan Tarnowski proposed to Damião de Góis, envoy of John III, king of Portugal, to marry Hedwig to king's brother Infante Louis of Portugal, Duke of Beja. At the same time negotiations were carried to marry her to Louis X, Duke of Bavaria and Habsburgs, on April 18, 1531 proposed Frederick, brother of Louis V, Count Palatine of the Rhine.
To attract suitable marriage proposal, Hedwig's father continued to amass a considerable dowry for her. He commissioned the most luxurious items in Poland and abroad, like the casket, created by Jacob Baur and Peter Flötner in Nuremberg in 1533, adorned with jewels from Jagiellon collection (Hermitage Museum). He also charged his banker Seweryn Boner with the acquisition in Venice of some lengths of silk, several hundred ells of satin, five cloth of gold bales, thirty bales of fine Swabian and Flemish linen as well as pearls for 1,000 florins. In her letter of 19 April 1535 the Princess asked her father for a larger amount of cloth of gold. The marriage was a political contract, and Princess' role was to seal the alliance between countries by producing offspring. Thanks to this she could also have some power in her new country and Hedwig's stepmother, Bona Sforza, knew perfectly about it. It was she who probably took care of providing some erotic items in Hedwig's dowry. In 1534 it was finally decided, in secret from Bona, who was unfavorable to the Hohenzollerns, that Hedwig will marry Joachim II Hector, Elector of Brandenburg and the marriage contract was signed on 21 March 1535. Sigismund commissioned some portraits of Hedwig from court painter Antonius (most probably Antoni of Wrocław), which were sent to Joachim. The groom arrived to Kraków with a retinue of 1000 courtiers and 856 horses and Sigismund's nephew Albert, Duke of Prussia with his wife Dorothea of Denmark and 400 people. Apart from 32,000 red zlotys in cash Hedwig also received from her father robes, silverware, "other indispensable utensils", money for personal use, as well as a rich bed with canopy (canopia alias namiothy), which she took with her to Berlin (compare "Dzieje wnętrz wawelskich" by Tadeusz Mańkowski, p. 23). The manuscript of Seweryn Boner's expenses from 1535, containing the list of Princess Hedwig's trousseau, was unfortunately burned during the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 (after "Królewna Jadwiga i jej książeczka do spowiedzi" by Urszula Borkowska, p. 88). A large painting by Lucas Cranach the Elder from about 1530 in the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin (oil on panel, 166.9 x 61.4 cm, inv. 594), which was transferred from the Royal Prussian Castles in 1829/1830, shows Hedwig as Venus and Cupid. The sitter's resemblance to the princess from her earlier portraits by Cranach, which I have identified, is undeniable - paintings in Veste Coburg (M.163) and Prague Castle (HS 242). This erotic painting was undeniably part of her dowry. A portrait from the same collection, which depicts Hedwig as Judith with the Head of Holofernes and dated 1531, was acquired from Suermondt collection in Aachen (oil on panel, 72 x 56 cm, inv. 636A). As the portraits of her stepmother, it most probably also has a political meaning, or the Princess just wanted to be depicted as her beautiful stepmother. Aachen was an Imperial City, where coronations of emperors were held till 1562 and in 1815, control of the town was passed to the Kingdom of Prussia. Already in 1523 Joachim I Nestor, Elector of Brandenburg wanted Hedwig's hand for one of his sons. It is possible that her portrait as Judith was sent to the Hohenzollerns or to the Habsburgs already in 1531 to underline that the Jagiellons would not permit them to take their crown. A similar painting to that of Hedwig's, depicting Venus with Cupid stealing honey by Lucas Cranach the Elder and dated 1531, is in the Borghese Gallery in Rome (oil on panel, 169 x 67 cm, inv. 326). It was aquired in 1611 and bears the same inscription as effigy of Katarzyna Telniczanka as Venus. The woman has features of Hedwig's cousin Anna Jagellonica (1503-1547), Queen of Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary. Anna was a daughter of Vladislaus II, King of Bohemia, Hungary and Croatia, elder brother of Sigismund I, and his third wife, Anne of Foix-Candale. On 26 May 1521 she married Archduke Ferdinand of Austria, grandson of Emperor Maximilan I, who was elevated to the title King of the Romans by his brother Emperor Charles V in 1531. On her golden hairnet embroidered with pearls there is a monogram W.A.F.I. or W.A.F. which can be interpreted as Wladislaus et Anna (parents), Ferdinandus I (husband), Wladislaus et Anna Filia (daughter of Vladislaus and Anne) or Wladislaus et Anna de Fuxio (Vladislaus and Anne of Foix). Similar monogram of her parents WA is visible on a golden pendant at her hat in her portrait at the age of 16 by Hans Maler, created in 1520 (private collection). A portrait of Anna's husband, painted by Cranach in 1548, so after her death, is in Güstrow Palace (G 2486). The register of paintings of Boguslaus Radziwill (1620-1669) from 1657 (AGAD 1/354/0/26/84), which included several paintings by Cranach, lists: "Image of the Three Cupids", "Image of the Three Goddesses", "A picture of the Emperor's face on one side and Adam and Eve on the other by Lucas Cranach", "Judith" and "Lucas Cranach's art with Venus and Cupid". In his "Thoughts on painting" (Considerazioni sulla pittura), written between 1617 and 1621 in Rome, Italian physician and art collector Giulio Mancini (1559-1630), claimed that "lascivious paintings in similar places where a man stays with his wife are appropriate, because such a view is very beneficial for excitement and for making beautiful, healthy and vigorous sons" (pitture lascive in simil luoghi dove si trattenga con sua consorte sono a proposito, perché simil veduta giova assai all’eccitamento et al far figli belli, sani e gagliardi) (partially after "Ksiądz Stanisław Orzechowski i swawolne dziewczęta" by Marcin Fabiański, p. 60). 
Portrait of Crown Princess Hedwig Jagiellon (1513-1573) as Venus and Cupid by Lucas Cranach the Elder, ca. 1530, Gemäldegalerie in Berlin.
Portrait of Crown Princess Hedwig Jagiellon (1513-1573) as Judith with the Head of Holofernes by Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1531, Gemäldegalerie in Berlin.
Portrait of Queen Anna Jagellonica (1503-1547) as Venus with Cupid stealing honey by Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1531, Borghese Gallery in Rome.
Portraits of Zofia Szydłowiecka by Lucas Cranach the Elder and workshop
On April 4, 1528, John Zapolya, elected King of Hungary, came to Tarnów in the company of Grand Crown Hetman and voivode of Ruthenia, Jan Amor Tarnowski (1488-1561). As a result of the double election and the lost battle with Archduke Ferdinand I near Tokaj, Zapolya sought a safe haven - first in Transylvania and then in Poland.
For the duration of his stay, Hetman Tarnowski made the entire castle and the city of Tarnów at his disposal, for which, he was severely reprimanded by Ferdinand I. To this, in a letter dated in Sandomierz on 25 July 1528, he was to reply that the holy laws of friendship did not allow him to refuse hospitality. From April to September 1528, the city became, under the patronage of Queen Bona, the seat of the Hungarian king and the center of activities aimed at restoring his throne. The Queen did it secretly so as not to reveal her role to the Habsburg agents. Zapolya sent ambassadors to Bavaria, King Francis I of France, the Pope and a number of other states. Finally he approached the Ottoman Porte and returned to Hungary on October 2, 1528. He expressed his gratitude for the hospitality of the people of Tarnów by granting a trade privilege and founding a beautiful altar for the collegiate church, not preserved. To the Hetman he offered a mace and a golden shield, estimated at 40,000 Hungarian red zlotys (after Andrzej Niedojadło's "Goście zamku tarnowskiego" and Przemysław Mazur's "Król Jan Zápolya w Tarnowie - Tarnów 'stolicą' Węgier"). On May 8, 1530 in the royal Wawel Cathedral, in the presence of the king and queen, the bishop of Kraków, Piotr Tomicki, celebrated the wedding of sixteen-year-old Zofia Szydłowiecka and forty-two-year-old (which was then considered an advanced age) Hetman Jan Amor Tarnowski. Zofia, born in about 1514, was the eldest daughter of Krzysztof Szydłowiecki (1467-1532), Great Chancellor of the Crown and Zofia Targowicka (ca. 1490-1556) of Tarnawa coat of arms. They had 9 children, but only three daughters reached adulthood. Szydłowiecki was a political opponent of Queen Bona and supporter of the Habsburgs - in 1527 he reported to his friend Albert of Prussia, that the Queen extended her influence to almost all spheres of political life. In addition to a luxurious lifestyle, for which he earned the name of the Polish Lucullus among his contemporaries, he was a patron of art and science and collected illuminated codices. Erasmus of Rotterdam dedicated his work "Lingua" to him, published in Basel in 1525. In 1530 the Crown Chancellor thanked to Jan Dantyszek for the portrait of Hernán Cortés that he sent to him, adding that the man's deeds are known to him ex libro notationum received as a gift from Ferdinand of Austria. After his death in 1532, Jan Amor Tarnowski, become the guardian of his younger daughters. In 1519, when his second daughter Krystyna Katarzyna, future duchess of Ziębice-Oleśnica was born, Krzysztof Szydłowiecki commissioned a votive painting, most likely, for the Collegiate Church of St. Martin in Opatów, where he also offered a portrait of Beatrice of Naples as Madonna and Child by Timoteo Viti or Lucas Cranach the Elder. This painting, attributed to Master Georgius, a painter apparently of Bohemian origin, was later in the collection of count Zdzisław Tarnowski in Kraków, now in the National Museum in Kraków (tempera and gold on wood, 60.5 x 50 cm, MNK I-986). It shows the Virgin and Child with Saint Anne and the founder kneeling and looking at the Virgin. His effigy, armour and attire are very similar to these visible in the miniature from the Liber geneseos illustris familiae Schidloviciae (The genealogical book of the Szydłowieckis) in the Kórnik Library, created by Stanisław Samostrzelnik in 1532. The effigy of Saint Anne, mother of the Virgin Mary, the protector of pregnant women and patron saint of families and children, on the right is very similar to the portrait of Zofia Szydłowiecka née Goździkowska of Łabędź (Swan) coat of arms, mother of Krzysztof in the same Liber geneseos illustris familiae Schidloviciae. Also face features of Saint Anne are very similar to effigies of sons of Zofia Goździkowska - from the bronze tomb monument of Krzysztof Szydłowiecki in the Collegiate Church in Opatów, attributed to Bernardino Zanobi de Gianotis and marble tombstone of Mikołaj Stanisław Szydłowiecki (1480-1532) in Szydłowiec, created by Bartolommeo Berrecci or workshop, both from about 1532. Consequently the woman depicted as the Virgin must be Zofia Targowicka, wife of Krzysztof Szydłowiecki. A similar woman to the effigy of the Virgin from Szydłowiecki's votive painting was depicted as Madonna and as Venus in two small paintings, both by Lucas Cranach, his son or workshop. The image of Venus, today in private collection (wood, 42 x 27 cm), had been in the collection of Munich art dealer A.S. Drey, before being acquired by the Mogmar Art Foundation in New York in 1936. It is similar to effigies of Beata Kościelecka and Margaret of Brandenburg (1511-1577), Duchess of Pomerania as Venus, therefore should be dated to around 1530, when Zofia Szydłowiecka, the eldest daughter of Krzysztof was about to get married. The Madonna with similar face was purchased from Monsignor J. Shine on April 1954 by the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin (transferred to linen, attached to plywood, 72.3 x 49.5 cm, NGI.1278). A miniature tondo from the collection of Jean-Baptiste Bourguignon de Fabregoules (1746-1836), offered to the Musée Granet in Aix-en-Provence by his sons in 1860 (wood, 14 cm, inv. 343), shows her in a dress and pose similar to that of Queen Bona in a miniature sold at Hôtel Drouot in Paris on October 30, 1942. This miniature was stolen in 1963, while according to the 1900 guide her hat and dress were red ("Musée d'Aix, Bouches-du-Rhône: le musée Granet" by Henri Pontier, p. 109), a typical colour of the Polish nobility. The same woman was also depicted as Judith with the head of Holofernes in a painting by workshop Lucas Cranach the Elder, similar to the portrait of Queen Bona in Vienna and in Stuttgart. This painting was acquired by William Delafield in 1857 and was sold in London in 1870 (wood, 39.7 x 26.7 cm). Her face is very similar to the portrait of Krzysztof Szydłowiecki in the Liber geneseos illustris familiae Schidloviciae. If the portrait as Judith was a political statement of support of the Queen's policies and not a whim of a young girl willing to emulate the Queen, this will add a further explanation to a series of caricature portraits of this girl in the arms of an ugly, old man. One of the best of these caricature portraits is in the Museum Kunstpalast in Düsseldorf (wood, 38.8 x 25.7, M 2248). Before 1860 it was in the collection of Count August von Spee (1813-1882) from an old Rhenish noble family from the Archdiocese of Cologne, while the Archbishop of Cologne was one of the Electors of the Holy Roman Empire. On 5 January 1531 Ferdinand of Austria had been elected the King of the Romans and so the legitimate successor of the reigning Emperor, Charles V, who was crowned as Holy Roman Emperor in 1530. A workshop copy of this painting from the collection of Baron Samuel von Brukenthal (1721-1803), a personal advisor of Empress Maria Theresa, is in the Brukenthal National Museum in Sibiu, Transylvania (wood, 37.4 x 27.6 cm, inv. 218). Brukenthal came from Transylvanian Saxon lesser nobility, while the Saxons were partisans of Ferdinand of Austria and supported the House of Habsburg against John Zapolya. Several other copies of this composition exist. The girl was also depicted in another version of the scene, kissing the old man, in the National Gallery in Prague (wood, 38.1 x 25.1 cm, O 455). It was bequeathed by Dr. Jan Kanka in 1866 and its earlier history is unknown. This work of fairly high standard, may have been produced by the master himself. On 24 October 1526 the Bohemian Diet elected Ferdinand King of Bohemia under conditions of confirming traditional privileges of the estates and also moving the Habsburg court to Prague. We can assume with high probability that the paintings were commissioned by partisans of Ferdinand I or even by himself, dissatisfied that the eldest daughter of Szydłowiecki joined the camp of his opponent, "a great enemy of the king of Rome" Queen Bona (as later reported an anonymous Habsburg agent at the Polish court in an encrypted message). It is possible that the painting "A woman courted by the old man", mentioned in the register of paintings of Boguslaus Radziwill (1620-1669) from 1657 (AGAD 1/354/0/26/84), where there were several paintings by Cranach, was another version or a copy of one of these two compositions. She was also depicted in another painting by workshop of Lucas Cranach the Elder from the early 1530s, in guise of Lucretia, legendary heroine of ancient Rome, just before she commits suicide, now in the Historical Museum in Regensburg (wood, 62 x 41 cm, LG 14). The painting was purchased from the Swiss art market by Hermann Göring in 1942. Seized by the Allies after the World War II, it was acquired by the Federal Republic of Germany. Her splendid gown, open at the front and revealing her naked chest, is similar to those visible in the miniatures of Barbara Tarnowska née Szydłowiecka and Anna Szydłowiecka née Tęczyńska from the mentioned Liber geneseos. The castle behind on a fantastic rock is undoubtedly one of the Tarnowski mansions in mythical disguise, possibly the favorite residence of Jan Amor Tarnowski in Wiewiórka near Dębica, who died there in 1561. This cannot be confirmed with certainty because the opulent residence in Wiewiórka was almost completely destroyed and no confirmed view of the castle preserved. This defensive manor on a hill surrounded by a moat, had at least one tower and a drawbridge, as well as barrel vaulted cellars, which preserved. Many important political and cultural figures of 16th-century Poland visited the court in Wiewiórka, and in 1556 a meeting of the hetman's supporters was held there, during which postulates of religious reforms for the next Sejm were drafted, including, among others, the marriage of priests. Very little is known about Tarnowski's artistic patronage in the field of painting, as well as his painted effigies created during his lifetime. He was undoubtedly represented in the painting depicting the Battle of Orsha (1514), now in the National Museum in Warsaw (inv. MP 2475), in which he participated. According to Zdzisław Żygulski (1921-2015), he was probably depicted among the officers of the heavy armoured cavalry reaching dry land - the knight on the left, wearing a purple toque over a red bonnet (after "The Battle of Orsha: An Explication of the Arms ...", p. 120). This painting is currently attributed to Hans Krell and shows strong influences from Cranach's style. It is considered to have been painted at least ten years after the event, so the painter must have based the effigy of Tarnowski on his earlier portraits, probably also created by Cranach, his workshop or a follower. 
Virgin and Child with Saint Anne with portraits of Krzysztof Szydłowiecki, his wife Zofia Targowicka and mother Zofia Goździkowska by Master Georgius, 1519, National Museum in Kraków.
Portrait of Zofia Szydłowiecka (1514-1551) as Venus and Cupid by Lucas Cranach the Elder, Lucas Cranach the Younger or workshop, ca. 1530, Private collection.
Portrait of Zofia Szydłowiecka (1514-1551) as Madonna and Child with Infant John the Baptist and angels by Lucas Cranach the Elder, Lucas Cranach the Younger or workshop, ca. 1530 or after, National Gallery of Ireland.
Miniature portrait of Zofia Szydłowiecka (1514-1551) by workshop of Lucas Cranach the Elder, ca. 1530, Musée Granet in Aix-en-Provence, stolen. Virtual reconstruction, © Marcin Latka
Portrait of Zofia Szydłowiecka (1514-1551) as Judith with the head of Holofernes by workshop Lucas Cranach the Elder, ca. 1530, Private collection.
Ill-Matched Couple, caricature of Zofia Szydłowiecka (1514-1551) and her husband by Lucas Cranach the Elder and workshop, ca. 1530, Museum Kunstpalast in Düsseldorf.
Ill-Matched Couple, caricature of Zofia Szydłowiecka (1514-1551) and her husband by workshop of Lucas Cranach the Elder, ca. 1530, Brukenthal National Museum in Sibiu.
Ill-Matched Couple, caricature of Zofia Szydłowiecka (1514-1551) and her husband by Lucas Cranach the Elder and workshop, ca. 1530, National Gallery in Prague.
Portrait of Zofia Szydłowiecka (1514-1551) as Lucretia by workshop of Lucas Cranach the Elder, ca. 1532, Historical Museum in Regensburg.
Jan Amor Tarnowski (1488-1561) among the officers of the heavy armoured cavalry reaching dry land, fragment of the Battle of Orsha (1514), by workshop or follower of Lucas Cranach the Elder (Hans Krell?), ca. 1525-1535, National Museum in Warsaw.
Portrait of Krzysztof Szydłowiecki, Great Chancellor of the Crown by Titian
"I am a great admirer of beautiful and artistic paintings" (Ego multum delector in pulcra et artificiosa pictura), wrote Krzysztof Szydłowiecki (1467-1532), Vice-Chancellor of the Crown, in a letter of May 17, 1512 from Toruń to Fabian Luzjański, Bishop of Warmia. He asked for help in obtaining from Flanders via Gdańsk the painting of the Madonna Monstra te esse Matrem ("Show thyself a mother").
From 1496 Szydłowiecki was a courtier of Prince Sigismund and from 1505 he was a marshal of the prince's court. From the moment of the coronation of Sigismund I, Krzysztof occupied various important positions and he become the Great Chancellor of the Crown in 1515. He managed Polish foreign policy during the reign of Sigismund I. In 1515, together with Bishop Piotr Tomicki, he developed an agreement with the Habsburgs, which was signed during the Congress of Vienna and Emperor Maximilian I, as a sign of respect and gratitude, granted Krzysztof the title of baron of the Holy Roman Empire (he rejected the princely title offered to him by the emperor). Thanks to numerous grants, as well as bribes (from Emperor Maximilian alone, he accepted 80,000 ducats for supporting Austria at the congress of monarchs in Vienna, and also took money from the monarch of Hungary, John Zapolya, and Francis I of France; the city of Gdańsk also paid for the protection), he made a huge fortune. The chancellor died on December 30 , 1532 in Kraków, and was buried in the collegiate church in Opatów. His tombstone, decorated with a bronze bas-relief, was made in the workshop of Bartolommeo Berrecci and Giovanni Cini in Kraków. He ordered the tombstone for himself during his lifetime and after his death, in about 1536, on the initiative of his son-in-law Jan Amor Tarnowski (1488-1561), it was enlarged by adding a bas-relief depicting relatives and friends moved by the news of the chancellor's death, on the pedestal of the monument (so-called Opatów Lamentation). Szydłowiecki imitated the luxurious lifestyle of Prince Sigismund, who in 1501 ordered several illuminated prayer books (or one book adorned by several illuminators), and the following year bought paintings with views of different buildings from Italian merchant (Ilalo qui picturas edificiorum dno principi dedit 1/2 fl.). Despite being a political opponent of Queen Bona, he followed the example of the queen, who at her court employed Italian painters and imported paintings from Italy for her vast collection (after "Bona Sforza" by Maria Bogucka, p. 105). His splendid castle on the island in Ćmielów, rebuilt in renaissance style between 1519-1531, was destroyed in 1657 by Swedish and Transylvanian forces, which also massacred many noble families who had taken refuge there (after "Encyklopedia powszechna", Volume 5, p. 755). This veritable Apocalypse, known as the Deluge (1655-1660), as well as other invasions and wars, left very little trace of the chancellor's patronage. Before 1509, Krzysztof's brother Jakub Szydłowiecki, Grand Treasurer of the Crown, brought from Flanders a "masterly made" painting of the Madonna (after "Złoty widnokrąg" by Michał Walicki, p. 108). In 1515 the chancellor offered to the Collegiate Church in Opatów a painting of Madonna and Child (disguised portrait of Beatrice of Naples, Queen of Hungary and Bohemia) by Timoteo Viti or Lucas Cranach the Elder, and in 1519 Master Georgius created a portrait of Krzysztof as a donor (National Museum in Kraków, MNK I-986). More than a decade later, in 1530, the chancellor received from Jan Dantyszek the portrait of Hernán Cortés, most likely by Titian, and a portrait of the chancellor was mentioned in the vault of the Nesvizh Castle in the 17th century. Most likely in Venice, in 1515 or after, Krzysztof acquired Legenda aurea sive Flores sanctorum by Jacobus de Voragine for his library (a printed bookplate with his coat of arms is on the back of the front cover), today in the National Library of Poland (Rps BOZ 11). It was created in the 1480s for Francesco Vendramini from Venice and illuminated by miniaturists active in Padua and Venice. In 1511, one of Poland's finest Renaissance painters and miniaturists, Stanisław Samostrzelnik, who also worked for the royal court, became his court painter (pictori nostro) and chaplain, and in this capacity he accompanied Szydłowiecki on his travels. Stanisław probably stayed with his patron in 1514 in Buda, where he became familiar with the Italian Renaissance. He decorated documents issued by the chancellor, such as the privilege of Opatów of August 26, 1519, with the portrait of the chancellor as a kneeling donor, wearing a fine gold-engraved armor and a crimson tunic. Shortly before the chancellor's death, he began working on a series of miniature portraits of members of the Szydłowiecki family, known as Liber geneseos illustris familiae Schidloviciae (1531-1532, Kórnik Library), including the effigy of the chancellor in another beautiful armour decorated with gold and crimson tunic. Earlier, in 1524, Samostrzelnik illuminated the Prayer Book of Szydłowiecki, adorned with chancellor's coat of arms in many miniatures. It is dated (Anno Do. MDXXIIII) and has a painted bookplate. The manuscript was disassembled at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. Probably a Milanese antiquarian cut out miniatures from it, some of which, in the number of ten, were acquired by Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan (F 277 inf. no 1-10), while the manuscript, divided into two parts and acquired by the City of Milan from the library of the princes of Trivulzio, is kept in the Archivio Storico Civico (Cod. no 459, Cod. no 460). One miniature, the Flight into Egypt, is largely inspired by a painting by Hans Suess von Kulmbach, created in 1511 for the Skałka Monastery in Kraków. The others could derive from paintings in the Szydłowiecki collection or the royal collection - the Massacre of the Innocents, reminiscent of Flemish paintings and the Madonna and Child, in a manner that brings to mind the Italian paintings. The prayer book is one of the two important polonica of the Jagiellonian period in Milan. The other is also in Ambrosiana, in a part dedicated to art collection - Pinacoteca. It is a sapphire intaglio with bust of Queen Bona Sforza, attributed to Giovanni Jacopo Caraglio (inventory number 284). If not for the Latin inscription on her dress (BONA SPHOR • REG • POLO •), it would be considered to represent an Italian princess, which is generally correct. The exact provenance of these two works of art is unknown, so we cannot rule out the possibility that they were diplomatic gifts to Francesco II Sforza (1495-1535), the last member of the Sforza family to rule Milan, and Bona's relative. The ruling houses of Europe exchanged such gifts and effigies at that time, including the portraits of important notables. In the same Ambrosiana in Milan there is also a portrait of an old man in armour by Titian (oil on canvas, 65 x 58 cm, inventory number 284). It is dated around 1530, the time when Chancellor Szydłowiecki received a portrait of the Spanish conquistador, most likely by Titian. The work arrives in Ambrosiana together with the nucleus donated in 1618 by Cardinal Federico Borromeo who in the Musaeum reports that "Titian would have liked to paint his father like this, in armour, to jokingly celebrate the nobility he said he had achieved with such an offspring" (Tiziano avrebbe voluto dipingere suo padre così corazzato, per celebrare scherzosamente la nobiltà che egli diceva di aver conseguito con una tale prole). "Jokingly", because the old man's truly lordly attire and pose do not suit the simple clerk that was Titian's father, Gregorio Vecellio. He held various minor posts in Cadore from 1495 to 1527, including that of an officer in the local militia and, from 1525, superintendent of mines. We should doubt that anyone really wanted to joke around with their father like that, especially a respected painter such as Titian, thus this suggestion has not convinced art historians of the identity of the model. The man in the portrait wears costly armour etched with gold and a crimson velvet tunic, known as a brigandine, a garment usually made of thick fabric, lined inside with small oblong steel plates riveted to the fabric. Very similar velvet brigandine in the Royal Armoury (Livrustkammaren) in Stockholm (LRK 22285/LRK 22286), is considered as a war booty from Warsaw (1655), just like another, larger (23167 LRK). Szydłowiecki's son-in-law, Jan Amor Tarnowski, was depicted in armour with crimson brigandine and holding a baton in a painting by circle of Jacopo Tintoretto (Private collection). The sitter in Ambrosiana painting is also holding a miltary baton, that is traditionally the sign of a field marshal or a similar high-ranking military officer. Chancellor Szydłowiecki is generally not considered an important military commander, like Tarnowski, but he held several military positions, such as the castellan of Kraków (1527-1532), who commanded the nobility of his county during a military campaign (after "Ksie̜ga rzeczy polskich" by Zygmunt Gloger, p. 153-154), and in all mentioned effigies by Samostrzelnik, as well as in his tombstone, he was portrayed like an important military officer. The age of the sitter also matches the age of the chancellor, who was 64 in 1530. Finally, the man in the portrait bears a strong resemblance to Szydłowiecki as represented in a medal by Hans Schwarz from 1526 (The State Hermitage Museum, ИМ-13497). The Chancellor's characteristic facial features, a pointed nose and protruding lower lip, are similar to those of his tombstone effigy, his portraits by Master Georgius and Samostrzelnik (Liber geneseos ...), as well as in the marble tombstone of his brother Mikołaj Stanisław (1480-1532) by Bartolommeo Berrecci or workshop, founded by Krzysztof (Saint Sigismund's church in Szydłowiec). It is not without reason that Szydłowiecki was known as the Polish Lucullus, in memory of a Roman general and statesman famous for his lavish lifestyle. One of the few paintings by Titian and his workshop that have survived in the former territories of Renaissance Sarmatia is today in Wawel Castle in Kraków, the former royal residence (oil on canvas, 74 x 115 cm, inv. ZKnW-PZS 7). It comes from the collection of Count Leon Jan Piniński (1857-1938) in Lviv, donated in 1931 and represents the Madonna and Child with Saint John the Baptist and Saint Cecilia. Its earlier history is unknown, but Piniński, who, in addition to paintings of the Italian and especially Venetian school, also collected polonica, such as portraits of the Jagiellons now in Wawel, probably acquired them in Lviv, where many paintings from the historical collections of former Poland-Lithuania-Ruthenia have survived the turbulent history. This painting is considered to be a workshop copy of a lost original, another version of which is in the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana in Milan (inv. 200). Like the portrait of the "Titian's father", the Milanese copy comes from the collection of Cardinal Federico Borromeo and was acquired before 1607. The Milanese painting is dated between 1540 and 1560 and Titian (and eventually his workshop) borrowed elements from an earlier composition preserved in the Louvre (INV 742; MR 514), namely the Madonna and the pose of Saint John the Baptist. The Louvre painting is dated between around 1510 and 1525 and belonged before 1598 to the Dukes d'Este in Ferrara, relatives of Queen Bona Sforza. "In the very year of the liberation of Wawel, in 1905, Professor L. Count Piniński came up with the idea of creating a 'treasury of works of art and a reliquary of historical memorabilia, in an ancient castle, which was, in the most glorious times of our culture, the heart of all Poland'", wrote Stanisław Świerz (1886-1951), curator of Wawel, in a 1935 publication on the collections of Wawel Castle. The author adds that Piniński donated to Wawel the collection that was "the result of the lifelong efforts and sacrifices of the great donor, a collection gathered since his youth with the intention of decorating the renovated interiors of Wawel" (after "Zbiory zamku królewskiego na Wawelu w Krakowie", p. 5-6, 8). 
Portrait of Krzysztof Szydłowiecki (1467-1532), Great Chancellor of the Crown in armour with crimson brigandine and holding a baton by Titian, ca. 1530, Pinacoteca Ambrosiana in Milan.
Madonna and Child with Saint John the Baptist and Saint Cecilia by workshop of Titian, after 1525, Wawel Royal Castle.
Portraits of Princes of Ostroh by Lucas Cranach the Elder and workshop
Soon after death of Constantine, Prince of Ostroh king Sigismund had to deal with the quarrel between his son and his stepmother over the fabulous inheritance. Prince Ilia took the body of his father to Kiev, where he was buried in the Chapel of Saint Stephen of the Pechersk Lavra with great splendor. Already in 1522 his father assured him the succession to the starost of Bratslav and Vinnytsia, confirmed by the privilege of the king Sigismund issued at Grodno Sejm, "on Friday before Laetare Sunday 1522".
Then Prince Ilia sent from Kiev one hundred horsemen to the Turov Castle, on which a dower of his stepmother was secured. They took the castle by force, they sealed all things in the treasury, as well as privileges and even the testament of the deceased prince, handing them over to Turov governor. Alexandra's brother, Prince Yuri Olelkovich-Slutsky (ca. 1492-1542), intervened with the king, who sent his courtier to Prince Ilia, ordering him to return the castle and to pay a dowry of his sister Sophia: "As for Princess Alexandra's daughter, she [mother] is not to give her the third part of the dowry or the trousseau; but her brothers, Prince Ilia and the son of Princess Alexandra, Prince Vasily, her daughter, and their sister to equip and pay her dowry" (royal decree issued on August 5, 1531 in Kraków). In 1523, when he was twelve years of age, Ilia's father enaged him to a five-year-old daughter of his friend George Hercules Radziwill, Anna Elizabeth (1518-1558). George Hercules obtained a dispensation from Pope Clement VII as the groom was baptized and brought up in the "Greek rite". After death of his father the young prince lived in Kraków at the royal court, where he studied Latin and Polish. In 1530, 1531 and 1533 he fought with the Tatars and between 1534-1536 he took part in the Muscovite-Lithuanian war where he commanded his own armed forces. In 1536 Radziwill demanded that Ilia fulfill the contract, he however refused to marry Anna Elizabeth or her sister Barbara, citing the lack of his own consent and because he fell in love with Beata Kościelecka, a daughter of king's mistress. In a document issued on December 20, 1537 in Kraków king Sigismund released him from this obligation. "Prince Ilia falls from one mud to another", wrote to Albert of Prussia, royal courtier Mikołaj Nipszyc (Nikolaus Nibschitz), who also very negatively characterized liberated daughters of George Hercules Radziwill, about the planned marriage of Ilia with Kościelecka. The engagement with Beata was sealed with the royal blessing on January 1, 1539, and the wedding, on February 3 of the same year, was held at the Wawel Castle, one day after the wedding of Isabella Jagiellon and John Zapolya, King of Hungary. After the wedding ceremony, a jousting tournament was organized, in which Ilia took part. The prince wore silver armor lined with black velvet, a Tatar belt and leather shoes with spurs and silver sheets. During a duel with young king Sigismund Augustus, Ilia fell from his horse and suffered severe injuries. On August 16, 1539 in Ostroh, he signed his last will in which he left his possessions to the unborn child of Beata, a daughter born three months later. By virtue of the judgment of August 1531 Princess Alexandra was granted the towns of Turov and Tarasovo in today's Belarus and Slovensko, near Vilnius. As a wealthy widow in her late 20s, she most probably lived with her stepson in Kraków and in Turov. A painting by workshop of Lucas Cranach the Elder dated '1531' below inscription in Latin, most probably the first approach to this subject by Cranach, shows a courtly scene of Hercules and Omphale. A young man in guise of mythical hero is flanked by two noblewomen as Omphale's ladies. Partridges, a symbol of sexual desire hangs over the heads of the women. In the myths Omphale and Hercules became lovers and they had a son. The painting is known from several versions, all by Cranach's workshop as original, likely to be by the master's hand, is considered lost. One copy was reported before 1891 in the Wiederau Castle, built between 1697 and 1705 in a village south of Leipzig by David von Fletscher, a merchant of Scotish origin, royal Polish and electoral-Saxon privy and commercial councilor. The other was owned by the Minnesota Museum of Art until 1976 (panel, 78 x 118 cm, Sotheby's New York, June 16, 1976, lot 99), and another was sold in Cologne in 1966 (panel, 80 x 119 cm, Lempertz, November, 1966, lot 27). There is also a version which was sold in June 1917 in Berlin together with a large collection of Wojciech Kolasiński (1852-1916), a minor Polish painter better known as an art restorer, collector, and antiquarian of Warsaw (Sammlung des verstorbenen herrn A. von Kolasinski - Warschau, Volume 2, item 25, pic. 31, panel, 81.3 x 118.1 cm, Sotheby's New York, January 24, 2008, lot 29). The audacious woman on the left has just put a woman's cap on the head of a god of strength dressed in a lion's skin. Her bold pose is very similar to that visible in a portrait of Beata Kościelecka, created by Bernardino Licinio just a year later. Also her face features resemble greatly other effigies of Beata. The woman on the right bears the features of Princess Alexandra Olelkovich-Slutska, the young man is therefore Prince Ilia, who just returned from a glorious expedition against Tatars. Princess Alexandra, a beautiful young woman, like Queen Bona and Beata Kościelecka, also deserved to be represented in "guise" of the goddess of love - Venus. A small painting of a nude woman by Lucas Cranach the Elder, acquired by Liechtenstein collection in 2013, and sometimes considered a fake, is dated "1531" (oil on panel, 38.7 x 24.5 cm, inv. GE 2497) and the woman resemble greatly Princess Alexandra. This work predates by one year a very similar Venus in the Städel Museum in Frankfurt (panel, 37.7 x 24.5 m, inv. 1125), which was donated in 1878 by the businessman and art collector Moritz von Gontard (1826-1886) and was previously probably in the Schleinitz collection in Dresden. 
Hercules at the court of Omphale with portrait of Beata Kościelecka, Ilia, Prince of Ostroh and Alexandra Olelkovich-Slutska, from the Kolasiński collection, by workshop of Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1531, Private collection.
Hercules at the court of Omphale with portrait of Beata Kościelecka, Ilia, Prince of Ostroh and Alexandra Olelkovich-Slutska, from Cologne, by workshop of Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1531, Private collection. Virtual reconstruction, © Marcin Latka
Hercules at the court of Omphale with portrait of Beata Kościelecka, Ilia, Prince of Ostroh and Alexandra Olelkovich-Slutska, from Minnesota Museum of Art, by workshop of Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1531, Private collection.
Portrait of Alexandra Olelkovich-Slutska, Princess of Ostroh nude (Venus) by Lucas Cranach the Elder or workshop, 1531, Liechtenstein Museum in Vienna.
Portrait of Alexandra Olelkovich-Slutska, Princess of Ostroh nude (Venus) by Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1532, Städel Museum in Frankfurt.
Portrait of Alexandra Olelkovich-Slutska by Bernardino Licinio
The number of portraits by Licinio that can be associated with Poland and Lithuania allows us to conclude that he became the favorite painter of the Polish-Lithuanian royal court in Venice in the 1530s, especially of Queen Bona, Duchess of Bari and Rossano by her own right. It seems also that portraits were commissioned in Licinio's and Cranach's workshops at the same time as some of them bear the same date (like the effigies of Andrzej Frycz Modrzewski). Fashion in the 16th century was an instrument of politics, so in portraits for German "allies" the model was depicted dressed more in German style and for Italian "allies" in Italian style, with exceptions like the portrait of Queen Bona by Cranach in Florence (Villa di Poggio Imperiale) or her portrait by Giovanni Cariani in Vienna (Kunsthistorisches Museum).
After death of his father in 1530 Prince of Ostroh, Constantine Vasily (1526-1608), the younger son of Grand Hetman of Lithuania, was brought up in Turov by his mother Princess Alexandra Olelkovich-Slutska, who administered the lands on behalf of her minor son. On January 15, 1532, the king ordered Fyodor Sangushko (d. 1547), starost of Volodymyr and Ivan Mykhailovych Khorevitch, starost of Queen Bona in Pinsk, to be commissioners for the implementation of the agreements reached between Ilia, Constantine Vasily's elder brother, and Alexandra. In 1537 a royal privilege to trade in Tarasov was issued in her name. Unlike other children of wealthy magnates Constantine Vasily did not travel to Europe and did not study in European universities. It is believed that his education was entirely at home. In particular, Constantine Vasily was taught by a tutor well versed in Latin and his home education was quite thorough, as evidenced by his subsequent great cultural and educational activity and knowledge of other languages (apart from Ruthenian, he knew Polish and Latin). At that time, it was much more important for the sons of magnates to acquire military knowledge and skills than to master languages and arts of discourse, especially this concerned the families of border officials, whose possessions constantly suffered from Tatar attacks. As important landowners Alexandra and her son were undoubtedly frequent guests at the multicultural, itinerant royal court in Lviv, Kraków, Grodno or Vilnius, where they could also meet many Italians, like the royal architect and sculptor Bernardo Zanobi de Gianottis, called Romanus. In a letter written in Belarusian on August 25, 1539, to a trusted servant in Vilnius, Szymek Mackiewicz (Mackevičius), Queen Bona commented on the alterations in the palace's loggia to be made by master Bernardo (after "Spółka architektoniczno-rzeźbiarska Bernardina de Gianotis i Jana Cini" by Helena Kozakiewiczowa, p. 161). This would explain later contacts of Constantine Vasily with Venice. Also the ancestral nest of the family - Ostroh was a multicultural city, where, apart from orthodox Ruthenians, many Jews, Catholics and Muslim Tatars also lived (after "Konstanty Wasyl Ostrogski wobec katolicyzmu i wyznań protestanckich" by Tomasz Kempa, p. 18). In 1539, the struggle for the inheritance gained a new intensity after the death of Ilia and his wife Beata Kościelecka's entry into management of all estates. The protegee of Sigismund and Bona once accused Alexandra and her son of intending to seize all estates by force and she obtained from Sigismund a relevant decree to prevent it. In 1548 Princess Alexandra was mentioned in a letter regarding the appointment of the Kobryn archimandrite. Seven year later, in 1555, "Duchess Constantinova Ivanovitch Ostrozka, Voivodess of Trakai, Hetmaness Supreme of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Princess Alexandra Semenovna" had a case with Prince Semyon Yurievich Olshanski about mutual wrongs in the neighboring estates of Turov and Ryczowice and in 1556 she was granted the privilege to found a town on her estate of Sliedy. From February to June 1562, she conducted her own property and court affairs. She was still living in 1563 as on August 30, Duke Albert of Prussia addressed a letter to her, but on June 3, 1564, she was mentioned in the royal letter as deceased. Some researchers tend to think that it was Alexandra that was buried in Pechersk Lavra in Kiev next to her husband (after "Prince Vasyl-Kostyantyn Ostrozki ..." by Vasiliy Ulianovsky). The proud and fabulously rich Ruthenian princess, a descendant of Grand Princes of Kiev and Grand Dukes of Lithuania, could afford the splendor worthy of the Italian queen Bona and to be painted by the same painter as the queen. The young woman from a portrait by Bernardino Licinio in the Philadelphia Museum of Art (oil on panel, 69.5 x 55.9 cm, inv. Cat. 203) bear a striking resemblance to effigies of Alexandra by Lucas Cranach the Elder and workshop, indentified by me, especially her portrait as Venus (Liechtenstein Museum in Vienna) and in the scene of Hercules and Omphale from the Kolasiński collection, both dated "1531". This portrait is dated to about 1530 and comes from the collection of an American corporate lawyer and art collector John Graver Johnson (1841-1917). The lady in a brown dress and an expensive necklace with a cross in Italian style around her neck, holds gloves in her right hand, accessories of a rich noblewoman. 
Portrait of Alexandra Olelkovich-Slutska, Princess of Ostroh holding gloves by Bernardino Licinio, ca. 1531, Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Portraits of Beata Kościelecka by Lucas Cranach the Elder and Bernardino Licinio
"O Beata, adorned so rich in rare charms, You have a virtuous and honest speech, The worthy and unworthy of you still adore you, The gray-haired, though prudent, they go crazy for you" (O Beata decorata rara forma, moribus / O honesta ac modesta vultu, verbis, gestibus! / Digni simul et indigni te semper suspiciunt / Et grandaevi ac prudentes propter te desipiunt), wrote in his panegyric modeled on the hymn in honor of the Virgin Mary, entitled Prosa de Beata Kościelecka virgine in gynaeceo Bonae reginae Poloniae (On Beata Kościelecka a maiden in the household of Bona, Queen of Poland, II, XLVII), Andrzej Krzycki (1482-1537), Bishop of Płock and secretary of Queen Bona.
In 1509 when king Sigismund I was obliged to marry by the Piotrków Diet, his mistress Katarzyna Telniczanka was married to his associate Andrzej Kościelecki. The king secured her in the form of an annual salary and made Kościelecki Grand Treasurer of the Crown and starost of Oświęcim. Kościelecki, who was Polish-Lithuanian envoy in Buda between 1501-1503, was a talented and dedicated manager of royal treasury. When in 1510 a huge fire broke out in royal salt mines in Wieliczka, he and Seweryn Bethman descent into the shaft to put out the fire. Marriage with king's mistress caused a great indignation of Kościelecki's relatives, who were leaving the Senate when the treasurer appeared there. Kościelecki died in Kraków on September 6, 1515 and on October 2, 1515, after a long illness, died Queen Barbara Zapolya, first wife of Sigismund. When just few weeks after Kościelecki's death Telniczanka gave birth to her daughter Beata, meaning "blessed" (between September 6 and October 20), everybody at the court gossiped that her real father was Sigismund. Beata was raised in the royal court together with other children of the king. In 1528 when Beata was 13, Anna, Zuzanna and Katarzyna three daughters of Regina Szafraniec, eldest daughter of Telniczanka, brought a claim against Beata before the royal court concerning a house in Kraków bought by Telniczanka after 1509, a carriage, four horses and a toque embroidered with large pearls valued at 600 zlotys. Two years later Kościelecki's testament was brought before the royal court by Andrzej Tęczyński, voivode of Kraków in a dispute with Kościelecka. The painting of Venus with Cupid stealing honey by Lucas Cranach the Elder from the National Gallery of Denmark (panel, 58 x 38 cm, inv. KMSsp719, transferred in 1759 to the Danish royal collection from the Gottorp Castle) is very similar in composition to the portrait of Katarzyna Telniczanka as Venus from the Branicki Palace in Warsaw, lost during World War II. Also the woman depicted is very much alike. It bears the date 1530 on a stone in lower right corner of the painting. As Telniczanka died in 1528, it cannot be her. The same woman is also in the two other paintings by Cranach. One similar to other portraits of Telniczanka's daughters from the 1520s is in the Finnish National Gallery in Helsinki (panel, 41 x 27 cm, inv. A I 316, acquired in 1851 from the collection of future Tsar Alexander II). According to sources it is dated 1525, however the date is today almost invisible and could be also 1527 when Beata reached her legal age of 12 and could be married. The other, in the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium (oil on canvas, 176 x 80 cm, inv. 4759, donated in 1928 by Leon Cassel), also as Venus and Cupid, is dated 1531 on the tree trunk. It is very similar to portrait of Princess Hedwig Jagiellon (1513-1573) and Queen Anna Jagellonica (1503-1547) as Venus from the same period. Multiple copies of this painting exist, several of which were created by Cranach's workshop, such as the painting from the Bayreuth Castle, transferred in 1812 to the Alte Pinakothek in Munich (oil on panel, 174 x 74 cm, inv. 5466). George Frederick of Brandenburg-Ansbach (1539-1603), grandson of Sophia Jagiellon (1464-1512), who resided in Kulmbach, built the first castle in Bayreuth. The other comes from the Granitz hunting lodge on Rügen, built between 1837 and 1846 for Wilhelm Malte von Putbus, Governor-general of Swedish Pomerania (transferred from wood to canvas, 170.5 x 68 cm). Another copy in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich was painted on canvas, possibly by Polish or Italian copist in the first quarter of the 17th century (176.9 x 70.5 cm, inv. 13261). The picture was secured after the World War II in Hermann Göring's collection and transferred to the Bavarian State Painting Collections in 1961. Version in the Museum of Art and History in Geneva (oil on panel, 68 x 57 cm, inv. 1874-0012), acquired in 1874 from unknown collection was cut from larger painting, which was probably damaged, as well as the painting from private collection in Vienna, sold in Prague in 2022 (oil on panel, 45 x 47.5 cm, Fine Antiques Prague, October 8, 2022, lot 4). Fragments with Cupid are in the Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe (dated "1531", oil on panel, 76.5 x 27.6 cm, inv. 811), from the collection of the Margraves of Baden in Rastatt Castle, and in private collection (oil on panel, 80 x 33 cm), confiscated by the Nazis from Jacques Goudstikker in Amsterdam in 1940. Different version of this Venus with Beata's face, dated "1533", is in private collection (oil on panel, 170.8 x 69.9 cm, Christie's New York, April 19, 2007, lot 21). It also comes from Goudstikker's collection, earlier in Charles Albert de Burlet's collection in Basel. In this respect, Beata was like a 16th-century celebrity spreading her effigy throughout Renaissance Europe. Today, Photoshop and Instagram, then "mythological disguise" and Cranach's workshop, times change, but people are quite similar. The same woman is also depiced in the portrait by Bernardino Licinio from 1532 in private collection (oil on canvas, 98.1 x 82.5 cm, Christie's London, Auction 5823, July 4, 1997, lot 86), signed and dated by the artist on a postument (M·DXXXII B·LVCINII· OPVS). She is holding gloves and keeping her hand on a postument. This portrait is very similar to the effigy of royal mistress Diana di Cordona by Licinio in Dresden (Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, inv. Gal.-Nr. 200). It is almost like a pendant, their poses and costumes are identical. The woman's headdress or a toque, called balzo, embroidered with gold is adorned with flowers very similar to clematis Beata. The painting comes from the Brandegee Collection in Boston (by 1918). From the 1530s noble ladies throughout Poland, Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine wanted to be depicted in the pose of a Roman lady or a courtesan from the Flavian period in their tomb monuments (e.g. monument to Barbara Tarnowska née Tęczyńska by Giovanni Maria Padovano from about 1536 in the Tarnów Cathedral), a pose similar to that known from the Venus of Urbino (portrait of Princess Isabella Jagiellon). In their portrait paintings, all wanted to be a goddess of love. 
Portrait of Beata Kościelecka (1515-1576) by Lucas Cranach the Elder, ca. 1527, Finnish National Gallery in Helsinki.
Portrait of Beata Kościelecka (1515-1576) as Venus with Cupid stealing honey by Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1530, National Gallery of Denmark.
Portrait of Beata Kościelecka (1515-1576) as Venus with Cupid stealing honey by Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1531, Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium.
Portrait of Beata Kościelecka (1515-1576), fragment of Venus with Cupid stealing honey by follower of Lucas Cranach the Elder, ca. 1531, Museum of Art and History in Geneva.
Portrait of Beata Kościelecka (1515-1576), fragment of Venus with Cupid stealing honey by follower of Lucas Cranach the Elder, ca. 1531, Private collection.
Cupid, fragment of portrait of Beata Kościelecka (1515-1576) as Venus with Cupid stealing honey by workshop of Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1531, Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe.
Portrait of Beata Kościelecka (1515-1576) as Venus with Cupid stealing honey by workshop of Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1533, Private collection.
Portrait of Beata Kościelecka (1515-1576) by Bernardino Licinio, 1532, Private collection.
Portraits of Bona Sforza by Bernardino Licinio
"From you Poles learned elegant clothes, noble courtesy and respect for politeness, and above all, your example of sobriety freed them from drunkenness", wrote in a letter of 1539 to Queen Bona Sforza an Italian poet Pietro Aretino (1492-1556), who in 1527 settled permanently in Venice, "the seat of all vices", as he noted. His correspondence with Bona dates back at least to April 9, 1537, when the poet sent his book to the queen, commending himself to the monarch's gracious favor (after "Caraglio w Polsce" by Jerzy Wojciechowski, p. 26). The portrait of Aretino, considered to be the original by Giorgione, was purchased in December 1793 by King Stanislaus Augustus Poniatowski from Stanisław Kostka Potocki for his collection in the Palace on the Isle (inventory number 402, lost). It cannot be excluded that it was sent to Poland already in the 16th century. This portrait, or another, later became part of the Potocki collection, evacuated from Poland at the beginning of World War II and exhibited in 1940 by the European Art Galleries, Inc. in New York ("For Peace and Freedom. Old masters: a collection of Polish-owned works of art ...", item 19, National Library of Poland, DŻS XIXA 3a). The painting evacuated to New York was considered a work by Titian and was a copy of Aretino's best-known portrait, now in the Pitti Palace in Florence (inv. 1912, Palatina 54). It was Aretino himself who sent the painting from Venice as a gift to Duke Cosimo I in Florence. He described it in detail in a letter addressed to Paolo Giovio (the original of the letter was sold at Sotheby's on March 16, 1971, lot 549) and in others addressed to the same duke. Was the painting from the Potocki collection a gift to Bona or to a Sarmatian educated in Venice? We will probably never know.
In 2016, a portrait of a lady holding a book attributed to Bernardino Licinio was put up for sale in Munich, where many objects from the historical royal collections of Poland-Lithuania are kept in the Ducal Residence (oil on canvas, 107 x 90 cm, Hampel Fine Art Auctions, December 7, 2016, lot 1242). According to the catalog note, the "painting is similar to many other female portraits by Licinio that he painted between 1530 and 1540". The lady holds her book in a way indicating that she is a well-educated woman and the book is clearly not a prayer book but rather a volume of poetry. Her rich costume and jewelry indicate that she is a very wealthy woman, undoubtedly a member of the ruling class. A copy, or rather another version of this painting, because the woman has positioned her head differently, is in the British Government Art Collection (oil on canvas, 108 x 91 cm, inv. 2280). The portrait was offered in 1953 by Helen Vincent (1866-1954), Viscountess d'Abernon, who probably bought it in Venice during an extended visit in 1904. The Polish provenance of the painting is also possible since the husband of the viscountess was part of the Interallied Mission to Poland in July 1920, during the Polish-Soviet War. The different color of the eyes of the model than in the Munich painting (brown in the d'Abernon painting) also indicates that it is a copy, because cheaper dyes were used to create them, as in the case of the portraits of the Emperor Charles V or portraits of Bona's daughter, Anna Jagiellon (1523-1596) by the workshop of Cranach and Martin Kober. Bona's tutor Crisostomo Colonna (1460-1528), a member of the Pontano Academy, a poet from the Petrarch school, taught her Latin, history, theology, law, geography, botany, philosophy and mathematics. She in turn, who was considered a lover of Virgil and Petrarch, was the first teacher of her son Sigismund Augustus, born in 1520, hence the book. Two leopards on her bodice, denoted as symbols of strength, intelligence, bravery, justice, and valor, holding stylized S, are clearly an allusion to her family name: Sforza (from sforzare, to force), a nickname given to Muzio Attendolo in the 1380s for his strength and determination and his abilities to suddenly reverse the fortunes of battles. The whole pattern can be compared with that visible on a fountain in the Dukes' Courtyard of Castello Sforzesco in Milan, dating from the end of the 15th century. Although this costume appears to be more typical of the 1520s in Italian fashion and somewhat similar, we can see in the central female figure of the family portrait by Licinio in the British Royal Collection (inv. RCIN 402586), dated "1524" in the upper left corner (M.D.XXIII), two bands of gold fabric on her bodice and the embroidered central part are clearly inspired by German fashion of the period and recall the costume of Queen Bona in two paintings from Cranach's workshop (Villa del Poggio Imperiale and Arp Museum Bahnhof Rolandseck), identified by me. Salome's green dress in the centre of Cranach's painting "The Banquet of Herod", dated "1533" in the upper right corner (Städel Museum, inv. 1193), as well as the portrait of a lady in a green dress and a large balzo by Bartolomeo Veneto, dated "1530" in the upper left corner (Timken Museum of Art, inv. 1979:003), prove that such a fashion was still very much in vogue in the early 1530s. Queen Bona's ties to the Republic of Venice are so manifold on many levels, from art, music, architecture, commerce to finance, that it would be difficult to list them in a single paragraph. Notables of the Republic must have received several portraits of such an important ruler, who also visited Venice in 1556. However, today no portrait of Bona Sforza can be found in Venice. All have probably been long forgotten, sold or perhaps even destroyed. Besides the great resemblance to the well-known effigies of the queen from her later life, in particular the famous miniature from the workshop of Lucas Cranach the Younger made in Wittenberg (Czartoryski Museum, XII-537), also the family resemblance with the effigies of notable duchesses of Milan, ancestors of the queen, like Bianca Maria Visconti (1425-1468) from her marble profile by circle of Gian Cristoforo Romano and Bona Maria of Savoy (1449-1503) from her portrait of the Lombard painter (both at the Sforzesco Castle in Milan), should be noted. Portrait of a seated old woman, which was before 1917 in the collection of Wojciech Kolasiński in Warsaw, was attributed to Lorenzo Lotto (oil on canvas, 107 x 82 cm, sold in June 1917 in Berlin, "Sammlung des verstorbenen herrn A. von Kolasinski - Warschau", Volume 2, item 185). The style of this painting is nevertheless very similar to the effigy of Stanisław Oleśnicki (York Art Gallery, YORAG : 738), identified by me, and portrait of a woman in a black dress (Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice, inv. 303), both by Bernardino Licinio. Prior history of this painting is unfortunately unknown. If Kolasiński acquired the painting in Poland, which is very likely, the old woman holding a book was most probably a member of the court of Queen Bona. It is also worth mentioning that two splendid portraits of two Italian poets, considered the founders of Italian literature: Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) and Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374), are now in Kraków. The oldest confirmed provenance of these two paintings is the Temple of the Sibyl in Puławy, also known as the Temple of Memory, opened in 1801, a museum created by Izabela Czartoryska (1746-1835). They are mentioned in the 1828 catalogue of the Czartoryski collection (Poczet pamiątek zachowanych w Domu Gotyckim w Puławach), under the numbers 424 and 426. The portrait of Dante is close to the style of Andrea del Sarto, a Florentine painter, as is the portrait of a lady in French costume, perhaps Madeleine de La Tour d'Auvergne (1498-1519), Duchess of Urbino, painted around 1518 (Cleveland Museum of Art, inv. 1944.92) or the Madonna and Child with Saint John the Baptist in the Wilanów Palace in Warsaw (Wil.1537). It also resembles the portrait of a halberdier (Francesco Guardi?) by Pontormo, Andrea's pupil, who initially followed his style (Getty Center, 89.PA.49). The National Art Gallery in Lviv houses a portrait of a lady with a book of verses by Petrarch (petrarchino), which probably comes from the Potocki collection (oil on canvas, 52.5 x 39.3, inv. Ж-118). It is perhaps a studio copy of a painting currently in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence (inv. 1890 / 783), painted around 1528 by Andrea del Sarto. The original of the portrait of Petrarch was probably also created in Florence and a similar portrait was sold with attribution to the 16th-century Florentine school (Sotheby's New York, June 11, 2020, lot 21), however the style more closely resembles that of Bernardino Licinio, in particular the portrait of Elisabeth (1539-1582), Princess of Ostroh (Halszka Ostrogska) and her suitor, identified by me (Belgravia Auction Gallery in Mosta, December 9, 2023, lot 512), also thought to be the work of a 17th-century copyist. Both paintings of Italian poets do not have original frames and were framed in the late 18th or early 19th century, indicating that the original frames were removed at some point, for example to facilitate transportation. This indicates that the paintings were probably evacuated from their original location to preserve them from destruction and looting during the Deluge or the Great Northern War, or that more valuable frames (concerning the material, usually gilded wood) were looted or sold, while the paintings were preserved. They testify to the admiration for Italian poetry, even when Sarmatia ceased to exist. Since Czartoryskis acquired many valuable souvenirs from destroyed Poland-Lithuania, it is quite possible that the portraits originally belonged to a magnate or even to the royal collection and were commissioned in Italy and transported to Poland-Lithuania already in the 16th century. 
Portrait of Bona Sforza d'Aragona (1494-1557), Queen of Poland holding a book by Bernardino Licinio, 1530s, Private collection.
Portrait of Bona Sforza d'Aragona (1494-1557), Queen of Poland holding a book by Bernardino Licinio, 1530s, Government Art Collection, UK.
Portrait of a seated old woman from the Kolasiński collection by Bernardino Licinio, second quarter of the 16th century, Private collection, lost.
Portrait of Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) by Andrea del Sarto, Pontormo or circle, 1520s, Czartoryski Museum.
Portrait of Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374) by workshop or follower of Bernardino Licinio, second quarter of the 16th century, Czartoryski Museum.
Portrait of a lady with a book of Petrarch's rhyme by circle or follower of Andrea del Sarto, ca. 1528, Lviv National Art Gallery.
Portrait of Pietro Aretino (1492-1556) from the Potocki collection by Titian or workshop, ca. 1545, Private collection. Virtual reconstruction, © Marcin Latka
Portraits of Bona Sforza by Giovanni Cariani
"The Queen had a special affinity for music, jewelry and textiles. To satisfy her tastes, she brought artists from Italy. The possibilities of Bona's patronage are well illustrated by the example of her boys' choir, which was regularly renewed with boys from Italy not affected by the mutation" (after "Caraglio w Polsce" by Jerzy Wojciechowski, p. 26). She also sent boys from Poland-Lithuania-Ruthenia to train in Italy. In February 1541, the Polish ambassador Jan Ocieski (1501-1563), visiting the castle in Bari, noted the progress made by some "Polish boys" who had been sent by Queen Bona to her duchy to learn to sing and play the lute (Pueri Poloni videntur musicae operam dare, nam et cantu et cithararum pulsatione bene profecisse indicantur, after "A Companion to the Renaissance in Southern Italy (1350-1600)", edited by Bianca de Divitiis, p. 631).
From 1524, after death of her mother, Bona was also Duchess of Bari and Rossano by her own right. Throughout her life she dressed in Italian style and purchased in Italy pearl embroidered velvets, thin Florentine cloths, intricate Venetian chains and ornaments. She also received garments from Italian Princes, like in 1523, when Isabella d'Este (1474-1539), Marchioness of Mantua and a leader of fashion at that time, sent to Bona silk and golden caps in return for sable skins. Two years later, the Marchioness also sent six caps and four pairs of fashionable stockings. In a letter from Kraków of July 20, 1527 Bona expressed her gratitude to Isabella's daughter Eleonora Gonzaga, Duchess of Urbino for beautiful caps she has sent her. Jewish merchant from Kraków, Aleksander Levi sold sable skins to Federico II Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua, in return for which he collected gold cloth, fabrics woven with silver and silk from Venice. The queen received some of these expensive materials as a gift from the duke. Valuable beaver skins, horses, falcons and hunting dogs, sought after abroad, were delivered to Italy from Poland, and once even two camels from the royal zoo were sent as a gift to Cardinal Ippolito I d'Este (after "Królowa Bona ..." by Władysław Pociecha, p. 294). In the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna there is a portrait of a woman in a striped dress holding a fan, dated around 1530-1535 and attributed to Giovanni Cariani (oil on canvas, 96 x 77 cm, GG 355). The painting was added to the gallery in 1864 from the storage in the Upper Belvedere, where it was considered a work by Palma Vecchio (E. 322). The Imperial Picture Gallery was transferred from the Imperial Stables to the Belvedere in 1776, so the painting most likely comes from the old collections of the Habsburgs, relatives of Sigismund I, who received and collected the effigies of notable contemporary and former rulers of Europe. Another version of this painting, also attributed to Cariani, is in the Musée Jacquemart-André in Paris (oil on canvas, 73 x 57 cm, inv. 670). The damaged lower part of this painting was repaired by adding a piece from another painting depicting a cushion on a carpet. Around that time (i.e. early 1530s) Cariani also created a series of portraits of another important Italian, but not Venetian, Renaissance woman - Catherine de' Medici (1519-1589), the so-called Violante portraits with letter V, including two at the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest (inv. 84 and 109), all identified by me. The Queen of France undoubtedly received effigies of her Polish-Lithuanian-Ruthenian counterpart of Italian origin. Probably a 19th century copy of the Vienna painting was offered for sale in New York (oil on canvas, 114.3 x 96.5 cm, Newel, SKU 013551). Although the style of the costume is generally Italian, the lower part of her dress reveals Spanish inspiration - late 15th century verdugado, a hoop skirt depicted in Herod's Banquet by Pedro García de Benabarre and his workshop (National Museum of Art of Catalonia, 064060-000). Queen Bona was proud of her Aragonese origins, which were highlighted on many objects linked to the queen bearing her name, such as woodcuts, medals or an antependium (veste d'altare) of green and gold silk, which was in the St. Nicholas Basilica in Bari, on the front of which was written in large silver letters: Bona Sfortia Aragonia Regina Poloniae (after "Della storia di Bari dagli antichi tempi sino all'anno 1856" by Giulio Petroni, Volume I, p. 621). In May 1543 during entry to Kraków for coronation of Elizabeth of Austria (1526-1545), the lords and knights of the Kingdom were dressed in all sorts of costumes: Polish, German, Italian, French, Hungarian, Turkish, Tatar, Spanish, Muscovy, Cossack and Venetian. The young king Sigismund Augustus was dressed in German style, probably as a courtesy for Elizabeth. Bona started to wear her distinctive outfit of a widowed elder lady most probably around 1548, after death of Sigismund I, a medal from 1546 shows her with a large décolletage. Before 1862 in the Sibyl's Temple at Puławy, which memorialized Polish history and culture, there was a "fan of Queen Bona" and inventory of Bona's belongings in Bari includes a wonderful chronometer hidden inside a fan made of bird feathers and set with jewels. The resemblance of the woman in the portraits to the Queen of Poland from her portrait by Francesco Bissolo (National Gallery in London, NG631), identified by me, from the cameo with her bust by Giovanni Jacopo Caraglio (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 17.190.869), as well as a miniature with a portrait of the queen at an older age, perhaps from the series of Anton Boys in Vienna (Czartoryski Museum in Kraków, XII-141), is undeniable. Although in the 19th century no reliable painted effigy of Queen Bona made before her widowhood (1548) was known, painters of historical scenes studied texts and other effigies, as well as preserved objects from the period. In 1874, Jan Matejko created his large composition showing the Hanging of the Sigismund bell at the Cathedral Tower in 1521 in Kraków (National Museum in Warsaw, MP 441). For the queen's costume he took inspiration from a 1524 woodcut with her portrait, the blond hair and dark eyebrows were based on the description of Bona's features. The queen holds her hand on the arm of her eldest daughter Isabella, who is holding her fan, most likely the Puławy fan, which resembles the one in the portrait by Cariani. 
Portrait of Bona Sforza d'Aragona (1494-1557), Queen of Poland holding a fan by Giovanni Cariani, 1530s, Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.
Portrait of Bona Sforza d'Aragona (1494-1557), Queen of Poland in a striped dress by Giovanni Cariani, 1530s, Musée Jacquemart-André. Virtual reconstruction, © Marcin Latka
Portraits of Stanisław Lubomirski and Laura Effrem by Venetian painters
"For Peace and Freedom. Old masters: a collection of Polish-owned works of art, arranged by the European Art Galleries, Inc., to help to maintain the exhibit of Poland at the World's Fair, New York, 1940" (National Library of Poland, DŻS XIXA 3a). This is the title of official catalogue of 77 paintings, mostly from the Łańcut Castle, displayed in the Polish Pavilion during the New York World's Fair opened on April 30, 1939. On September 1 and September 17, 1939, the Second Polish Republic was again invaded and partitioned by its neighbours. World War II begun and paintings never returned to Łańcut.
Among them were a portrait of a green-eyed nobleman attributed to Lorenzo Lotto and a portrait of a lady attributed to Paris Bordone, both holding gloves (items 20 and 23). The portraits, now in private collections, have similar dimensions and compostion, they are almost like pendants. The woman is now holding a little dog (not visible on older reproductions of the painting and probably discovered during conservation). The effigy of a man bears inscription DOMINICHO / RADISE, which was not visible before. It was most probably added after 1940 to make him close to the Radise family living in New York since about 1920, as no Dominicho or Domenico Radise is reported in sources. At the 2019 auction in New York, the portrait of the nobleman was sold with an attribution to Giovanni Cariani, also known as Giovanni Busi or Il Cariani (oil on canvas, 99.4 x 74.9 cm, Sotheby's, May 29, 2019, lot 224), while at the 2017 auction in Vienna, the painting was offered for sale with an attribution to the School of Verona (Dorotheum, December 17, 2017, lot 31). The portrait of a lady was also attributed to the School of Palma Vecchio (oil on canvas, 88 x 74.5 cm, Christie's New York, Auction 8215, June 16, 1999, lot 51) and now again to Bordone. The woman was also depicted in two other paintings from the same period, one attributed to Palma Vecchio in Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden and the other, most probably a modello or a ricordo to previous, attributed to circle of Bernardino Licinio in private collection (oil on canvas, 32.3 x 25.4 cm, Christie's London, Auction 9441, October 1, 2013, lot 516). The painting in Dresden, entitled Resting Venus, was most probably acquired for the collection of Augustus II, King of Poland (oil on canvas, 112 x 186 cm, inv. Gal.-Nr. 190). According to a bill of the picture, it was bought through the dealers Lorenzo Rossi and Andreas Philipp Kindermann in 1728 in Venice for 2000 Taleri, however since the painting is also described in inventory from 1722 it could be that it was confused with another painting of Venus attributed to Sassoferrato. The frame is adorned with king's monogram AR (Augustus Rex) and the Eagle of Poland. It cannot be excluded that it was offered to the king during his visit to the Łańcut castle in 1704 or later by members of the Lubomirski family. The version attributed to Licinio comes from the Heinemann Gallery in Munich. Renaissance-baroque Łańcut Castle was built between 1629-1641 as palazzo in fortezza (fortress palace) for Stanisław Lubomirski (1583-1649), voivode of Kraków by Italian architect Matteo Trapola on the site of previous, most probably wooden castle of the Pilecki family. Stanisław's grandfather was another Stanisław (d. 1585), son of Feliks Lubomirski, owner of the Sławkowice and Zabłocie estates. In May 1537 he married a Queen's lady-in-waiting Laura Effrem (Laura de Effremis), coming from an old family noble from Bari, related to the Carducci, Dottula, Alifio, Piscicelli and Arcamone families, belonging to the immediate circle of Isabella of Aragon, Duchess of Milan and her daughter Bona. Laura received from the queen a dowry of 1,200 zlotys and jewels worth 350 zlotys, as well as twenty cubits of damask. According to letter of Queen's secretary Stanisław Górski to a poet Klemens Janicki dated 10 June 1538 in Kraków "Italian Laura, who had married [Stanisław] Lubomirski a year ago, having come here at the Queen's request after Easter, in the house where the maids and matrons are staying, gave birth to a son" (after "Królowa Bona ..." by Władysław Pociecha, p. 89). The son died in infancy, Laura most probably died four years later in 1542 and Stanisław married Barbara Hruszowska with whom he had three children. 
Portrait of Laura Effrem with pearls in her hair by Bernardino Licinio, 1530s, Private collection.
Portrait of Laura Effrem as Resting Venus by Bernardino Licinio, 1530s, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden.
Portrait of Laura Effrem from the Potocki collection by Paris Bordone, 1530s, The Schorr Collection.
Portrait of Stanisław Lubomirski (d. 1585) from the Potocki collection by Giovanni Cariani, 1530s, Private collection.
Portraits of Sigismund Augustus as a boy by circle of Titian
Hereditary and absolute monarchs of Europe had no interest whatever in preserving the memory of elective rulers of Poland-Lithuania, especially after decline of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth as a leading European power following the destructive Deluge (1655-1660) and its dissolution following the partitions in the late 18th century. That is why the identity of the Jagiellons, Vasas and even of king Wiśniowiecki or members of the Sobieski family in their portraits sent to European courts was lost in oblivion.
In 1529, through the intercession of queen Bona, a courtier with a stormy and dissolute life, Giovanni Silvio de Mathio (Joannes Silvius Amatus) from Palermo, called Siculus was appointed the tutor of nine years old Sigismund Augustus. He also obtained the Vitebsk parish and the Vilnius canon with Bona's support. Siculus was a doctor of both laws and lecturer of Greek at the Kraków Academy. He died at 90 years of age in about 1537. Siculus left Padua, under the rule of the Republic of Venice, for Vienna in 1497 and Kraków in about 1500. When in Poland, he frequently ordered copies of Greek texts from Aldo Manuzio (Aldus Manutius) in Venice. The first edition of the controversial work by Philostratus "Life of Apollonius of Tyana", printed in Venice between 1501 and 1504 by Manuzio, was in a private library of king Sigismund Augustus, now in Saint Petersburg (after Alodia Kawecka-Gryczowa, Biblioteka ostatniego Jagiellona, 1988, pp. 291-292). It tells the story of the first century philosopher and magician and concerns pagan magic and secret sciences. As an ardent follower of Neoplatonic ideas at the Sigismund's court and opponent of Erasmus of Rotterdam, Siculus spread rumors in Kraków that Erasmus had been put under a church curse. Platonism affirms the existence of abstract objects that the physical world is not as real or true as timeless, absolute, unchangeable ideas, as in a quote from Plato's Timaeus, which reads "this world is indeed a living being endowed with soul and intelligence." For Plato, the term ''Anima Mundi'' meant ''the animating principle of matter.'' The painting from the collection of Cardinal Mazarin, possibly originally from the French royal collection, recorded in the inventory of 1661 as a work of Titian (no. 912), shows a little boy and his tutor holding hands on a globe with figures which looks like floating souls and similar to the print Integra naturae speculum artisque imago, published in Robert Fludd's Utriusque cosmi maioris scilicet ... from 1617-1618. The painting, now in the Louvre (oil on canvas, 115 x 83.3 cm, INV 127; MR 75), was seized during the Revolution from the collection of Duke Louis Hercule Timoléon de Cossé-Brissac (1734-1792). The portrait of a boy in costume and, more northern, hairstyle, typical for 1530s is mentioned for the first time in 1646 by Balthasar de Monconys as placed in the Tribuna of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence (oil on panel, 58 x 44 cm, Inv. 1890, 896), where the most important antiquities and paintings from the Medici collection were displayed, and with attribution to Titian. the boy's features are very similar to those on a series of portraits from about 1521 showing Sigismund Augustus as a child, while the costume to the medal by Giovanni Padovano from 1532. Both paintings were undoubtedly commissioned by queen Bona to be sent to major European courts. The young king received a humanist education, influenced by his mother, many aspects of which were sharply criticized by the queen's opponents and the conservatives at court. They complained about the softness in directing his youth and, in addition to Amatus, attacked the young king's court chamberlain Piotr Opaliński (ca. 1480-1551), a diplomat educated in Bologna, who taught German to Sigismund Augustus and his sister Isabella. Opaliński, who, according to Giovanni Marsupino's letter to Ferdinand I dated July 29, 1543 from Kraków, was "the worst of all", restrained the young king from hunting, because it could awaken in him a tendency to cruelty, so widespread in many European countries at that time, and harden his heart. Another Habsburg supporter, priest Stanisław Górski, added in a letter to Dantyszek in 1544: "Our young king, raised by women and Italians more fearful than women themselves, does not like camps" (after "Z dworu Zygmunta Starego. (Dokończenie)" by Kazimierz Morawski, p. 547). 
Portrait of Sigismund Augustus as a boy with his tutor Giovanni Silvio de Mathio by circle of Titian, ca. 1529, Louvre Museum.
Portrait of Sigismund Augustus as a boy by circle of Titian, ca. 1532, Uffizi Gallery.
Portraits of Sigismund I the Old and Bona Sforza by Titian
In 1808 Lucien Bonaparte (1775-1840), younger brother of Napoleon Bonaparte, acquired the "Portrait of the Duchess Sforza" along with 26 other paintings from the Riccardi collection in Florence (oil on canvas, 88.9 x 75.5 cm, Sotheby's New York, January 25, 2017, lot 34). This painting was sold in London on May 1816. Also the inventory of the collection in Palazzo Medici-Riccardi in Florence from the end of the 17th century lists the painting as Titian in the quarta stanza (fourth room) and as Ritratto d'una Duchessa Sforza (Portrait of a Duchess Sforza, Carte Riccardi, Archivio di Stato, Florence, fil. 267, c. 256 r.). The 15th century Palazzo Medici-Riccardi remained the principal residence of the Medici family until 1540 when Cosimo I moved his principal residence to the Palazzo Vecchio.
The woman is dressed in a fashionable, damask, fur-lined gown and green cap, called a balzo embroidered with gold, typical for the 1530s fashion in Italy. She wears the heavy gold paternoster girdle and a long string of pearls, which were very costly. This cannot be Christina of Denmark, who in 1534 at the age of 12 became Duchess of Milan as a wife Francesco II Sforza, as her face features do not match the painting by Titian, the sitter is older and Christina was not a Sforza. The sitter's face is very similar to other known effigies of Bona Sforza, Queen of Poland, Grand Duchess of Lithuania and also Duchess of Bari and Rossano by her own right, Duchess Sforza. She particularly resembles Queen Bona from her portrait in a pink dress, probably by Francesco Bissolo (National Gallery, London, inv. NG631), identified by me. A portrait of an old man in a dark tunic by Titian in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna has identical dimensions as portrait of Duchess Sforza (oil on canvas, 88 x 75 cm, inv. GG 94) and similar composition, just as later portraits of Sigismund II Augustus and his third wife Catherine of Austria. Both are painted on canvas. The man holds his left hand on a band of the coat, showing two rings that certify the high social status. The portrait was in the collection of Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria in Brussels and was included in the Theatrum pictorium (Theatre of Painting), a catalog of 243 Italian paintings in the Archduke's collection, under number 57, one number after portrait of Andrzej Frycz Modrzewski by Bernardino Licinio (56). Both portraits entered therefore the Archduke's collection at the same time. In reference to the description of a portrait painted by Titian, published in 1648 by Carlo Ridolfi, the likeness is identified as representing the physician Gian Giacomo Bartolotti da Parma (ca. 1465-1530). Ridolfi recalls that Titian "made another [portrait] of his physician, called 'the Parma', clean-shaven in the face, with gray hair reaching half an ear" (Altrone fece del Medico suo detto il Parma, di faccia rasa, con chioma canuta à mezza orecchia, "Le maraviglie dell'arte ...", p. 152), but in the Viennese portrait the man has longer hair covering his ears. Probably in the 18th century, the painting was enlarged by adding strips of canvas on the sides and bottom, which are visible in old photographs of the painting. These changes were removed after 1888. Titian's Portrait of an Old Man in the Lviv National Art Gallery, Ukraine (oil on canvas, 94.4 x 79.8, inv. Ж-756), is stylistically very similar to the Vienna portrait, so both were probably made at the same time. This portrait fits Ridolfi's description even better because the man in the portrait has shorter hair. The Lviv portrait was donated by Professor Florian Singer in 1858 and was signed in the upper right corner: Titianus P[inxit] (after Edward Chwalewik's "Zbiory polskie ...", p. 403), which is no longer visible today. The painting is identified as an effigy of Antonio Grimani (1434-1523), Doge of Venice from 1521 to 1523, who previously served as commander of the Venetian navy. The man in the portrait does indeed resemble Grimani from his posthumous portraits by Venetian painters (compare the portrait in Attingham Park, Shropshire, inv. NT 608980 or the tondo in Palazzo Grimani di Santa Maria Formosa in Venice), however, as in the Vienna portrait, the costume does not indicate the status of the sitter - leader of the Venetian Republic, in this case. If the elected ruler of Venice could be represented in such a modest costume, the same could apply to the elected monarch of Poland-Lithuania, which in many ways resembled the Venetian Serenissima. The earliest provenance of the Lviv painting is not known, so it cannot be excluded that it came from the royal collection of Sigismund I and was a gift to the king or that he commissioned this portrait of the Venetian doge (this painting has similar dimensions and composition to the portrait of the "Duchess Sforza" and the Vienna painting). David Teniers the Younger copied the portrait in the 1650s. This miniature, painted on panel, is in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston (oil on panel, 17.1 x 12.1 cm, inv. 66.266). The painting is one of a group of oil copies made by Teniers after paintings in the collection of Archduke Leopold Wilhelm. John Churchill (1650-1722), 1st Duke of Marlborough, who began collecting for Blenheim Palace in the first decade of the 18th century, purchased 120 of these copies, which remained together at Blenheim until 1886. The sitter's face is very similar to other known effigies of King Sigismund I the Old from the 1530s, such as his funerary statue by Bartolomeo Berrecci, made between 1529-1531, or his portrait on the silver altarpiece, made in Nuremberg between 1531-1538 (Sigismund's Chapel of Wawel Cathedral). Although no originals by Titian are preserved in Poland, several old inventories mention his works. The catalogue of the Wilanów Gallery from 1834 mentions two paintings by the Venetian master: "Roman Emperor in armor, a painting of very beautiful colors. Titian" (Cesarz Rzymski w zbroi, obraz bardzo pięknego kolorytu. Tycyan) and "Portrait of the Duke of Florence in black attire and Spanish beret, small round picture. Titian" (Portret Xięcia Florenckiego w czarnym stroiu i berecie Hiszpańskim, mały okrągły obrazek. Tycyan, compare "Spis obrazów znaidujących się w galeryi i pokojach Pałacu Willanowskiego ...", p. 7, 31, items 60, 344). In 1835, Michał Hieronim Radziwiłł (1744-1831) owned in Nieborów a copy of Titian's Venus of Urbino (Portrait of Princess Isabella Jagiellon nude), two landscapes with figures and a portrait of a lady in a dark green dress (compare "Katalog galerii obrazów sławnych mistrzów z różnych szkół zebranych ..." by Antoni Blank, p. 13, 64, 83, 123, items 33, 213, 273, 439). Many of these paintings were lost in the wars and evacuations, so it is difficult to determine whether they were actually painted by Titian, but the descriptions and attributions were generally more or less accurate, as in the case of Leonardo da Vinci's Salvator Mundi mentioned in the 1834 catalogue of the Wilanów Gallery (item 91, p. 11), which is today considered to be a copy by Cesare da Sesto (1477-1523), a painter from Leonardo's circle in Milan (inv. Wil.1016). Very interesting is the mention of the portrait of the "Duke of Florence" in Spanish costume, which indicates that Titian probably painted in Venice the effigy of Cosimo I de' Medici (1519-1574), the second and last Duke of Florence from 1537 to 1569. Bishop Paolo Giovio (1483-1552), an art collector and historian who owned several portraits painted by Titian and who had lived at the court of Cosimo since 1549, praised the monarch of Poland-Lithuania-Ruthenia in the following words: "we will have great help not only from all the cavalry and infantry of France, but also from King Sigismund of Poland, because of his religion and virtue, for he is accustomed to fighting successfully against the infidels, and he will lead his very strong armies into the field without any delay; so that there is no reason to doubt that victory is now almost certain" (... hauremo grandissimi aiuti non pure di tutta la caualleria & fanteria di Francia, ma anchora Gismondo re di Polonia per conto di religione & di virtu, essendo egli auezzo a combattere felicemente cótra glinfedeli, senza alcuna dimora menerà in campo i suoi fortifsimi esserciti; talche non s'ha da dubitar punto della vittoria gia quasi che certa, after "La seconda parte dell'historie del suo tempo ...", published in Florence in 1553, p. 756). "[The King of Poland] considers himself very old, but every night he sleeps with his wife. He is too robust for his age", a Venetian diplomat wrote to his superiors in 1532 (after "Sypialnia królowej Bony na Wawelu ..." by Kamil Janicki). 
Portrait of King Sigismund I the Old (1467-1548) by Titian, 1532-1538, Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.
Portrait of Queen Bona Sforza (1494-1557) by Titian, 1532-1538, Private collection.
Portrait of King Sigismund I the Old (1467-1548) by David Teniers the Younger after Titian, 1650s, Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
Portrait of King Sigismund I the Old (1467-1548) from the Theatrum Pictorium (57) by Jan van Troyen after Titian, 1660, Princely Court Library in Waldeck.
Portrait of Antonio Grimani (1434-1523), Doge of Venice by Titian, after 1521, Lviv National Art Gallery.
Portraits of Hedwig Jagiellon by Titian and Giovanni Cariani
"In Poland there are mountains in which the salt goes down very deep, particularly at Wieliczka and Bochnia. Here on the fifth of January, 1528, I climbed down fifty ladders in order to see for myself and there in the depths observed workers, naked because of the heat, using iron tools to dig out a most valuable hoard of salt from these inexhaustible mines, as if it had been gold and silver. I also saw, and talked with, the very beautiful, wise maiden, Hedwig, daughter of the good King Sigismund the First. She was finer than all the riches I have just mentioned, and worthy of a glorious realm", wrote in his work Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus (A Description of the Northern Peoples), printed in Rome 1555, the Swedish scholar and prelate, Olaus Magnus (1490-1557), last Catholic archbishop of Uppsala, who lived the latter half of his life in exile.
On the Wawel Hill, Princess Hedwig and her court, which was almost unchanged until her departure in 1535, lived in a house, which does not exist today, built opposite the southern entrance to the cathedral, in front of the gate leading to the castle courtyard. The chamberlian of her court was Mikołaj Piotrowski, brother of Jan, the Abbot of Tyniec, the superintendent of the kitchen (praefectus culinae) was Jan Guth, called Grot, of Radwan coat of arms from Pliszczyn, the stewards were Orlik, Żegota Morski, Hincza Borowski, Andrzejek and Szczęsny and the Princess' ladies-in-waiting were: Ożarowska and Ossolińska, Anna Zopska, Morawianka, who came to Poland with Hedwig's mother, Elżbieta Długojowska, Stadnicka and Lasocka, female dwarf Dorota and Dorota the laundress and the priest, Father Aleksy. According to Jan Boner's accounts, the Princess' court cost from about 3 to 5 thousand florins annually. Hedwig, "much loved by the king of Hungary" (molto amata dal re d'Ungharia), as wrote Ercole Daissoli in 1535, frequently received gifts from her uncle John Zapolya, like in February 1527, when his envoy Joannes Statilius, brought her a cross set with diamonds, emeralds, rubies and pearls and wonderful cups for the king and the queen. When on November 1526, Zapolya was proclaimed king of Hungary, she took part in the thanksgiving Te Deum laudamus service in the Wawel cathedral. When she passed the news of the victory of her uncle over the Archduke Ferdinand of Austria to the Kraków nuns, "overcome with the frenzy of joy, they laughed and danced", reported the envoy of the Viennese court, Georg Logschau, clearly embittered. Earlier in the year, on October 10, 1526, dressed in mourning clothes, she sat in the choir stalls of Wawel Cathedral, covered with black cloth, during the exequies for the soul of the late King Louis Jagiellon, who had died in Mohacs, and in June 1532, she participated, alongside Bona and her half-sisters, in a votive mass of thanksgiving celebrated at Wawel after Sigismund I had recovered from an illness that had been plaguing him for some time (after "Królewna Jadwiga i jej książeczka do spowiedzi" by Urszula Borkowska, p. 87). At that time, the princess undoubtedly also dressed in the Italian style. Her stepmother's Italian tailor Pietro Patriarcha (Patriarca) from Bari, active at the Polish-Lithuanian court from around 1524, also worked for Hedwig (after "Działalność Włochów w Polsce ..." by Danuta Quirini-Popławska, p. 58-59). In April 1533, when Sigismund and Bona, with the young king Sigismund Augustus and their daughter Isabella Jagiellon left for Lithuania, Hedwig remained in Kraków with younger sisters Sophia, Anna and Catherine under the custody of a bishop Piotr Tomicki. During this time the new marriage projects related to the eldest daughter of the king, in which Queen Bona, the Habsburgs, her uncle king of Hungary and Duke Albert of Prussia participated vividly, grew more intense. Among the candidates were Frederick of the Palatinate (1482-1556) and Louis of Bavaria (1495-1545), supported by the Habsburgs. Both Johannes Dantiscus and Piotr Tomicki, who were engaged in marriage negotiations, thought about the latter with reluctance, believing that it is not right to wed a beautiful and healthy girl to a sick man and Frederick was ready to marry the Polish princess only for her dowry. The princess did not learn German, which may indicate that her stepmother was planning for her more distant, most probably Italian marriage. On June 13, 1533 Hedwig's mother, Queen Barbara Zapolya, the first wife of Sigismund was reburied in the recently completed Sigismund Chapel built by Italian architects and sculptors. The king, who earlier commissioned a silver altarpiece for the chapel from the best artists in Nuremberg, also commissioned a jewelled casket for his daughter (Hermitage Museum). A portrait attributed to Giovanni Cariani or Bernardino Licinio in the Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice (oil on canvas, 83 x 76 cm, inv. 0304/ E16), shows a young woman in a black, most probably mourning dress, from the 1530s (dated to 1533 by Federico Zeri). The woman's face is astonishingly similar to effigies of Hedwig Jagiellon, especially her portrais by Lucas Cranach the Elder as Madonna (Detroit Institute of Arts) and as Venus (Gemäldegalerie in Berlin). It was therefore a modello for a series of paintings that remained in Venice, a gift for a potential suitor in Italy or a painting that returned to the place of its origin with one of the notable Polish-Lithuanian royal guests in Venice - Queen Bona Sforza in 1556, Queen Marie Casimire in 1699 or her daughter Teresa Kunegunda Sobieska, Electress of Bavaria, who spent ten years in exile in Venice between 1705 and 1715. The painting is considered a probable counterpart to the portrait of a man in a fur from the same museum (inv. 0300/ E15, compare Codice di catalogo nazionale: 0500440177), which according to my identification represents Jan Janusz Kościelecki (1490-1545), castellan of Łęczyca. Both paintings have similar dimensions, however the composition does not match because the woman stands closer and fills almost the entire canvas. Moreover, Kościelecki's portrait is dated "1526", while the woman's black dress and hairstyle indicate the early 1530s. The same woman, in the same, although more disarranged attire, is depicted in the painting which was attributed to Palma Vecchio, then to Giovanni Cariani and now to Titian, in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna (oil on panel, 59.5 x 44.5 cm, inv. GG 68). It is verifiable in the Imperial gallery Vienna as far as 1720, thus it was a gift for the Habsburgs, so engaged in Princess' marriage projects. In another version, attributed to Titian, she has a pose and dress similar to those in Cariani's painting, but a brighter brown dress. This painting is also attributed to Bernardino Licinio (compare Fototeca Zeri, Numero scheda 39425). A closer look at the style of this painting indicates that the author was not Italian, as the painting closely resemble the works of the Flemish painter Gonzales Coques (1614/18-1684), who probably copied the original by Titian or Cariani. According to my identifications, Coques often worked for the Polish-Lithuanian monarchs. 
Portrait of Crown Princess Hedwig Jagiellon (1513-1573) in a black dress by Giovanni Cariani, ca. 1533, Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice.
Portrait of Crown Princess Hedwig Jagiellon (1513-1573) in a black dress by Titian, ca. 1533, Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.
Portrait of Crown Princess Hedwig Jagiellon (1513-1573) in a brown dress by Gonzales Coques, second half of the 17th century after the original from about 1533, Private collection. Virtual reconstruction, © Marcin Latka
Portraits of Diana di Cordona by Bernardino Licinio and Lucas Cranach the Elder
The portrait of an Italian lady in crimson robe by Bernardino Licinio was first recorded in the inventory of Dresden collection in 1722 (Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, oil on canvas, 99 x 83 cm, inv. Gal.-Nr. 200). It is highly probable, that just as other paintings from the royal collection it was taken from Warsaw in 1720 by Augustus II the Strong. It shows a woman in her thirties wearing an elaborate costume of a noble. Her bonnet is embroidered with gold thread and adorned with flowers of gold and enamel or precious stones. The pattern on the bonnet is very much like a gentian, called Diana (Gentiana Diana), which owes its name to Roman goddess of the hunt, the wilderness, childbirth and the Moon. Diana was also one of the goddesses of night, therefore dark blue was her color. The pattern with some violet flowers and three main plants is also very similar to flowering cardoon (cardo in Italian and Spanish), exactly as in the coat of arms of the Sicilian noble family of Spanish-Catalan origin, Cardona. The motif is threfore a reference to sitter's name Diana de Cardona, better known under Italianized version of her name Diana di Cordona.
The portrait is signed and dated (M.DXXXIII / B. LYCINII. P) on the niche behind the figure and in an underlying layer of paint (P [or B]. LICINI. F [or P] / MDXXX [?]), both partly obliterated. In 1533 Sigismund I ordered his banker, Seweryn Boner, to order in Bruges for himself and his wife Bona 60 tapestries with the coats of arms of Poland, Milan and Lithuania, 26 pieces without coats of arms and 6 very expensive "figural" tapestries. It is highly possible that around that time some paintings and portraits were also commissioned. Also in the same year Queen Bona wanted to change her hereditary Rossano principality into the estate of Pietro Antonio Sanseverino, Prince of Bisignano. As a daughter of Gian Galeazzo Sforza, Duke of Milan her Italian inheritance was very important to Bona. After an accident in 1527 she could not have more children, so she put all her faith in her only son, Sigismund Augustus, who rechaed legal age of 14 years old in 1534, for continuation of the dynasty. To facilitate his entry into adulthood, she agreed or possibly even arranged his affair with her lady-in-waiting Diana di Cordona, who was just five years younger than Bona (born in 1494). Raised by Countess Ribaldi in Rome, Diana had an abundant life and allegedly infected Sigismund Augustus with syphilis. When the young king married in 1543, she most probably left for her native Sicily. The same woman as in the Dresden portrait by Licinio was also depicted in the painting from the same pariod by Lucas Cranach the Elder in the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid (oil on panel, 75 x 120 cm, inv. 115 (1986.13)). It was acquired in Berlin in 1918 from the collection of the painter Wilhelm Trübner. It's earlier history is unknown. It is possible that it was taken from Poland during the Deluge - "the elector [of Brandenburg] himself took to Prussia as a spoil, the most valuable paintings and silverware of the royal table", wrote Wawrzyniec Jan Rudawski about the looting of royal residencies in Warsaw in 1656. The painting shows Diana the Huntress as the nymph of the Sacred Spring, whose posture recalls Giorgione's and Titian's Venuses, a clear inspiration by Venetian painting. The inscription in Latin, which reads: FONTIS NYMPHA SACRI SOM: / NVM NE RVMPE QVIESCO (I am the Nymph of the Sacred Spring: Do not disturb my sleep. I am resting.), indicate that the client who ordered the painting was not speaking German, therefore could be either Queen Bona or Diana herself. Egeria, the nymph of a sacred spring, celebrated at sacred groves close to Rome, was a form of Diana. In the grove at Nemi, near Rome there was a spring, sacred to Diana. She was believed to bless men and women with offspring and to assist mothers in childbirth. Two partridges in the painting are a symbol of sexual desire as according to Aelian (Claudius Aelianus) partridges have no control over it (after Steven D. Smith's "Man and Animal in Severan Rome: The Literary Imagination of Claudius Aelianus", p. 183). 
Portrait of Diana di Cordona, mistress of king Sigismund Augustus by Bernardino Licinio, 1530s, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden.
Diana di Cordona, mistress of king Sigismund Augustus as Diana the Huntress-Egeria by Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1530s, Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum in Madrid.
Portraits of Beatrice Roselli and Ludovico Alifio by Bernardino Licinio
After the ceremonies of the so-called Prussian Homage of Duke Albert of Prussia (1490-1568), nephew of King Sigismund I, in Kraków (April 10, 1525), several couples from the court of the King and Queen Bona got married. In May and June, at Wawel Castle, Beatrice Roselli married Gabriel Morawiec, Porzia Arcamone married Jan Trzciński, and Urszula Maciejowska married Jan Leżeński. A similar ceremony took place in September, when Katarzyna Mokrska married Jan Wrzesiński and Anna Zopska married Żegota Mokrski. During the wedding ceremonies, tournaments and knightly games were held in the courtyard, and the court presented the brides with expensive imported Italian fabrics and sweets (compare "Kim jest nieznana dama herbu Ciołek?" by Helena Kozakiewiczowa, p. 141).
The marriage of Italian women from Bona's entourage with Poles aroused great interest in court circles. Jan Zambocki reported this to his friend Jan Dantyszek, the Polish ambassador to Spain, in a letter from Kraków on September 12, 1525: "The court follows its own course, they get married and are married. Two Apulian maidens were now married: one to the son of the voivode of Rawa, the other to the glutton Morawiec" (Curia cursum suum tenet. Nubunt et nubuntur. Duae puellae Appulae traditae sunt maritis: alteram palatinides Ravensis, alteram vorax ille Morawyecz duxit). Beatrice Roselli (or de Rosellis), a noblewoman from Naples, who married the royal courtier Gabriel Morawiec of Mysłów, a great tournament player, received from the queen as a wedding gift 22 ells of yellow damask and 20 ells of grey Florentine damask, as well as a dowry of 200 zlotys (florins). The gifts for Urszula Maciejowska were similar: on May 17 of that year, Boner noted expenses for 20 ells of white damask and 18 ells of grey damask and 6 ells of black velvet edged with gold, and on June 30 for sweets. Likewise Porzia Arcamone, of the powerful and very branched Arcamone family of Greek origin, who received from the queen 20 ells of golden damask and the same amount of grey Florentine damask. Morawiec assured his wife a dower of 800 zlotys (or 400 florins) on his estates located in the Lublin province. A branch of the Rosellis lived in Bari at the beginning of the 16th century, including Raguzio, canon of Bari Cathedral, and his brother Loysio with his sons Raguzio, Niccolo and Cesare. Niccolo, probably Beatrice's brother, married Isabella de Charis, sister of the court cook of Bona. On the occasion of Beatrice's wedding, a tournament was held at the castle, in which the Tęczyński brothers took part. Beatrice's married life did not last long. In 1531, Morawiec died without an heir, having squandered his wife's dowry, and Beatrice was forced to give part of her property to Mikołaj, her husband's brother, with the consent of the king and queen. However, Bona obtained appropriate compensation (Mikołaj Morawiec promised to pay Beatrice 1,200 florins in two installments) and, adding her own money, she acquired an estate for her (after "Działalność Włochów w Polsce ..." by Danuta Quirini-Popławska, p. 30, 99). Shortly afterwards, for unknown reasons, and without prior notice to the queen, Beatrice left Poland for Ferrara, where she joined the daughters of the last King of Naples, Giulia (1492-1542) and Isabella d'Aragona (1496-1550). After the death of the princesses' mother, the Dowager Queen Isabella del Balzo in 1533, they all went to Spain to the court of Germaine of Foix (d. 1536), Vicereine of Valencia, who was married to Ferdinand of Aragon (1488-1550), Duke of Calabria, son of Isabella del Balzo. Roselli's sudden departure from Poland led to the confiscation of her property in Poland, as well as in Bari. Her estate in Poland was given by Bona, touched by Beatrice's ingratitude, to one of her distinguished courtiers. Taking advantage of her connections at the Spanish court and at the court of Ferrara, Beatrice obtained in 1538 letters of recommendation from the Emperor Charles V and from Duke Ercole II d'Este to Queen Bona, to restore her to grace and return her estates in Poland and Italy. The mediation of Doctor Valentino, who had great influence over the queen, was even resorted to. However, this was to no avail and Beatrice remained in Spain at the mercy of the princesses of Aragon (after "Królowa Bona ..." by Władysław Pociecha, p. 87, 88, 276). Was Roselli spying for the Spanish court or did she reveal secrets of Queen Bona? It is quite possible. At the same time, the situation became difficult for another of Bona's courtiers, Ludovico Masati de Alifio (Aliphia or Aliphius, 1499-1543). On 28 August 1530, Sigismund I and Bona appointed him governor of the principalities of Bari and Rossano. The governor was in conflict with the inhabitants of the principalities and in 1533 he was even prosecuted before the pontifical tribunal because of the imprisonment in Bari of the bishop of Saida in Syria - Cyprian. The open conflict with the treasurer of the Duchy of Bari, Gian Giacomo Affaitati (Giovanni Giacomo de Affatatis), provoked a strong reaction from his subordinates. In addition, Alifio lost the queen's favor and was forced to leave Italy at the end of 1534. In Poland, as he wrote to Jan Dantyszek, the court had moved to Vilnius and the mood towards him was not friendly. He believed that the envy of his enemies and false accusations had caused a change in the court's attitude towards him. He expressed hope that Dantyszek's intercession with the queen would allow him to regain the lost royal favor (after "Działalność Włochów w Polsce ..." by Danuta Quirini-Popławska, p. 98). Bona's letter to Duke Ercole II confirms that he had indeed lost her favour and had already intervened on his behalf in Ferrara, explaining the situation in the opposite way to what Bona had written. He did not exonerate himself before the queen's envoy in Italy, but came to Poland counting on the support of his friends and the lack of witnesses. In the meantime, the treasurer Affaitati, exiled by Alifio, despite his advanced age, personally went to Bona's court at the end of 1534 with his entire retinue. Arriving in Kraków, he learned that the royal couple was staying in Vilnius, where he went escorted by royal courtiers. In Vilnius, he was very kindly received by the queen and she not only approved him in his position, but also gave him generous gifts. Despite this, on his way back, Affaitati was arrested and imprisoned in the queen's castle in Pinsk (Belarus). It is possible that Alifio managed to convince the queen of the truth of his claims and make her change her mind, or perhaps a clique of Alifio's confidants acted independently. The affair of Affaitati's imprisonment was widely discussed in court circles and reflected in the correspondence of the period. The Spanish cardinal Esteban Gabriel Merino (Stefano Gabriele Merino, d. 1535), archbishop of Bari and bishop of Jaén, and five other cardinals also wrote on the subject. Even Pope Paul III Farnese intervened in defense of Affaitati with the Bishop of Kraków and Vice-Chancellor Piotr Tomicki on February 26, 1535. The Pope was informed that Affaitati had been maliciously and deceptively imprisoned by Bona, and the letter was not addressed directly to the queen, but to Tomicki. The death of the old treasurer, shortly afterwards, in mysterious circumstances, in prison in Pinsk Castle, is attributed to the machinations of Alifio, who soon left Poland permanently, first for Vienna, then for Venice, where until his death in 1543, he carried out certain diplomatic and financial tasks for Bona (after "Tryumfy i porażki ..." by Maria Bogucka, p. 103). Since both Beatrice and Ludovico fell out of favor with the queen around the same time and both sought mediation in Ferrara, the two cases were probably connected. In the Prado Museum in Madrid there is a portrait of a woman holding a book, attributed to Bernardino Licinio (oil on canvas, 98 x 70 cm, inv. P000289). The painting comes from the Spanish Royal Collection (Royal Alcázar of Madrid, 1734) and was previously considered to be the work of Paris Bordone (museum inventory of 1857, no. 693). The woman is identified as the painter's sister-in-law, Agnese, because of her resemblance to the central female figure in the portrait of Arrigo Licinio and his family, a work signed by Bernardino (Galleria Borghese in Rome, inv. 115). The resemblance is very general and the woman in the Prado painting has a darker southern complexion and hair, more typical of Naples than of the Veneto. The costume, on the other hand, is very similar and typical for Italian fashion of the 1530s. The family portrait of Arrigo Licinio is dated around 1535 and similar costumes can be seen in Licinio's portrait of Diana di Cordona (Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden, inv. Gal.-Nr. 200), identified by me, as well as in Parmigianino's so-called "Turkish Slave" (Galleria nazionale di Parma, inv. GN1147) or Bartolomeo Veneto's Portrait of a lady in a green dress (Timken Museum of Art, inv. 1979:003, dated "1530"). The book the woman is holding appears to be a petrarchino, a book of Petrarchan verses, similar to the one seen in the portraits of Queen Bona by Licinio, identified by me. She was therefore most likely a court lady, while her gray dress indicates that she was most likely one of the ladies of Queen Bona's court, who received gray damask as a wedding gift. The ring on the woman's finger is probably the wedding ring, so the portrait would usually be accompanied by a portrait of her husband. No such pendant is known, so the woman was probably a widow for some time before the portrait was executed. All these facts speak strongly in favor of identifying the sitter as Beatrice Roselli, who undoubtedly traveled through Venice from Kraków and then further to Spain. In the British Royal Collection there is another interesting painting by Licinio from the same period (oil on canvas, 94.7 x 79.1 cm, inv. RCIN 402790). This painting is considered a possible disguised portrait and depicts a man as the apostle Saint Paul and was first recorded in the Closet near the Chapel at Hampton Court in 1861. The cartellino in the upper left corner bears the painter's signature and the date "1534" (M.D.XXX-IIII / Bernardinj Lycinij / Opus:-). The man holds a sword in his hand, the instrument of Saint Paul's martyrdom, however this highly decorative weapon looks more like a sword of justice (gladius iustitiae), a ceremonial sword that is used to signify the supreme judicial power of a monarch. It could be compared to the sword of Sigismund the Old decorated with engraved Renaissance ornaments (Wawel Castle), originally used as a sword of justice and later for the ennoblement of knights. The man shows the passage from the Epistle of St. Paul to the Ephesians, in an open book placed on a parapet: "Therefore, putting away lying, speak the truth, each one to his neighbor, because we are members of one another". Like Alifio, the man demanded truth and justice in 1534. 
Portrait of Beatrice Roselli, lady-in-waiting of Queen Bona Sforza, holding a book by Bernardino Licinio, ca. 1533, Prado Museum in Madrid.
Portrait of Ludovico Masati de Alifio (1499-1543) as Saint Paul the Apostle by Bernardino Licinio, 1534, Royal Collection.
The Fable of the Mouth of Truth with disguised portraits of Queen Bona Sforza d'Aragona and her courtiers by workshop of Lucas Cranach the Elder
In the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg there is an interesting painting from the workshop of Lucas Cranach the Elder (oil on panel, 75.5 x 117.4 cm, inv. Gm1108). It is an illustration of the medieval story of the adulterous wife - The Fable of the Mouth of Truth (Wiles of Women). The story most likely has its source in a legend according to which the Bocca della Verità (Mouth of Truth) in the Basilica di Santa Maria in Cosmedin in Rome, an ancient Roman fountain or drain cover in the form of a marble mask, perhaps from the Temple of Hercules Victorious, would bite off the hand of any liar who puts his hand in its mouth. In the 11th century, the mask was attributed the power to pronounce oracles in the Mirabilia urbis Romae (a medieval guide for pilgrims). The German Imperial Chronicle (Kaiserchronik) of the 12th century refers to a fable according to which a statuette of Mercury (found in the waters of the Tiber) bit the hand of the dishonorable emperor Julian, known as Julian the Apostate in Christian tradition. The same statue later convinced him to renounce the Christian faith. The American folklorist Alexander Haggerty Krappe (1894-1947) has indicated possible sources from the East that use the topos of the hand-biting statue (after "La Bocca della Verità" by Christopher S. Wood, p. 69).
According to the legend depicted in the painting, a woman accused of adultery had to undergo the ordeal of the Bocca della Verità in front of her husband and a judge. She convinced her lover to come with her disguised as a jester and, at the crucial moment, he mischievously embraced her. By placing her hand in the lion's mouth, she was then able to swear that no man, except her husband and this jester, had ever touched her. Because she told the truth, the lion did not bite her hand. The fool, her disguised lover, was not taken seriously by the witnesses and remained unrecognized. The painting is considered to be a workshop work, painted by the master and his assistants or his son Hans Cranach, which indicates that there probably existed a painting painted by Cranach himself and that this one was only a copy. The painter also created another version of this composition, which comes from the collection of Countess Hardenberg, Schloss Neuhardenberg and is considered to be an earlier version painted by Cranach himself (Sotheby's London, July 8, 2015, lot 8). Unlike the Neuhardenberg painting, where the three main characters in the scene are clearly identifiable - the wife, her lover and her husband - in the Nuremberg painting, the main characters are the wife, her lover and two other women on the right, accomplices of the wife. The figure of the woman's husband is missing (although it is possible that the husband is the bearded old man on the right, behind the women). The painter changed the scene and all the characters. None of the people depicted in the two paintings are identical. He also changed the poses, costumes, and composition. The women in the Nuremberg painting wear more jewelry, as if to indicate their wealth and superior position. It seems that the person who commissioned the painting wanted to indicate the duplicity and perfidy of these three women. If the scene was a general moralistic painting, why did the painter and his workshop not borrow elements from the previous scene, especially since it was painted with the assistants? Such a practice was common and would have allowed them to complete the work more quickly. All these factors indicate that the Nuremberg painting is full of disguised portraits and that in addition to the meaning referring to the medieval legend, it also has an additional hidden meaning understandable to the people to whom this meaning was addressed. The commissioner of the painting must have been a wealthy person, because Cranach's workshop was one of the most renowned in Germany and, by referring to the Italian legend, he wanted to emphasize the duplicity of an Italian woman who dominates the scene and and looks at the viewer in a meaningful way. This is Queen Bona Sforza d'Aragona and, according to the date inscribed in the lower left corner of the painting, it was made in 1534, the year in which the imprisonment of the treasurer of the duchy of Bari Gian Giacomo Affaitati and his mysterious death in the Bona's castle in Pinsk (Belarus), upset many people in Europe. The effigy of the queen is very reminiscent of other portraits by Cranach, which I have identified, including the portrait from the Medici collection in the Villa del Poggio Imperiale in Florence (inv. 558 / 1860) or the portrait as the roman heroine Lucretia (Weiss Gallery, London in 2014). The queen's expression can be compared to that of another Lucretia by Cranach or workshop in the former royal palace in Wilanów in Warsaw (inv. Wil.1749). The German painter must have painted Bona's effigies frequently, so he had a lot of study drawings that he could draw on to create this political allegory. The use of Cranach's studio is also not accidental. The painting comes from the Picture Gallery of Mannheim Palace, where it was inventoried in 1799 under the number 570. The palace was until 1777 the main residence of the prince-electors of the Electorate of the Palatinate. When the painting was created in 1534, the prince-elector of the Palatinate was the Catholic Louis V (1478-1544), who voted in 1519 for Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, and married Sibylla of Bavaria (1489-1519), daughter of Cunegonde of Austria (1465-1520), Duchess of Bavaria by her marriage to Albert IV. The Elector's brother and successor, Frederick II of the Palatinate (1482-1556), served as a general in the service of Ferdinand I of Austria, King of Bohemia, Hungary and Croatia, maintained friendly relations with Emperor Charles V and performed various diplomatic duties in Rome, Madrid and Paris. Those familiar with the story of Queen Bona and her struggle with the Habsburgs, who longed for the crown of Poland (the crown they would never obtain in the male line) and her duchies in southern Italy, will immediately consider the two main candidates who could inspire such a painting - Charles V or his brother Ferdinand I, both of whom were painted by Cranach (for example the portraits of Charles V in the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid and in the Wartburg-Stiftung in Eisenach or the portrait of Ferdinand I in Güstrow Castle) or their supporters like Frederick II of the Palatinate. The wife of the elected monarch, Queen of Poland, Grand Duchess of Lithuania, Lady of Ruthenia and Duchess of Bari, challenged not only the Habsburg Empire, one of the largest in history, but also male dominance, as evidenced by her effigies in the guise of female heroines such as Judith and Lucretia. She was supported in this task by her court ladies, who represented the queen's interests in the main regions of the country. They are depicted on the right side of the painting. The letter of the Habsburg envoy to the Polish-Lithuanian court Giovanni Marsupino, allows us to identify one of them, the most influential in the Crown (Poland). Although it can be considered exaggerated, it also provides a valuable insight into the court of Queen Bona: "The old king forbids her to do so, but what if this poor old king has no will of his own and cannot be relied upon: for as soon as Bona weeps before His Royal Majesty and begins to scratch her face and eyes and tear her hair, the king immediately says: Do what you want, go and order as you like! She is the king. There is no one at court. Mr. Tarnowski is in his domains; Mr. Boner is in his castles. Only one bishop of Płock [Samuel Maciejowski (1499-1550)] is staying here, as vice-chancellor. The archbishop [Piotr Gamrat (1487-1545)] and his wife are in Mazovia. Mrs. Bona rules everything. One is queen, the other pope; thus secular and spiritual interests are in good hands. Wrantz [the envoy of John Sigismund Zapolya, King of Hungary] had several secret consultations with Mrs. Bona: all of them were working towards the Turk tearing Hungary out of the hands of Your Royal Majesty, giving it to her grandson [John Sigismund Zapolya] and destroy Austria. There are honest people here who, of their own free will and without Your Royal Majesty knowing, insist that the king send to the Turk to persuade him to make peace; but Mrs. Bona prevented everything, to the great horror of the entire Senate and all the honorable people. And yet who does not know that after conquering Hungary, the Turk will also think of neighboring Poland, which he would easily conquer; this is what everyone here fears. And on this subject I could tell Your Royal Majesty strange things, what Mrs. Bona has done and what she still does in favor of the Turks and the French, against Your Royal Majesty: the Bishop of Płock says that she is a demon that cannot be driven out by fasting and prayer. Your Royal Majesty writes, she answers, and everything ends with words", reports Marsupino to Ferdinand I on August 19, 1543. He also advised the Emperor, brother of Ferdinand I, to take the Duchy of Bari and thus force Queen Bona into submission (after "Jagiellonki polskie w XVI wieku" by Alexander Przezdziecki, Volume 1, p. 139-140). The Italian agent of the Habsburgs calls Her Majesty the Queen of Poland in the mentioned letter "Mrs. Bona", as if she were a simple townswoman, which also perfectly illustrates their attitude towards her. The "archbishop's wife" is Dorota Dzierzgowska née Sobocka, wife of Jan Dzierzgowski (d. 1548), voivode of Mazovia, starost of Warsaw and Łowicz, mistress of Piotr Gamrat, archbishop of Gniezno and primate of Poland. The sources confirm that Queen Bona owned a portrait of Dorota and that she "placed this portrait next to a similar woman, the voivodess of Vilnius, and other portraits of the most distinguished persons" (after "Zbiór pamiętników historycznych o dawnej Polszcze ..." by Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz, Volume 4, p. 36). This voivodess of Vilnius should be identified as the widowed princess Sophia Vereyska, wife of Albertas Gostautas (died 1539), the wealthiest woman of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania to whom Queen Bona sent a letter addressed on June 4, 1543. So Sophia is the woman standing next to Dorota in the Nuremberg painting. The "archbishop's wife", like Queen Bona, looks at the viewer meaningfully and holds her hand on her protruding belly. The author of the concept of this painting probably wanted to suggest that she had given a child to Archbishop Gamrat. She is depicted in the same way in two other paintings: the portrait from the collection of the last elected king of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth Stanislaus Augustus Poniatowski (Czartoryski Museum, inv. MNK XII-238) and the court scene Hercules at the court of Omphale by Lucas Cranach the Elder (Fondation Bemberg, inv. 1098). The jester/lover is therefore Dorota's husband, Jan Dzierzgowski, or her brother Tomasz Sobocki (d. 1547), tribune of Łęczyca, educated in Wittenberg, who thanks to her support became the Crown Cupbearer in 1539. The man in the red velvet costume lined with fur who stands behind Queen Bona should be identified as another of her favourites, Mikołaj Dzierzgowski (ca. 1490-1559), canon of Warsaw, Płock and Gniezno, Count of Dzierzgowo, educated in Padua. If the bearded old man on the right is the husband of an adulterous wife, he can be considered as King Sigismund - his age and appearance are generally similar to known effigies of the king, including the protruding lower lip. Since the queen used allegory and disguise in her struggle against male domination, the Nuremberg painting should be seen as a reaction to her actions - the virtuous heroines of biblical and Roman antiquity were confronted with the image of female duplicity. Another weapon of Queen Bona, epigrams and the pasquinade (pasquillo in Italian), was also used against her on several occasions. When Bona inspired the campaign of insults against her son's mistress Barbara Radziwill, some authors from Sigismund Augustus' circle began to attack the queen and the female influences at court. Spanish poet and lawyer Pedro Ruiz de Moros (Petrus Roysius, d. 1571), who initially praised Bona, the highness and nobility of her family and that she introduced social refinement to Poland, as well as that she is humane and charitable (although she has a snake in her coat of arms), in one malicious epigram compares the kingdom to a game of chess: Sigismund I plays the role of a too calm chess king and Bona of a lively queen. There are several other epigrams written by Roysius under fictitious names about powerful and influential women. Roysius maintains that one should not take into account the opinion of a woman, a creature less perfect than a man and that public affairs and politics definitely belong to men, not to women: "For whoever shares my opinion will not approve of your behavior; public affairs do not belong to women". The poet says that he writes about them under a fictitious name because by mentioning the real one, he would risk his life (after "Royzyusz : jego żywot i pisma" by Bronisław Kruczkiewicz, Rozprawy Wydziału Filologicznego, p. 22/62-23/63). The majority of the epigrams undoubtedly concern the queen, In Chlorim probably refers to Dzierzgowska, while another woman, whom the poet calls Maevia, was probably Sophia Vereyska. It is also worth noting that in an epigram on Queen Bona and her predecessor Queen Barbara Zapolya Roysius states that he does not understand the Sarmatian magnates, who were also not happy with Barbara, much less involved in politics than Bona (Ad Sarmatam de reginis Bona et Barbara: Barbara non placuit, placuit minus ante Latina; Nescio quid mirae, Sarmata, mentis habes?). So perhaps this has more to do with Poles complaining about everything and anything than with the dire reality of events. Some of these pasquinades were undoubtedly also financed by the Habsburgs, who eagerly granted the titles of hereditary imperial princes or counts to the Sarmatian magnates. The appointment of Jan Latalski (1463-1540), called "Bacchus" by the people because of his penchant for strong drinks, with the support of Bona as Archbishop of Poznań (1525), as well as the ever-increasing influence of the queen, irritated her secretary Andrzej Krzycki (1482-1537), who in a poem referred to the legend of the Wawel dragon and Bona's coat of arms: "When the dragon sat under Wawel, only Kraków perished, When he sat at Wawel, the homeland perishes". These voices of discontent, which are more often cited than the positive aspects of Bona's reign, should not obscure the fact that this period was one of the most prosperous in the history of Poland-Lithuania-Ruthenia and we must "emphasize her great merits for the civilization of Poland, for having increased prosperity, if only on her own domains, which she administered excellently, thus increasing the resources of the Jagiellonian dynasty" (after "Z dworu Zygmunta Starego" by Kazimierz Morawski, Przegląd polski, p. 221, 535). This prosperity was undoubtedly reflected in many magnificent works of art, especially portraits, although due to numerous wars, very few of them remain in the countries once ruled by Queen Bona. Since the 19th century, Cranach has been one of the icons of German culture and for many people it is completely unimaginable that his paintings could depict anyone other than ethnic Germans or representatives of German culture. It is therefore a laugh of history that one of the most despised nations of 19th century Germany, which they wanted to annihilate on several occasions (Deluge, Partitions and Germanization, World War I, World War II), contributed to the development of their culture. Many of Cranach's works were destroyed during these invasions. 
The Fable of the Mouth of Truth (Duplicity of Women) with disguised portraits of Queen Bona Sforza d'Aragona (1494-1557) and her courtiers by workshop of Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1534, Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg.
Portraits of Sigismund Augustus and Sigismund the Old by Christoph Amberger
On 10-11 November 1530 a marriage treaty on behalf of ten-year-old king Sigismund II Augustus and his four-year-old cousin Elizabeth of Austria (1526-1545), eldest daughter of Anna Jagellonica, Queen of Bohemia and Hungary, was signed in Poznań. On this occasion Elizabeth's father Ferdinand I, commissioned a series of portraits of his daughter and her three-year-old brother Maximilian from his court painter Jacob Seisenegger (Mauritshuis, Bayerisches Nationalmuseum). Everybody in Europe should know who will be the future Queen of Poland and Grand Duchess of Lithuania and who will be the future King of Bohemia and Hungary, despite the fact that the crowns of these countries were elective. Around 1533, when Sigismund Augustus was approaching the legal age of marriage (14), and his mother Bona wanted to break off the engagement or postpone the marriage, he most probably ordered an armour for the young king of Poland, created by Jörg Seusenhofer (Wawel Royal Castle). Its breastplate and sleeves proudly display the monogram formed by interweaving capital letters "E" and "S" (Elisabetha et Sigismundus). In 1537 Seisenegger created another portrait of eleven-year-old Archduchess Elizabeth and of her brother Maximilian.
The king of Poland undeniably received a portrait of his fiancée, and she received his portrait. The portrait attributed to Christoph Amberger in the Liechtenstein Museum in Vienna was acquired in the 18th century by Joseph Wenzel I, Prince of Liechtenstein (oil on panel, 68 x 51 cm, GE 1075). It shows a young man in a costume and hairstyle from the 1530s, similar to that visible in portraits of Archduke Maximilian by Seisenegger, bronze medal with a bust of Sigismund Augustus by Giovanni Maria Mosca, created in 1532, and anonymous print from 1569 after original effigy from about 1540. The collar of his shirt is embroidered with gold thread with depiction of the dextrarum iunctio (hand in hand), highly popular in Roman art. In the Roman world marriage was considered a dextrarum iunctio, a joining of hands and "the right hand was sacred to Fides, the deity of fidelity. The clasping of the right hand was a solemn gesture of mutual fidelity and loyalty" (after Stephen D. Ricks "Dexiosis and Dextrarum Iunctio: The Sacred Handclasp in the Classical and Early Christian World", 2006, p. 432). It was a popular motif in engagement rings. Some gold rings with this symbol preserved in Poland (Wawel - third quarter of the 16th century, Konin - 1604). Face features of the young man bears strong resemblance to other portraits of Sigismund Augustus, especially his portrait by Jan van Calcar in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. "He is of medium height, gaunt, with black hair and a stringy beard, dark - complexioned and and does not seem to be very strong, but rather feeble, and therefore he could not stand great hardships and exertion and often suffers from podagra. [...] In his youth he liked to dress richly, he wore Hungarian and Italian robes of various colors, today he always wears a long robe and does not use any other color except black", described the aging king few years before his death the Papal Nuncio Giulio Ruggieri in 1568. Being involved in many affairs and holding a large number of mistresses, historians agree that the king contracted the "Italian disease", as the French called syphilis. Two years earlier, in 1565, another Ruggieri, Flavio from Bologna, reported about Polish women that "adding charms by artificial means or dyeing their hair is a great disgrace to them". Sigismund's mother Bona Sforza was described as a lovely bright blonde with black eyelashes and eyebrows. Her court as Duchess of Bari and Rossano by her own right was on the other hand full of peoples of dark complexion and of Mediterranean descent. The word for a woman in Old Polish is białogłowa, literally meaning "white head", which most probably refers to fair hair of young women (after "Lud polski, jego zwyczaje, zabobony" by Łukasz Gołębiowski, published in 1830, p. 112) or a white cap. It is possible that later in his life Sigismund was darkening his hair to look more masculine and less "feeble", while his mother and sisters were lightening the hair to look more like a "white head", his hair darkened with age, he inherited a hair anomaly from his mother, painters used cheaper dark pigments to create copies, portraits and sitters' appearance was intentionally adapted to recipients - more northern look and costume for northern Princes, more southern look and costume for southern Princes, as a part of diplomacy, or painters received just a general drawing with sitter's appearance and adjusted the details (eye and hair color) to how they imagined the sitter. Christoph Amberger, primarily a portrait painter, was active in Augsburg, a Free Imperial City. A portrait of Emperor Charles V, brother of Ferdinand I, from 1532 in the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin is attributed to Amberger. Around 1548, he repaired the damaged equestrian portrait of Emperor Charles V in the presence of Titian, as the Venetian was about to leave, and with the sovereign's consent, he copied Titian's portraits of the emperor. It is believed that the idealized image of the emperor in the National Museum in Wrocław (oil on panel, 31 cm, inv. MNWr VIII-1458) was created from earlier effigies. It depicts Charles at the age of 44 (ÆTATIS. S. XXXXIIII.), so it was painted around 1544, and this portrait was previously attributed to Holbein, as confirmed by the inscription on the back (Holbein / pinxit). The portrait of Otto Henry of the Palatinate (1502-1559), grandson of Hedwig Jagiellon (1457-1502), Duchess of Bavaria, who visited Kraków at the turn of 1536 and 1537, was attributed to Amberger (State Gallery of the New Palace of Schleissheim before World War II). Before World War II in the royal Wilanów Palace in Warsaw, there was a portrait attributed to Amberger (oil on panel, 65 x 51 cm, inv. 15). It was identified as effigy of Charles the Bold (1433-1477), Duke of Burgundy due to some resemblance to his portraits and the collar of the Order of the Golden Fleece, that was established in 1430 by his father Philip the Good. The man's costume however does not match the fashion of the second half of the 15th century, it is more similar to that visible in portrait by Amberger in the Liechtenstein Museum in Vienna, described above. On March 7, 1519 in Barcelona, at the chapter of the Order of the Golden Fleece, Emperor Charles V granted the order to Sigismund I and the man resembles certain effigies of the king, however, the model in Wilanów's painting bears a striking resemblance to Sigismund's nephew John of Brandenburg-Ansbach (1493-1525), son of Sophia Jagiellon (1464-1512), based on his portrait by Lucas Cranach the Elder (Wartburg-Stiftung in Eisenach, inv. M0013), also shown wearing the Order of the Golden Fleece, which he received in 1515. Since the mid-19th century, the Wilanów painting has been considered the work of Hans Holbein the Younger or Amberger (after "Straty wojenne w zbiorach malarstwa w Wilanowie" by Irena Voisé, p. 75, item 41). In 1520, John returned to Germany for Charles's coronation. Cranach and Amberger therefore had the opportunity to meet him in person, yet, this is not confirmed in the documents, so both paintings may be based on other effigies. At Wawel Castle in Kraków there is another interesting painting attributed to Christoph Amberger (oil on panel, 38.5 x 27.5 cm, ZKnW-PZS 1117). It comes from the collection of Count Leon Jan Piniński (1857-1938) in Lviv, donated in 1931. The portrait, generally dated between 1541 and 1560, shows an old man in his study, and in this respect it resembles the portrait of the Gdańsk merchant Georg Gisze, painted by Holbein (Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, inv. 586). Interestingly, the man's pose was also most likely copied from Holbein's paintings, namely the portrait of a 28-year-old man, painted in 1530 (ANNO DNI / MDXXX / ÆTATIS / SVÆ 28), which was in the collection of Leopold Hirsch in London in 1912, a portrait of another 28-year-old man, painted in 1541 (ANNO · DÑI · 1541 · / · ETATIS · SVÆ · 28 ·), preserved in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna (inv. GG 905) and a copy in the Galleria Regionale della Sicilia in Palermo (inv. C004263). It was also used in the portrait of a bearded man, considered to depict Antoine the Good (1489-1544), Duke of Lorraine, which in 1912 was in the John G. Johnson collection in Philadelphia. This use of a ready-made template indicates that Wawel portrait was a pure studio invention, a collage in which the painter had just inserted the face of an old man. The old man closely resembles Seweryn Boner (1486-1549), banker to King Sigismund I, from his bronze funerary sculpture made between 1532-1538 in Nuremberg by Hans Vischer (Saint Mary's Basilica in Kraków). 
Portrait of king Sigismund II Augustus (1520-1572) by Christoph Amberger, ca. 1534, Liechtenstein Museum in Vienna.
Portrait of John of Brandenburg-Ansbach (1493-1525) by Christoph Amberger (?), ca. 1525 or after, Wilanów Palace in Warsaw, lost during World War II. Virtual reconstruction, © Marcin Latka
Portrait of an old man, most probably Seweryn Boner (1486-1549), banker of King Sigismund I, by Christoph Amberger, ca. 1541-1549, Wawel Royal Castle.
Portrait of Emperor Charles V (1500-1558), aged 44 by Christoph Amberger, ca. 1544, National Museum in Wrocław.
Portrait of King Ferdinand II of Aragon by workshop of Giovanni Cariani
In April 1518 Sigismund I married Bona Sforza d'Aragona, daughter of Isabella of Aragon, Duchess of Milan. On maternal side she was related to Ferdinand II of Aragon (1452-1516), king of Aragon and king of Castile, as the husband of Queen Isabella I, considered the de facto first king of unified Spain.
In the National Museum in Warsaw there is a "Portrait of a man with a golden chain", also identified as portrait of Louis XI, King of France from 1461 to 1483, attributed to unknown imitator of the 15th century Franco-Flemish manner (oil on canvas, 61 x 45.5 cm, inventory number M.Ob.1624 MNW). Based on the technique - oil on canvas, possible sitter and style, it is considered to be a work of a 17th century Flemish painter. The resemblance to Louis XI is however very general. This painting comes from the collection of Jakub Ksawery Aleksander Potocki (1863-1934) in Paris, bequeathed to the Museum in 1934 (after "Early Netherlandish, Dutch, Flemish and Belgian Paintings 1494–1983" by Hanna Benesz and Maria Kluk, Vol. 2, item 819). The portrait of Henry VIII, King of England, most probably by Lucas Horenbout, earlier in the collection of Leon Sapieha, was also offered by Potocki (inventory number 128165). The two portraits were therefore most likely part of historical, possibly royal collections transferred to Paris after partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The man bears great resemblence to Ferdinand II of Aragon from his portraits by Spanish painters from the 16th or 17th century (Convento de Nuestra Señora de Gracia de Madrigal de las Altas Torres and Prado Museum in Madrid, P006081) and to his portrait attributed to Michel Sittow or follower from the late 15th or early 16th century (Kunsthistorisches Museum, GG 830). His late gothic costume was "modernized" with a little ruff in nothern style, which indicate that it was created in the 1530s, like in the portrait of Joachim I, Prince of Anhalt-Dessau by Lucas Cranach the Elder (1532, Georgium in Dessau), portrait of a bearded man by Hans Cranach the Younger (1534, Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum) and portrait of a man, probably of the Strauss family by Bartholomaeus Bruyn the Elder (about 1534, National Gallery in London). The style of this painting, especially the face, is close to the works by Giovanni Cariani and workshop, like the portrait of Stanislaus (1500-1524) and Janusz III (1502-1526), Dukes of Masovia (Museum of Fine Arts in Boston) and A Concert (National Gallery of Art in Washington). Consequently it is highly possible that this portrait of an important Aragonese/Spanish relative was commissioned in Venice by Queen Bona, basing on a lost original by Michel Sittow from the Polish-Lithuanian royal collection. 
Portrait of King Ferdinand II of Aragon (1452-1516) by workshop of Giovanni Cariani, ca. 1534, National Museum in Warsaw.
Portraits of Sigismund I the Old by Jan van Calcar
"And under that king there were so many excellent craftsmen and artists that it seemed that those ancient Phidias, Polykleitos and Apelles were revived in Poland, masters who in the art of painting, sculpture in clay and marble were equal in glory to the ancient artists" (Itaque tanta copia optimorum opificum, atque artificum hoc rege fuit, ut Phidiæ illi ueteres, atque Policleti, et Apelles reuixiffe in Polonia uideretur qui pingendi, fingendi, ac dolandi arte, illorum ueterum artificum gloriam adæquarent), praise the king Sigismund I in his "Ornate and copious oration at the funeral of Sigismund Jagellon, King of Poland" (Stanilai Orichouii Rhuteni Ornata et copiosa oratio habita in funere Sigismundi Iagellonis Poloniae Regis), published in Venice in 1548, the Catholic priest Stanisław Orzechowski (1513-1566) from Ruthenia (partially after "Ksiądz Stanisław Orzechowski i swawolne dziewczęta" by Marcin Fabiański, p. 44).
The portrait of an old man in a fur coat by Jan van Calcar (compare Fototeca Zeri, Numero scheda: 38836) from private collection is very similar to the effigies of king Sigismund I the Old published in Marcin Kromer's De origine et rebus gestis Polonorum from 1555 and Marcin Bielski's "Chronicle of Poland" from 1597. It bears a mysterious and ambiguous inscription in Latin: ANNO SALVTIS 1534 27 / ANNA AETATIS VERO MEAE / 40 (year of salvation 1534 27 / in the actual year of my age / 40) which, however, fit perfectly the events in Sigismund's life around the year of 1534. That year Sigismund was celebrating 27th anniversary of his coronation (24 January 1507) and his wife Bona Sforza her 40th birthday (2 February 1494), so the portrait could be a gift from her to please 67 years old Sigismund. The portrait of a 70 years old man (inscription: ANNO ATAT. SVAE * LXX * on the base of the column) with a dog attributed to Venetian school (oil on canvas, 108.6 x 91.4 cm), stylistically is very similar to the previous one. Also the depicted man is undeniably the same, just much older, or more realistic. The difference in details, like eye color might be beacuse the portraits were not taken from nature or the one with darker eyes is a copy of some other effigy. Hedwig Jagiellon, Sigismund's eldest daughter, has bright eyes in her portrait by Hans Krell from about 1537 and dark in other. The compostion is close to known portraits by Calcar, who entered Titian's Venetian studio in 1536. The painting was sold in 2009 with attribution to the circle of Leandro Bassano (1557-1622) (Christie's New York, Auction 2175, June 4, 2009, lot 83), Venetian painter who, according to my research, worked for Sigismund's daughter, Anna Jagiellon (1523-1596), and the way the dog was painted could indicate that this might be correct, however there is no similar painting of a pet attributed to Calcar, which would confirm or exclude his authorship. The columns are typical for many Calcar portraits and the old man's hat and the shape of the beard indicate the second quarter of the 16th century more than the late 16th century. They also closely resemble those in the Portrait of a gentleman with a letter by Moretto da Brescia kept at the Pinacoteca Tosio Martinengo in Brescia (inv. 151), generally dated around 1538. It is also possible that Bassano copied an earlier painting by Calcar. Interestingly, this portrait was also previously attributed to Moretto da Brescia (auction November 7, 1990, artnet). The king's particular liking for little doggies is confirmed by sources. When he was over thirty years old and staying at the Hungarian court of his brother in Buda from 3 October 1498 until the end of 1501, together with his courtiers, armed post, servants and his then life companion, Katarzyna Telniczanka, his favorite animal was a lap dog called "Whitey" (Bielik). The dog was the subject of his special care and he liked him so much that Whitey accompanied the prince during his stays in the bathhouse, and was even washed with soaps bought especially for him. 
Portrait of king Sigismund I the Old (1467-1548) in a fur coat by Jan van Calcar, 1534, Private collection.
Portrait of king Sigismund I the Old (1467-1548) aged 70 with his dog by Leandro Bassano after Jan van Calcar, late 16th century after original from 1537, Private collection.
Portraits of Hedwig Jagiellon as Madonna by Lucas Cranach the Elder and Lucas Cranach the Younger
"When this Lady was devoted to such a house and to a country whose language and customs are foreign to her, and therefore must experience great longing when no person is with her, who would share with her the commonness of speech; His Majesty pleads with Your Grace to instruct his nephew so that his spouse could keep people of both sexes from her countrymen who speak her language, until she learns the German language herself, and that her husband will treat her with due honor and marital love", wrote in a letter of July 9, 1536 the king Sigismund I to Cardinal Albert of Brandenburg (1490-1545), Archbishop of Mainz and Magdeburg asking him to intervene at the Berlin court with his daughter's marital problems.
Relations of Hedwig Jagiellon with her husband were not going well. The marriage with a Catholic did not satisfy Hedwig's mother-in-law, Elizabeth of Denmark, a devout Protestant, who converted in 1527 against the will of her husband. In July 1536, almost a year after the wedding in Kraków, Sigismund was forced to send his envoy Achacy Czema (Achaz Cema von Zehmen), castellan of Gdańsk to the cardinal. Albert of Brandenburg, prince of the Roman Church and renowned patron of the arts, was famous for his lavish lifestyle, which displeased many Protestants. In his portraits by the best German painters he and his concubines Elisabeth "Leys" Schütz from Mainz and Agnes Pless, née Strauss from Frankfurt were frequently depicted in guise of different Christian Saints. Several paintings by Lucas Cranach shows Albert as Saint Jerome. He was depicted as Saint Erasmus in a painting by Matthias Grünewald and as Saint Martin in a painting by Simon Franck. The cardinal collected more than 8,100 relics and 42 holy skeletons and wanted to repress the growing influence of the Reformation by holding far grander masses and services. For this purpose he decided to demolish two old churches and built a new representative church in a central location of his residential city of Halle, dedicated solely to the Blessed Virgin Mary (Marienkirche). The face features of Saint Erasmus from the so-called Pfirtscher Altar, which was until 1541 in the collegiate church in Halle, today in the Staatsgalerie Aschaffenburg (panel, 93.1 x 40.6 cm, inv. 6272), are identical with the portrait of cardinal Albert of Brandenburg as Saint Jerome in his study, created by Cranach in 1525, today in the Hessisches Landesmuseum Darmstadt (inv. GK 71). Among the female saints in the Pfirtscher Altar there is a counterpart panel with Saint Ursula (panel, 92.5 x 40.8 cm, inv. 6268), while two similar depictions of this saint are identified as disguised portraits of cardinal's concubine Elisabeth (Leys) Schütz (d. 1527) - one in the Grunewald hunting lodge (inv. GK I 9370), a companion painting to Saint Erasmus, which has the features of Cardinal Albert of Brandenburg in the same collection, and the other in the Stiftsmuseum Aschaffenburg (inv. 170/55), a companion to the portrait of the cardinal as Saint Martin (inv. 169/55). The letters O.M.V.I.A on Elisabeth's necklace in Grunewald painting refer to Omnia vincit amor ("Love vanquishes all)" in Virgil's tenth eclogue (cf. "Die Renaissance in Berlin ..." by Elke Anna Werner, p. 208-209). In another painting from Cranach's studio in the Staatsgalerie in Aschaffenburg, the cardinal and his concubine are depicted as Christ and the adulterous woman (inv. 6246). They can also be identified in the scene of the Lamentation of Christ from Halle Cathedral, also from the circle of Cranach and also in the Staatsgalerie in Aschaffenburg (inv. 5362), depicted as Saint Mary Magdalene and Saint Nicodemus, holding a container with ointments to embalm the body (also a traditional attribute of Saint Mary Magdalene). Cranach also worked for the electoral court in Berlin, although his visit to Berlin is not firmly confirmed in the sources. He created several portraits of electors, including effigies of Hedwig's husband and a portrait of his first wife, Magdalena of Saxony (Art Institute of Chicago, inv. 1938.310). The Lamentation of Christ in the Protestant St. Mary's Church in Berlin from the 1520s, by the workshop or circle of Lucas Cranach the Elder, contains disguised portraits of Joachim II of Brandenburg, his mother, and his sisters, according to my identification. Like earlier her mother Barbara Zapolya (Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid, inv. 114 (1936.1)) and her stepmother Bona Sforza (The State Hermitage Museum, inv. ГЭ-684), Hedwig was also depicted as the Virgin in old Medieval custom. In the painting as the Nursing Madonna (Madonna lactans) in the collection of the Museum der bildenden Künste in Leipzig (panel, 49 x 33 cm, inv. 42), her features are very similar to these visible in her portrait as Judith dated 1531 in the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin (inv. 636A). In the painting from the Friedenstein Palace in Gotha (panel, 105.8 x 78.2 cm, inv. SG 678, recorded since 1721), the main seat of the Dukes of Saxe-Gotha, one of the Saxon duchies held by the Ernestine branch of the Wettin dynasty, her features are very similar to the portrait in Veste Coburg (inv. M.163). It is dated 1534, when the Princess was still unmarried, threfore it was most probably sent to a potential suitor in Saxony. In the paintings from the Georg Schäfer collection in Obbach near Schweinfurt (panel, 82.5 x 56.5 cm, Sotheby's London, December 11, 1996, lot 53), from Eltz Castle (panel, 77.6 x 57.6 cm) and from Zwettl Abbey (panel, 75 x 56 cm, SZ25.416(129)), between Vienna and Prague, the features and pose of the Virgin are very similar to the Gotha painting. In the painting in the Detroit Institute of Arts (panel, 116.8 x 80.3 cm, inv. 23.31), acquired from the collection of Arthur Sulley (1921-1923) in London, Hedwig pose and features are very similar to the painting in Gotha. It was created in 1536, threfore after her marriage to Joachim II Hector, Elector of Brandenburg. Similar to this painting is the effigy in the Prado Museum in Madrid (panel, 121.3 x 83.4 cm, inv. P007440), acquired in 1988 from the collection of Duquesa de Valencia, also created in 1536. Derived from the latter are the Virgins from the Bode Museum in Berlin (panel, 77 x 57 cm, inv. 559 A), acquired in 1890 from Carl Lampe in Leipzig, possibly from the collection of cardinal Albert of Brandenburg and lost during World War II and in the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest (panel, 74.3 x 55.8 cm, inv. 140), which was at the beginning of the 19th century in the Court collection (Hofsammlungen) in Vienna. The Madonna and Child by Lucas Cranach the Elder and workshop, also attributed to Lucas Cranach the Younger, from the Swedish royal collection, today in the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm (panel, 85 x 57 cm, inv. NM 299), is very similar to the painting in Detroit, while the Child is almost identical as in the portrait of Hedwig's stepmother as the Virgin in the Hermitage. Its provenance in Sweden is unknown, therefore it cannot be excluded that it was taken from Poland during the Deluge (1655-1660) or it was part of dowry of Hedwig's sister Catherine Jagiellon (1526-1583), future Queen of Sweden. Two copies of the Stockholm painting, probably made in the second half of the 16th century, are now in the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest (inv. 904, originally in the imperial collection in Vienna) and in the Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum in Innsbruck (inv. Gem. 118), both of which may have originally come from the collections of Hedwig's distant relatives - the Habsburgs. Treated kindly by Bona from her arrival in 1518, Hedwig, together with the queen and her father, took part in a pilgrimage to Jasna Góra on April 20-27, 1523. She was then given a certain sum of money "for the journey to Częstochowa", to the sanctuary of the Black Madonna, so that she could give alms herself, following her father's example. The devotion of the Princess to Virgin Mary is evidenced by the fact that a rosary was made for her by the famous goldsmith from Kraków, Andreas Mastella or Marstella (d. 1568), at the request of Sigismund I (ab inauracione legibulorum alias paczyerzi, paid on May 9, 1526). From the inventory of valuables left after Jadwiga’s death, it is known that the Margravine of Brandenburg had several such precious rosaries: gold, amber and coral. Ercole Daissoli, secretary of Hieronim Łaski (1496-1541), writing about the envoys of John Zapolya who arrived in Kraków and the gifts that were given to the princess in 1535, confuses her name and calls her Lodovica, but adds that she is "much loved by the King of Hungary and rightly so, because in addition to being born of his sister, the goodness and valor of the Infanta are such, as you know, that she deserves to be loved not only by her own people but also by foreigners" (questa s - ra Lodovica e molto amata dal re d'Ungharia et meritamente, perchè oltra che nascesse de la sorella, la bontà et valuta de l'infanta e tal come vi e noto, che non solo da li suoi ma ancho da li extranei merita esser' amata, after "Królowa Bona ..." by Władysław Pociecha, p. 565). The use of the Spanish title Infanta indicates that it was probably used already in the 1530s in connection with the daughters of Sigismund I. In his letter of September 17, 1571 to his stepsister (today at the Wawel Royal Castle), Sigismund Augustus also calls Hedwig "Infanta of the Kingdom of Poland" (Dei gratia Infanti Regni Poloniæ), which also indicates some links with Spain. A letter from Stanisław Hozjusz (1504-1579), Prince-Bishop of Warmia, to Charles Borromeo (1538-1584), administrator of the Archdiocese of Milan (part of the Spanish Empire), written in 1560 (July 31), confirms the interest in Rome for the Catholic Electress of Brandenburg. In a letter written on September 2, 1564, by Charles Borromeo to the papal legate Delfino, who was then in Germany, Borromeo expresses the hope that Hedwig's husband would visit Rome to meet the Pope and believes that it will happen "through the merits and prayers of this holy lady" (per li meriti et orationi di questa santa donna), as he calls Hedwig. Nuncio Deifino also calls her in his letter the "Holy Old Woman of Brandenburg" (santa vecchia di Brandenburg, after "Królewna Jadwiga i jej książeczka do spowiedzi" by Urszula Borkowska, p. 86, 89-91). Sigismund was aware of the Lutheran sympathies of his son-in-law, and already in 1535 when the Brandenburg envoys came to Vilnius to sign the pacta matrimonialia (March 21, 1535) the Polish-Lithuanian side was guaranteed that the wedding would take place in the Catholic rite. Joachim II converted to Lutheranism in 1539. Concerned that his daughter will be forced to abandon Catholicism, which he expressed in his letter to Joahim of 26 September 1539 (Illud autem ante omnia Illm vestram rogamus: ne filiam nostram dulcissimam adigat ad eeclesiae unitatem deserendam), the king decided to send another priest from Poland and to pay him a salary from his own treasury so as not to burden his son-in-law reluctant to Catholicism. Łukasz Górka, bishop of Kuyavia, envoy in Berlin helped the king to choose the priest Jerzy, who was paid an annual salary of 100 florins. Good relations between the spouses are evidenced by letters written by Hedwig to her husband in 1542, when Joachim II was in Hungary as the leader of an anti-Ottoman expedition. Despite religious differences Hedwig was an exemplary mother for three of her step-children (two sons and a daughter of her cousin Magdalena of Saxony). Interestingly, in 1534 and 1535 Cranach also created three other very portrait-like effigies of the Madonna depicting another woman in the guise of the Virgin. One of these paintings, dated "1534", on the window, is today in the Staatsgalerie in Aschaffenburg (panel, 120.8 x 82.6 cm, inv. 5566) and before 1811 it was in the collection of the episcopal residence of the Catholic prince-bishops of Bamberg - the New Residence. Another very similar one and dated "1535" is in the Staatsgalerie in Stuttgart (canvas, transferred from the wood, 119.5 x 83 cm, inv. 2385). Before 1916, this painting belonged to Nikolai Pavlovich Riabushinskii (1876-1951) in Moscow. The same woman can also be identified in a beautiful painting by Cranach from around 1535, now in the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (panel, 120.3 x 72.7 cm, inv. 46.4), which belonged before 1896 to the Orsini collection in Rome, so it was probably originally a gift for a pope or a cardinal or a member of this noble Italian family. The woman depicted as the Virgin bears a striking resemblance to the lady looking at the viewer in the painting from Cranach's studio - Hercules at the court of Omphale in the National Gallery of Denmark in Copenhagen (inv. KMSsp727), which, according to my identification, represent Agnes Pless née Strauss (1502-1547). After Leys' death, she became the concubine of Cardinal Albert of Brandenburg. The Copenhagen painting bears the cardinal's coat of arms and, like the Bamberg and Rome Madonnas, was panted in 1535. Around 1525-1530, the Flemish miniaturist Simon Bening (ca. 1483-1561), who created illuminated manuscripts for Emperor Charles V and Infante Ferdinand, Duke of Guarda, son of King Manuel I of Portugal, also created the Prayer Book for Cardinal Albert with his coat of arms and splendid Scenes from the Creation, now in the J. Paul Getty Museum (Ms. Ludwig IX 19 (83.ML.115)), which testify to the international aspect of his patronage and his following of European trends. However, until the end of his life, like the Jagiellons and the Electors of Brandenburg, the cardinal favoured the style and workshop of Cranach based in Lutheran Wittenberg, as evidenced by his somewhat extravagant portrait with 21 rings, painted in 1543 (Mainz State Museum, inv. 304). 
Portrait of cardinal Albert of Brandenburg (1490-1545) as Saint Erasmus and his concubine Elisabeth (Leys) Schütz (d. 1527) as Saint Ursula from the so-called Pfirtscher Altar by circle or workshop of Lucas Cranach the Elder, ca. 1526, Staatsgalerie in Aschaffenburg.
Portrait of Crown Princess Hedwig Jagiellon (1513-1573) as Madonna lactans by Lucas Cranach the Elder, ca. 1531, Museum der bildenden Künste in Leipzig.
Portrait of Crown Princess Hedwig Jagiellon (1513-1573) as Madonna and Child with the Infant Saint John and angels by Lucas Cranach the Younger, 1534, Friedenstein Palace in Gotha.
Portrait of Crown Princess Hedwig Jagiellon (1513-1573) as Madonna and Child with the Infant Saint John by Lucas Cranach the Younger and workshop, ca. 1534 or after, Private collection.
Portrait of Crown Princess Hedwig Jagiellon (1513-1573) as Madonna with Child nibbling grapes by Lucas Cranach the Elder, ca. 1534 or after, Eltz Castle.
Portrait of Crown Princess Hedwig Jagiellon (1513-1573) as Madonna and Child with grapes by Lucas Cranach the Elder, ca. 1534 or after, Zwettl Abbey.
Portrait of Crown Princess Hedwig Jagiellon (1513-1573) as Madonna and Child by Lucas Cranach the Elder and workshop, ca. 1534-1536, Nationalmuseum in Stockholm. Virtual reconstruction, © Marcin Latka
Portrait of Electress Hedwig Jagiellon (1513-1573) as Madonna and Child with the Infant Saint John and angels by Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1536, Detroit Institute of Arts.
Portrait of Electress Hedwig Jagiellon (1513-1573) as Madonna and Child with the Infant Saint John and angels by Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1536, Prado Museum in Madrid.
Portrait of Electress Hedwig Jagiellon (1513-1573) as Madonna and Child with the Infant Saint John by Lucas Cranach the Elder, ca. 1536 or after, Bode Museum in Berlin, lost. Virtual reconstruction, © Marcin Latka
Portrait of Electress Hedwig Jagiellon (1513-1573) as Madonna and Child with grapes by workshop Lucas Cranach the Elder, ca. 1536 or after, Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest.
Portrait of Agnes Pless née Strauss (1502-1547), concubine of Cardinal Albert of Brandenburg (1490-1545), as Madonna and Child with the Infant Saint John the Baptist and angels by Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1534, Staatsgalerie in Aschaffenburg.
Portrait of Agnes Pless née Strauss (1502-1547), concubine of Cardinal Albert of Brandenburg (1490-1545), as Madonna and Child with the Infant Saint John the Baptist and angels by workshop Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1535, Staatsgalerie in Stuttgart.
Portrait of Agnes Pless née Strauss (1502-1547), concubine of Cardinal Albert of Brandenburg (1490-1545), as Madonna and Child with the Infant Saint John the Baptist and angels by Lucas Cranach the Elder, ca. 1535, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
Portraits of Princess Sophia Vereyska by workshop of Bernardino Licinio and Lucas Cranach the Elder
Princess Sophia Vasilievna Vereyska, wife of Albertas Gostautas, together with Barbara Kolanka, wife of George "Hercules" Radziwill, Katarzyna Tomicka, wife Nicolaus "the Red" Radziwill and Elżbieta Szydłowiecka, wife Nicolaus "the Black" Radziwill, was one of the wealthiest and the most influential woman of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, during the reign of Sigismund I and Bona Sforza. As the wife of Grand Chancellor of Lithuania and Voivode of Vilnius, the positions held by her husband from 1522, she was the most important woman in the Grand Duchy after the Queen. Furthermore, in 1529 Pope Clement VII Medici granted Albertas the title of count and in 1530 Emperor Charles V included him among the counts of the empire. Sophia's husband was also the richest man in Lithuania. His estates included hundreds of villages and towns. In 1528 he had 466 cavalrymen and 3,728 servants.
Sophia, known in Polish sources as Zofia Wasilówna z Wierejskich Gasztołdowa, was the daughter of the Russian prince Vasily Mikhailovich Vereysky, a relative of the Grand Prince of Moscow Ivan III, and Maria Palaiologina (d. 1505), who, according to Russian sources, was the daughter of the titular emperor of Constantinople and Despot of the Morea Andreas Palaiologos (1453-1502). Andreas was a courtier of Pope Alexander VI Borgia in Rome and married a Roman prostitute Caterina (after "The Papacy and the Levant, 1204-1571" by Kenneth Meyer Setton, Volume 2, p. 462). He lived on a papal pension and was buried with honor in St. Peter's Basilica at the expense of Pope Alexander VI. In 1483, Vasily and Maria went into exile in Lithuania because of an incident involving the jewels of Maria of Tver (1442-1467). On October 2, 1484, they received the estates of Lubcha, Koydanava, Radashkovichy and Valozhyn (Belarus) from King Casimir IV Jagiellon. Sophia was born around 1490 and married Albertas in 1505 or 1506, for whom this marriage was a significant elevation since his wife was related to Byzantine emperors and the rulers of Moscow. As Vasily's only daughter, she inherited all his property, granted by King Casimir IV. In 1522, King Sigismund I granted Sophia, her husband and her descendants the right to seal letters with red wax, which was reserved for persons of royal blood. The king emphasized in the privilege that "having special respect for the nobility of the Vereysky princely family and the personal virtues of Sophia, the wife of Albertas, grants the above privilege to her, her husband and her offspring forever" (after "Ateneum wileńskie", Volume 14, 1939, p. 120). Around 1507 the only son of Sophia and Albertas, Stanislovas (Stanislaus), was born in Vilnius. He was the first husband of Barbara Radziwill (1520/23-1551). It is possible that as the presumed granddaughter of a Roman prostitute, whose mother was probably raised at the Borgia court in Rome, Sophia knew Italian, making her even closer to Queen Bona. Two letters from the queen to the voivodess of Vilnius are known, both in Polish - dated January 21, 1537 and June 4, 1543. The letter of 1537 is evidence that communication through envoys to whom the oral message was transmitted was valued more highly than a letter (compare "Kobieca korespondencja w Wielkim Księstwie Litewskim ..." by Raimonda Ragauskienė, Biuletyn historii pogranicza, p. 9, 11). This is one of the reasons why we have so little information about portraits of women from Poland-Lithuania-Ruthenia, which were undoubtedly numerous. However, one source confirms that Queen Bona owned a portrait of the voivodess of Vilnius, most likely Sophia, which she kept with a portrait of her favourite Dorota Dzierzgowska née Sobocka "and other portraits of the most distinguished persons" (after "Zbiór pamiętników historycznych o dawnej Polszcze ..." by Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz, Volume 4, p. 36). Albertas died in December 1539 and his estates passed to his son. By virtue of a privilege granted by Sigismund on June 13, 1542, Sophia purchased a house in Vilnius. After Stanislovas died without an heir in December 1542, all the Gostautas estates passed, in accordance with the law of the time, into the possession of King Sigismund the Old, who gave them to his son, Sigismund Augustus, on June 15, 1543. The rights to the estates of the Gostautas family were expressed by the widows: Sophia after Albertas and Barbara Radziwill after Stanislovas. The young king returned to Albertas' widow her patrimonial estates, which had been bequeathed to her by her husband and son for life. It is very likely that this action was inspired by Bona, because a woman became the administrator of the Gostautas' fortune. As the richest woman in the Grand Duchy, close to Queen Bona, Sophia is probably also among the women criticized in epigrams by the Spanish poet and lawyer Pedro Ruiz de Moros (Petrus Roysius, died 1571), perhaps written between 1545 and 1549, when Bona inspired a similar campaign against a mistress of his son Barbara Radziwill. When Stanisław Orzechowski (1513-1566), in conflict and polemic with Roysius, attacked Barbara, the Spaniard who on October 1, 1549 had been appointed by Sigismund Augustus as a courtier and royal advisor with a salary of 200 złotys per year, wrote a malicious poem "To Maevia" (Ad Maeviam). This pseudonym means "the one who is great" or "mighty" and this woman, although she refers to the chaste Lucretia of Rome, is more like Helen of Troy, who does not care about her husband's fame (Quod decet, illud ama, plenis fuge, Maevia, velis Dedecus et sanctae damna pudicitiae. Hoc sibi proposuit Lucretia casta sequendum, Hoc Helena prae se non tulit argolica. Illius idcirco laus nullo intercidet aevo, Perpetuum terris dedecus huius erit. Illius haud oberunt saeclorum oblivia famae, Non Helenes sordes abluet oceanus). The selection of Roman and Greek heroines could be a reference to Sophia's origins. The Imperial Countess died in August 1549, although according to some sources she was still alive in 1553, because in that year she concluded an agreement with Barbara Holszańska and acquired Migowo from Czaplica (after "Poczet rodów w Wielkiem Księstwie Litewskiem ..." by Adam Boniecki, p. 60). There are some letters about the funeral and the inventory of Sophia's belongings (letters from Sigismund Augustus to Nicolaus "the Red" Radziwill, from Kraków, August 25 and December 13, 1549), as well as the fact that after her death Bishop Zmorski brought a box to Warsaw to Queen Bona, which was carried by 10 men (after "Język polski w kancelarii królewskiej ..." by Beata Kaczmarczyk, p. 67). Three members of the Council of Lords were sent to Valozhyn to prepare a register. In Vilnius, the king's treasurer Stefan Wełkowicz received sealed chests from the manors in Valozhyn, Koydanava and Vilnius (after "The earliest registers of the private archives of the nobility ..." by Raimonda Ragauskienė, p. 127-128). Of the immense fortune of the Gostautas family, almost nothing remains. In the Munich University Library there is a prayer book created in 1528 in Kraków by the splendid illuminator Stanisław Samostrzelnik for Albertas. This prayer book is partly inspired by German graphics and shows Albertas on one page as a donor kneeling before the Vir Dolorum. On the other page, King Sigismund I is depicted as one of the Magi in the scene of the Adoration of the Child. Beautiful funerary sculpture of Albertas in precious red marble, created around 1540, preserved in the Vilnius Cathedral, although it was seriously damaged during the Deluge (the face was smashed during the Russian and Cossack occupation of the city). The sculpture is attributed to the Florentine sculptor Bernardino Zanobi de Gianotis, also called Romanus (the Roman). There are no known painted portraits of Albertas (apart from mentioned miniature by Samostrzelnik), but he had good relations with Sigismund I's nephew, Duke Albert of Prussia (1490-1568), who was painted by Lucas Cranach the Elder and Hans Krell. He corresponded with the duke about the Ruthenian printer and pedagogue Francis Skaryna, active in Vilnius in Prague, who published several books in Ruthenian decorated with magnificent engravings by an engraver from the circle of Hans Springinklee. As a count of the Holy Roman Empire, to increase his prestige, Gostautas probably used the painters working for the emperor, including Titian, but also Cranach, who painted several portraits of Charles V and his brother Ferdinand I. Albertas' wife, following the example of Queen Bona, probably also commissioned several of her portraits. Nothing is known about her burial place, but since she was probably Orthodox, she was not buried with her husband in the Catholic Cathedral in Vilnius. In the State Art Museum in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, there is a painting of Lucretia, painted by Lucas Cranach the Elder and his workshop in 1535 (panel, 77 x 52 cm, inv. 966). The same woman in a similar pose was depicted standing next to Queen Bona's favourite Dorota Dzierzgowska née Sobocka in the 1534 painting in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg (inv. Gm1108). The face is almost identical, as if the painter had used the same study drawing to create both effigies. The Nizhny Novgorod painting comes from the collection of Mikhail Platonovich Fabricius (1847-1915), a military engineer, who participated in the reconstruction of a number of Kremlin buildings in Moscow. Fabricius collected materials and wrote a book on the history of the Kremlin. He began collecting in Moscow and continued in St. Petersburg. If we assume that the painting depicts the wife of Albertas Gostautas, it could have come to Russia as a gift to her family there (in 1493, the Grand Princess of Moscow Sophia Palaiologina obtained pardon and permission for Prince Vereysky and his wife to return to their homeland, but for some reason the exiles did not take advantage of this). As the property of an aristocratic family outside Moscow, it could survive iconoclasm of 1654-1655. It could also have been acquired in the former territories of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth during the Partitions or come from the collection of many Polish-Lithuanian and Ruthenian aristocrats who settled in St. Petersburg in the 19th century. At least two copies of the Nizhny Novgorod painting are known, both made by the painter's workshop more than ten years later, in 1548, when Roysius probably wrote his malicious poem. Both are signed with the artist's winged serpent and dated. One of these copies, now in a private collection (panel, 77.5 x 52.4 cm, Christie's London, Auction 5013, April 26, 2006, lot 124), comes from the Electoral Collection in Dresden (inventory from 1722 to 1728, number 351 inscribed on the painting), the possible earlier provenance being the royal residences in Warsaw from where Augustus II the Strong moved many paintings and objects during the Great Northern War. The other is also in a private collection (oil on panel, 80 x 53 cm, Dorotheum in Vienna, October 17, 2017, lot 210) and was sold in 1966 in Lucerne, Switzerland. In the 1530s, Cranach and his workshop depicted the same woman in two other paintings depicting the virtuous Roman Lucretia. One of them, dated "1535", like the Nizhny Novgorod painting, is in the Niedersächsisches Landesmuseum in Hanover (panel, 51.7 x 34.8 cm, inv. PAM 775), and comes from the collections of the Electors of Brunswick-Lüneburg, mentioned in the collection of the Hanover Palace in 1802 (no. 83). This provenance also indicates that the woman depicted as Lucretia was a member of the European high aristocracy. This painting is frequently compared to Cranach's later Lucretia in Wilanów Palace (Wil. 1749), which is similar in pose and depicts Queen Bona, according to my identification. The other, undated, is in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem (panel, 63 x 50 cm, inv. B89-0059) and was in New York before 1931. The similarity of the costume with the Nizhny Novgorod painting is notable and the painting is also compared to that in the Wilanów Palace. The expensive furs worn by the woman were typical of Lithuania and Ruthenia at that time. We can identify the same woman in a portrait attributed to the workshop of Bernardino Licinio, now kept at the Galleria Sabauda in Turin (oil on canvas, 74 x 67 cm, inv. 466). The painting came at the gallery following the donation of Riccardo Gualino (1879-1964) in 1930 and its previous history is unknown. This likeness is very similar to two portraits of Queen Bona by Licinio that I have identified (British Embassy in Rome and private collection). The costume is very much alike and as in the portrait of the queen, the ribbon that ties the bodice of the model's dress is inspired by German fashion of the time. Unlike Cranach's portraits, her forehead is not shaved according to the Nordic fashion. She holds a dog, a symbol of fidelity, and directs her gaze to the left as if she were looking at the man, her husband, in the counterpart painting, which probably accompanied this effigy. The Madonna by Lucas Cranach the Elder, made around 1525, now in a private collection (panel, 56.5 x 39.9 cm), has the same facial features. This painting comes from the collection of the Barons of Mecklenburg, a noble family originally from Mecklenburg, who owned estates in Sweden, Prussia and Pomerania. The effigies of the "disguised" Princess Sophia most likely inspired the Augsburg painter Jörg Breu the Elder (ca. 1475-1537) to create the effigy of the Roman heroine in his composition depicting the Story of Lucretia, now in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich (inv. 7969). Breu travelled to Italy twice (about 1508 and 1514), but this painting was painted more than ten years later, in 1528 (dated top left). It also bears the coat of arms of William IV (1493-1550), Duke of Bavaria, and his wife Maria Jakobaea of Baden-Sponheim (1507-1580), as it was part of the cycle commissioned by the Duke for the decoration of his residence. The Story of Lucretia was acquired in 1895 from the collection of Carl Edvard Ekman at Finspang Castle in Sweden, built between 1668 and 1685. Breu's study drawing, held at the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest (inv. 62), indicates that the main character's face was originally different and that patrons probably requested for it to be changed. Although the Gostautas prayer book in Munich is believed to have come from the dowry of Princess Anna Catherine Constance Vasa (1619-1651), the earliest confirmed provenance of this book is the collection of the Jesuit Ferdinand Orban (1655-1732) in Ingolstadt. Like Breu's painting, the prayer book was also created in 1528 (dated on one of the pages). The face of a lady in another painting by Bernardino Licinio is very similar to that in Cranach's Madonna from the collection of the Barons of Mecklenburg. The work is now in a private collection (oil on canvas, 71 x 59 cm, Asta Finarte in Milan, 29 November 1995, lot 131). This portrait, known as "Portrait of a Lady with a Fan" (Ritratto di gentildonna con ventaglio), comes from the Contini Bonacossi collection in Florence, from which also come several portraits of the Jagiellons, identified by me. Like the portraits of the Jagiellons, it was probably sent to the Medici or other important ruling families in Italy. The sitter's costume indicates the early 1530s and is entirely black (or dark grey). The woman's black veil, like a Roman matron, indicates mourning, hence mourning after the death of Pope Clement VII Medici, who died in September 1534 (he granted the title of count to Gostautas). This gesture by the probably Orthodox princess and papal and imperial countess undoubtedly had a special meaning for her and for the Medici. In the 16th century, Italian and German influences, as well as Netherlandish influences (in the northern regions), mixed in artistic patronage from Poland, Lithuania and Ruthenia. The works of art preserved in the Cathedral and the Archdiocesan Museum in Przemyśl are the best illustration of this. It was sometimes associated with the education of the patrons of these works of art, as in the case of the splendid funerary monument of Jan Dziaduski (1496-1559), bishop of Przemyśl, educated in Padua and Rome (between 1519 and 1524), sculpted by the Venetian sculptor Giovanni Maria Mosca known as Padovano (1493-1574) around 1559 (IOANI DZIADVSKI ‣ I ‣ V ‣DOCTO/RI ‣ EPICOPO PREMISLIEÑ ‣ [...] ‣ANNO ‣ ÆTATIS SVÆ / L XIII ‣ SALVTIS VERO M D LIX DIE XXIX / I VLII VITA FVNCTO AMICI MERENTES PO/SVERE ‣). Another source of foreign influences was the presence of a local community from a specific country or cultural cycle, as in the case of the so-called Master of the Klimkówka Triptych, active in Krosno and the surrounding area in the first quarter of the 16th century. Since the Middle Ages, this area was inhabited by the community of Saxon settlers called "Deaf Germans" (Głuchoniemcy in Polish or Taubdeutsche in German). As his style indicates, the Master of the Klimkówka Triptych was probably trained in Kraków, however, either there or in Krosno he had the opportunity to see the imports of painting and graphics from southern Germany. The Farewell of Saint Peter and Paul from Osiek Jasielski, painted in 1527 (inv. MAPrz I/110), reveals the inspiration of the works of the Master of Messkirch, active between 1515 and 1540, probably a student of Hans Leonhard Schäufelein. The Klimkówka Lamentation of Christ from 1529 is based on Schäufelein's woodcut from the Speculum Passionis Domini Nostri Jhesu Christi, published in Nuremberg in 1507 (inv. MAPrz I/337). These images, however, are not direct transpositions of works by German masters. In the Lamentation from Klimkówka, the painter gave the figures the effigies of members of the local community, perhaps members of the noble Sienieński family, who owned the village at that time. He also dressed them according to the fashion in vogue in the region, thus Saint Joseph of Arimathea, possibly Wiktoryn Sienieński (ca. 1463-1530), castellan of Małogoszcz, wears a hat lined with grey fur and his costume and beard are typical for Western European fashion of the time. In turn, Saint Mary Magdalene, perhaps the daughter of a man represented as Saint Joseph (possibly Agnieszka or Katarzyna Sienieńska), wears a costume more typical of Ruthenia. The men behind Saint Peter in the painting from Osiek Jasielski are dressed according to the Western European fashion, while the sermon of Saint Paul in Athens on the right wing of this triptych probably takes place in one of the churches in Kraków or Krosno. The same is true for a painting of Jew whipping the statue of Saint Nicholas of Bari from Rzepiennik Biskupi (Czartoryski Museum, inv. MNK XII-242), painted by the same master or his workshop, where the Jew is dressed in a costume typical of this community from the first quarter of the 16th century. This Mimesis, which consists of placing religious scenes in authentic places and involving members of the local community in the religious scene, had a great moralizing significance. Wealthy patrons like Sophia could afford greater diversity in their patronage and commission their effigies from the most important centres of pictorial production in Europe. 
Portrait of Princess Sophia Vasilievna Vereyska (ca. 1490-1549) holding a dog by workshop of Bernardino Licinio, ca. 1524-1534, Galleria Sabauda in Turin.
Portrait of Princess Sophia Vasilievna Vereyska (ca. 1490-1549) as Madonna and Child by Lucas Cranach the Elder, ca. 1525, Private collection.
Portrait of Princess Sophia Vasilievna Vereyska (ca. 1490-1549) in mourning by Bernardino Licinio, ca. 1534, Private collection. Virtual reconstruction, © Marcin Latka
Portrait of Princess Sophia Vasilievna Vereyska (ca. 1490-1549) as Lucretia by Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1535, Niedersächsisches Landesmuseum in Hanover.
Portrait of Princess Sophia Vasilievna Vereyska (ca. 1490-1549) as Lucretia by Lucas Cranach the Elder, ca. 1535, Israel Museum in Jerusalem.
Portrait of Princess Sophia Vasilievna Vereyska (ca. 1490-1549) as Lucretia by Lucas Cranach the Elder and workshop, 1535, State Art Museum in Nizhny Novgorod.
Portrait of Princess Sophia Vasilievna Vereyska (ca. 1490-1549) as Lucretia by workshop of Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1548, Private collection.
Portrait of Princess Sophia Vasilievna Vereyska (ca. 1490-1549) as Lucretia by workshop of Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1548, Private collection.
Portraits of royal banker Seweryn Boner by Giovanni Cariani and workshop
In 1536 Jan (1516-1562) and Stanisław (1517-1560), sons of Seweryn Boner (1486-1549), royal banker of Bona Sforza and Sigismund I, burgrave of Kraków and starost of Biecz, went on a scientific trip around Italy. They traveled to Naples and to Rome, where their tutor Anselmus Ephorinus (d. 1566) was ennobled by Emperor Charles V. They returned to Kraków in autumn 1537. Few years earlier, in September 1531, at the instigation of the Łaskis, Ephorinus and his disciples Jan Boner and Stanisław Aichler found themselves in Basel benefiting from teachings of a Netherlandish philosopher and theologian Erasmus of Rotterdam for almost 6 months. The philosopher dedicated his P. Terentii Comoediae sex to Jan and Stanisław (Ioanni et Stanislao Boneris fratribus, Polonis) and he refers to their father (Seuerinum Bonerum) in this work. During a seven-year peregrination they also visited France and Germany, where in Erfurt and Nuremberg they made acquaintance with a number of eminent humanists.
Erasmus, who corresponded with Seweryn and other Poles, died in Basel on July 12, 1536. In his will he bequeathed to Bonifacius Amerbach, his friend in Basel, two gold medals of King Sigismund and Seweryn Boner, both from 1533 and both works by Matthias Schilling from Toruń or an Italian medallist, such as Padovano, Caraglio, Pomadello, perhaps created in Venice or Verona. The reverse side of the medal with a portrait of King Sigismund had the inscription: "To Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus Seweryn Boner as a souvenir" (after "Wiek złoty i czasy romantyzmu w Polsce" by Stanisław Łempicki, Jerzy Starnawski, p. 354). The Poles also acquired Erasmus' library - in 1536, Andrzej Frycz Modrzewski stayed in Nuremberg in the house of his friend Daniel Schilling, a merchant from Kraków, and in November this year, at the request of Jan Łaski, he goes to Basel in order to bring the library to Poland. The books were sent first to Nuremberg, where the library was deposited in the apartment of Schilling, staying there with his brother on commercial business, either his own, or perhaps for the Boners or Justus Ludwik Decjusz. Seweryn Boner (or Bonar) was the son of Jakob Andreas (1454-1517), a banker in Nuremberg and in Wrocław, and the nephew of Johann (Hans) Boner (1462-1523), royal banker, born in Landau in Palatinate, from whom he inherited all the property along with the offices held by his uncle. On October 23, 1515, he married Zofia Bethmanówna - the heiress of Balice, which became the suburban residence of the Boners. From 1532 he was a city councilor in Kraków and from Emperor Ferdinand he received the title of baron in Ogrodzieniec and Kamieniec. Boner acted as an intermediary in international monetary transactions. Through Fuggers' bank, he transfers money to Venice using promissory notes, the basis of trade between cities. Even before his coronation, Sigismund owed him 7,000 florins. In 1512, the debt amounted to 65,058 florins, which is 4,000 more than all the annual revenues of the treasury. When he was elected king, in 1506 Boner become his exclusive supplier of all goods from glass panes imported from Venice for the windows in the Wawel Castle, to cloth and pepper (after "Przemysł polski w dawnych wiekach" by Aleksander Bocheński, Stefan Bratkowski, p. 131). Banking and commercial relations with Nuremberg of Johann and Seweryn Boner, closely associated with the artistic patronage of Sigismund the Old, also influenced the importation of outstanding works of artistic craftsmanship from there to Kraków. Silver and gold products were purchased by Boner in Nuremberg, and above all in Italy. His wagons loaded with pomades, soaps, perfumes, silk, Venetian glass, costly goblets and rings of pure gold were coming from Italy and Venice. Through Lviv merchants, he purchased Turkish goods, and very sought after pepper and spices (after "Kraków i ziemia krakowska" by Roman Grodecki, p. 125). Seweryn also organized his own post office from Kraków to Germany, which was often used by the court. In December 1527 a shipment of costly fabrics for the queen, together with a letter to Bona from the Margrave of Mantua, was to be sent by her Venetian agent Gian Giacomo de Dugnano to Seweryn Boner, however, the transport was detained by the Viennese customs chamber (allegedly due to the violation of customs regulations). In 1536, foreign orders increased due to planned marriage of the eldest daughter of Bona and Sigismund - Isabella, as well as the fire of the newly built Wawel Castle (October 17) and costly repair works. The king and queen were in Lithuania at the time. Upon learning of the fire, the monarch ordered the governor, Seweryn Boner, to secure the roofs and make preparations for immediate reconstruction. A fire broke out in the apartments of Sigismund Augustus, in the new part of Wawel. The fire consumed the paintings purchased in Flanders and the golden throne covered with scarlet. A contract was signed with Bartolommeo Berrecci as the main works manager. When he was murdered a few months later, his duties were entrusted to another Italian, Niccolo Castiglione. Queen Bona frequently used Venetian banking services and deposited large sums there before returning to Italy in 1556. Sigismund I and Bona financed the activities of their envoy Jan Dantyszek by sending money and buying his bills of exchange at the banks of the Fuggers and Welsers. In 1536 a seller of Venetian goods (rerum venetiarum venditor) Paul was recommended by the council of Poznań to Vilnius city council and envoys sent from Kraków to Venice that year all took 20 florins from the royal treasury - Marcin in June, Andreas (Andrzeich) and an unknown Italian in August. In 1536 Melchior Baier and Peter Flötner in Nuremberg created silver candlesticks for the Sigismund Chapel, soon they accomplished the silver altar for the chapel (1538) and a sword of Sigismund Augustus with Hercules vanquishing the Lernaean Hydra (1540). Many exquisite works of art were commissioned through Seweryn Boner, like tapestries in Flanders in 1526 and in 1533 or pendants for daughters of the royal couple in Nuremberg in 1546. Bronze tombstone for himself and his wife Seweryn also ordered in Nuremberg - created by Hans Vischer between 1532-1538. In the Picture Gallery of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, there is a "Portrait of a Nuremberg patrician", a work signed by Giovanni Busi, called Cariani (oil on canvas, 98.5 x 89 cm, inventory number 6434, inscribed left above the parapet: Joannes Cariani -p-). The painting is verifiable in the gallery in 1772, could therefore come from old collections of the Habsburgs, having been sent to them as a gift. The old man from the portrait holds a letter in his hands which in the upper part mentions in Latin: "Including Nuremberg 1470 was issued on Tuesday on the 17th, while he brought this form to Venice in 1536 in the same year" (Inclyta nurimberga protulit 1470 Mensis Martis die 17 / Usq. dum attulit formam hanc Venetiis 1536 eodem lustro), most likely referring to the transfer of money from Nuremberg to Venice, a promissory note. Below there is another inscription: "What nature produced more slowly, the painter quickly represented" (Natura produxit tardius / Pictor figuravit extemplo), which together with a second piece of paper, at the right, which says: "Death destroys nature, time art" (Mors Naturam / destruit / Tempus Artem) and the objects of the vanitas, a skull and an hourglass, set on the parapet, reminds that nature transforms man and that the painter did not age the model, contrary to nature. The features of the old man correspond to known effigies of royal banker and supplier Seweryn Boner from silver medal with his bust, created in 1533 (National Museum in Kraków, MNK VII-MdP-263), and his bronze tombstone, cast in Nuremberg (St. Mary's Basilica in Kraków). A copy of this portrait by Cariani's workshop from anonymous sale (oil on canvas, 91 x 71 cm, Sotheby's London, April 18, 2000, lot 367) was sold in Paris (Artcurial, November 9, 2022, lot 165). Cariani and his workshop also painted the effigies of Seweryn's sister Magdalena Bonerówna (1505-1530), lady-in-waiting of Queen Bona, and his daughter Zofia Firlejowa née Bonerówna (d. 1563). The Governor's salon at the Wawel Castle, a representative interior in which guests were received, is one of 3 rooms of the so-called Governor's apartment. German furniture and paintings are presented there to emphasize the fact that the most eminent governors from the times of King Sigismund I - Hans and Seweryn Boner - came from Germany. The furniture and paintings were acquired from different collections after the reconstruction of the castle in the 1930s, because nothing has been preserved of the original furnishings and paintings of the royal residence. 
Portrait of royal banker Seweryn Boner (1486-1549) by Giovanni Cariani, after 1536, Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.
Portrait of royal banker Seweryn Boner (1486-1549) by workshop of Giovanni Cariani, after 1536, Private collection.
Portraits of Dorota Sobocka and Barbara Kościelecka by Lucas Cranach the Elder and Hans Döring
"Queen Bona persuades the king to convene the Sejm [Diet] in Warsaw. This idea came to her from the archbishop [Piotr Gamrat (1487-1545)], not for reasons of public interest, but because he has his mistress here [ubi Archiepiscopus habet amationes suas sabbatorias, i.e. Dorota Dzierzgowska née Sobocka (died after 1548), chatelaine of Czersk]. He tells everyone that the burghers of Warsaw, once assured that the Sejm will be held here, will not fail to build new houses and repair those that have burned down in a short time.
Your Lordship, having already mentioned so many trivial things, I must add another: the special grace and attachment of our lady for the blood and family of the Sobodzki [Sobocki]. She praises them, raises them to heaven, calls happy the womb that gave birth to such sons. She strives by all means to make the chatelaine of Czersk the voivodess of Mazovia, not so that her foolish husband is worthy of this dignity, but so that his wife holds the first place here. To achieve this, Bona constantly explains to the king that there are many quarrels, affairs, appeals that fall within the discretion of the voivode. To settle them, the voivode must always be present here, while the current voivode Gamrat [Jan Gamrat (1502-1544), younger brother of the primate] is weak and often unconscious, and moreover he has few assets in this country. So, after the first vacancy, Gamrat will receive higher voivodeships; and Dorota, who is the wife of two, will become voivode of Mazovia, for certainly not her husband Dzierzgoski [Jan Dzierzgowski (1502-1558)], who can't tell a fly from a mosquito. And so our Mazovia is at the mercy of either fools, or drunkards, or harlots, not through the fault of the nation, but through the incompetence of those in power. This shameless woman lives in the greatest intimacy with the queen, and she is very much loved by her. The queen ordered a portrait of her to be made, she constantly looks at it with the greatest joy, she placed this portrait, next to a similar woman, the voivodess of Vilnius [most likely Princess Sophia Vasilievna Vereyska (ca. 1490-1549)], and other portraits of the most distinguished people. She often says to her: Oh! How happy you are that you were able to please such a prelate [Piotr Gamrat]. Everyone laughs at this madness. I would not like to know about these shamelessnesses, but they are constantly making themselves known. I will keep silent about the rest: it is a shame to speak any longer about these fornications", wrote to a friend in a letter given in Warsaw on May 26, 1544 Stanisław Górski (1497/99-1572), canon of Płock and Kraków (after "Zbiór pamiętników historycznych o dawnej Polszcze ..." by Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz, Volume 4, p. 28-29, 34-36, 48). Father Górski was the queen's secretary between 1535 and 1548 and thanks to her he received the canonry of Kraków in 1539 and the parish of Wiskitki in Mazovia in 1546. He frequently criticized the queen, accusing her of greed, of concealing her wealth and of influencing parliamentary decisions in her favor and to the detriment of the kingdom. This letter, however, seems very reliable and there is no reason to believe that it is a product of overflowing imagination of a clergyman, educated in Padua and hostile to Bona. In the cited fragment, he explicitly accuses the queen of having intimate lesbian relations with Sobocka. The 1540s were very difficult for Bona. In 1544 she reached the age of 50, while her husband Sigismund was 77 and often ill. For the first time in many years she was not the most important woman in the kingdom, because in May 1543 her son married Elizabeth of Austria (1526-1545) and Bona became from then on "the old queen". In addition, Elizabeth was the daughter of her great enemy Ferdinand I of Austria, her son Sigismund Augustus wanted to free himself from his mother's influence and many people attacked Bona. It was also a time of great cultural changes brought about by the Reformation and the rejection of many old customs. It is therefore possible that the queen was bisexual and that at this time in her life she became more open to the charms of Lady Sobocka. According to Bronisław Kruczkiewicz (1849-1918), it is likely that the Latin epigram of the Spanish poet Pedro Ruiz de Moros (Petrus Roysius, d. 1571) under the title In Chlorim ("To Chloris") is a direct reference to Sobocka (after "Royzyusz : jego żywot i pisma", Rozprawy Wydziału Filologicznego, p. 62). The poet states: "Night and day you frequent the roofs of the very old, this is not luxury, O Chloris! it is greed" (Nocte dieque senum nimium quod tecta frequentas, Haec non luxuria, a Chloris! avaritia est). According to Ovid's Fasti V, the nymph Chloris was partly responsible for the conception of Mars, the god of war. With the help of a flower, Chloris made Juno, queen of the gods, pregnant. At that time, the Queen's apartments were located on the second floor of the west wing of Wawel Castle, called the piano nobile, while the courtiers' rooms were on the first floor. In the next poem under the meaningful title Ad Lesbiam ("To Lesbia"), Ruiz de Moros writes that he should neither condemn nor judge her because "it has been said: an imperfect animal is a woman" (Cur te non venerer, cur te non, Lesbia, curem Contemnamsque tuum, Lesbia, iudicium. Non longe repetam causas; breve, Lesbia, dictum est: Imperfectum animal, parce mihi, est mulier). In the poem Ad Maeviam ("To Maevia"), which probably refers to Princess Sophia Vereyska, he adds that "the ocean does not wash away Helen's filth" (Non Helenes sordes abluet oceanus, compare "Petri Rozyii Maurei Alcagnicensis Carmina ...", ed. Bronisław Kruczkiewicz, part II, pp. 465-466, poems V-VI, IX). There are 13 poems of this kind addressed to influential women from the court of Queen Bona, and most likely to the queen herself. Roysius, a simple professor at the Kraków Academy, was undoubtedly paid by someone very influential to slander them. The letter of March 15, 1544 from Piotrków to Jan Dantyszek is a clear confirmation that Górski was a staunch supporter of the Habsburgs, praising the "Most Serene" King of Rome and his daughter and slandering Queen Bona and her son "raised by women and Italians more fearful than women themselves". Father Górski's views were frequently quoted by 19th-century authors, when large parts of Poland were part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire of Franz Joseph I, a member of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine, but they probably did not know or forgot, like Górski himself, that the Habsburgs married and had children with their close relatives. In 1543, Charles V's son, Prince Philip married his close relative, the Infanta Maria Manuela of Portugal, who was also a close relative of Philip's father and mother. Both of Sigismund Augustus's Habsburg wives were granddaughters of his uncle. It seems, however, that apart from the "doctor Spaniard" and Górski, no one in Poland-Lithuania-Ruthenia felt concerned about Bona's sexual life, as no other comments are known. Since such homosexual acts were punishable by death at the time, it is quite possible that by making them public, the instigator(s) hoped to get rid of the "dragon who sat at the Wawel". The event that took place in 1545, after the death of Elizabeth of Austria, was probably a response to this campaign. In that year, an order was placed in Vienna, the seat of Ferdinand I, for the queen's bed and the piece of furniture was to be modeled on a bed belonging to Elizabeth. The intensive use of the queen's bed is confirmed by the accounts. The first piece of furniture, brought from Italy, was repaired several times. Later, Bona acquired at least two more beds (including a large bed for the queen's bedroom and a smaller one for the king's bedroom, commissioned in 1543, after "Sypialnia królowej Bony na Wawelu ..." by Kamil Janicki). Also in 1545, Poland was threatened with war with Turkey and the pro-Habsburg party was ready to push the country into an armed conflict with the Ottoman Empire, but the queen, with the help of her supporters, adopted a resolution to pay compensation to Turkey, thus saving the peace (after "Słownik biograficzny arcybiskupów ..." by Kazimierz Śmigiel, p. 151). Dorota Sobocka, a noblewoman of the Doliwa coat of arms, met Piotr Gamrat, who, according to a contemporary source, came from the Italian school of cortegiano (courtiers), before 1528, because at that time this Pułtusk scholastic was defended by Andrzej Krzycki (1482-1537), Bishop of Płock, against the rumors that he had some affection for Dorota (malicious lampoons were circulating in the country). Krzycki wrote in a letter of October 23, 1528 to his uncle, Vice-Chancellor Piotr Tomicki (1464-1535) that there were no witnesses and the defense was easy (after "Z dworu Zygmunta Starego. (Dokończenie)" by Kazimierz Morawski, p. 535). Gamrat, a close associate of Bona, famous for his lavish and dissolute lifestyle, was administrator of the queen's estate in Mazovia between 1532 and 1538. He probably entered the queen's service shortly after her arrival in Poland-Lithuania in 1518. Thanks to Queen Bona, he was appointed Bishop of Kraków in July 1538, then Archbishop of Gniezno and Primate of Poland in January 1541. Sobocka was the daughter of Tomasz (d. 1527), Lord of Sobota, and Elżbieta Bielawska (died after 1546). Her brother was Tomasz Sobocki (ca. 1508-1547), who in 1525, together with his brother Jakub, enrolled at the University of Wittenberg and was a student of Philipp Melanchthon. Probably thanks to Dorota, he became the royal courtier of Sigismund I before 1532. In the service of the king, he was ambassador to John Zapolya, King of Hungary (1535), to Prussia (March 1537) and to Pope Paul III (May 1537) and to the Ottoman Empire (1539). Her sister Anna was married to Piotr Okuń, court marshal of Queen Elizabeth of Austria, and she also had a brother Brykcy (d. 1549), cupbearer to Queen Elizabeth. Before 1520 she married Jan Dzierzgowski (1502-1558) of the Jastrzębiec coat of arms, castellan of Ciechanów in 1532 and castellan of Czersk in 1542. They had two children, a daughter Dorota, who married Zygmunt Parzniewski, and a son Feliks Zbożny (Auctus, 1520-1571). "Some think that Sobodzko will be Archbishop or Bishop of Kraków. It is only certain that a lot of gold for the [papal] bulls will go to Rome," comments Stanisław Górski after Gamrat's death in a letter from Kraków, dated October 9, 1545. This "Sobodzko" was Dorota's brother-in-law, Mikołaj Dzierzgowski (ca. 1490-1559), who thanks to her received the rich bishopric of Kuyavia in January 1543 and on October 20, 1545 he was actually elected Gamrat's successor as primate. Through Bona and her brother Tomasz, Dorota obtained the Mazovian Voivodeship for her husband in 1544. In the same year, she also wanted to secure for her brother the position of Grand Chancellor of the Crown, and Górski left another malicious comment on this (letter of 26 May 1544): "Many assume that the king will not give the chancellery to Soboczka, the cupbearer, because the Soboczka house is despised by the people because of his sister's licentious life and that the chancellery would be defiled as a result. When Soboczka, as cupbearer, served the king at the table, a cake was brought to the king from his sister. This one too, said the king, you will not defile this Soboczka with guilt. However, I think that the king, following the advice of the queen and the archbishop, will give Father Paweł [Dunin Wolski] the Bishopric of Poznań, and the seal to Mr. Sobeczko, because women and effeminates rule everything today". After Jan Dzierzgowski's death on August 22, 1548, Dorota erected a funeral monument for her husband in St. Anne's Church in Warsaw, in the main nave on the right side next to the altar of the Virgin Mary, carved in marble, but it was destroyed during the Deluge (1655-1660). It was probably made by Giovanni Cini or Giovanni Maria Padovano in their workshops in Kraków and transported to Warsaw. There are no material traces of the influential and very wealthy Sobocka preserved in today's Poland, she is also largely forgotten and known thanks to the malicious comments of Stanisław Górski and the Habsburg agent Giovanni Marsupino, who in a letter to Ferdinand I of August 19, 1543, called her the wife of Archbishop Gamrat (after "Jagiellonki polskie w XVI wieku" by Alexander Przezdziecki, Volume 1, p. 139). There is also a Mazovian legend connected with Lady Sobocka and Queen Bona: during the queen's stay at the hunting palace of the Mazovian dukes at Lake Krusko (today Lake Serafin) near Łomża, the child of her favourite, left unattended, drowned in the marshy lake. Bona Sforza and her companion, in a fit of anger, cursed the lake and this place. The Czartoryski Museum in Kraków houses a portrait of a woman, previously attributed to the German painter Conrad Faber von Kreuznach, active in Frankfurt am Main before 1553, and today to an unknown German painter from the circle of Lucas Cranach the Elder (oil on panel, 51.5 x 40 cm, inv. XII-238). The painting comes from the collection of the last elected king of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Stanislaus Augustus Poniatowski (1732-1798), where it was considered the work of Hans Holbein the Younger. In 1818 it was purchased by Princess Izabela Czartoryska, who placed it in the Gothic House in Puławy as a portrait of Katharina von Bora, a fugitive nun and wife of Martin Luther. Around 1818, an inscription in Polish was added to the upper left corner of the painting: Katarzyna Boore / żona Marcina Lutra. The costume is similar to that from the portrait of Bora by Cranach the Elder in the Coburg Fortress (inv. M.418), but the facial features are different, Bora has larger (Slavic?) cheekbones. Therefore, this identification, like many other inscriptions on the paintings from the Puławy collection, usually based on a general resemblance, is today rejected. The inscription Anna de Boulen in the upper left corner of the portrait of Charles V's sister Isabella of Austria (1501-1526), Queen of Denmark, Norway and Sweden (Czartoryski Museum, inv. XII-299) was removed in the early 2000s because it is obviously not the famous second wife of King Henry VIII of England, Anne Boleyn (d. 1536), although the costume is similar to that seen in the portrait of Anne in the National Portrait Gallery (inv. NPG 4980(15)). The portrait of Isabella comes from the Sułkowski collection in Rydzyna and could probably have come from the collection of Sigismund I. It was later acquired by Stanislaus Augustus. By the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries, the rich and powerful Poland-Lithuania-Ruthenia of the Renaissance had long been forgotten, and Protestant Prussia, which together with Russia and Austria divided the country, was the dominant power in the region. The earlier history of the portrait by Cranach's entourage in the Czartoryski Museum is not known, so it either comes from earlier royal collections or was purchased by Poniatowski from a magnate collection. To make the identification with the famous Lutherin even more obvious, a coat of arms was added to the woman's ruby ring, however the author probably did not know Katharina's coat of arms and based it on descriptions of Martin's coat of arms, since this emblem resembles that of the Luther family - two golden apples and a white rose. The resemblance to Cranach's style in the painting described is obvious, so the most likely author seems to be Hans Döring (ca. 1490-1558), Cranach's chief assistant until the mid-1510s. His signed and dated portrait of Philipp (1468-1544), Count of Solms-Lich, is very similar (Sotheby's London, December 6, 2007, lot 135, HD.1520). His presence in Wetzlar north of Frankfurt in 1533 is confirmed, however his biography is not well known, so his stay in Poland-Lithuania is likely. If this were the case, it would also mean that the majority of his works were destroyed. The same woman, dressed in a similar costume, is depicted in the painting from the workshop of Lucas Cranach the Elder, preserved in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg (inv. Gm1108). This painting tells the story of an adulterous wife - The Fable of the Mouth of Truth (Duplicity of Women) - and Queen Bona is depicted as the main character. Like Queen Bona, the woman in the black dress on the right looks at the viewer meaningfully, so she must be identified as the influential mistress of the queen - Sobocka. The same woman, dressed in a similar costume, can also be identified in another painting by Cranach. The work, now held at the Fondation Bemberg in Toulouse (oil on panel, 83.4 x 120.5 cm, inv. 1098), was sold in London in 2000. It is a courtly scene depicting Hercules at the court of Omphale, Queen of Lydia, where this mythological hero is dressed as a woman and the queen required him to do women's work. Two of Omphale's servants put a lady's bonnet on his head and two others hand him a distaff to spin. It was a popular motif at the Polish-Lithuanian court, as a similar scene depicting the family of Sigismund I is in the National Museum in Poznań (inv. Mo 109) and the oldest ones from 1531 depict the family of Bona's favourite Beata Kościelecka (private collection), all identified by me. The scene was painted in 1537 and signed with the artist's sign. "The Lydian maidens entrust their daily tasks to Hercules, and he, though equal to the gods, submits to the will of his lady. Thus lust robs a man of his intelligence, and fickle love robs him of his strength" (HERCVLEIS MANIBVS DANT LYDÆ PENSA PUELLÆ / IMPERIVM DOMINÆ FERT DEVS ILLE SVÆ / SIC CAPIT INGENTIS ANIMOS DAMNOSA VOLVPTAS / FORTIAQVE ENERVAT PECTORA MOLLIS AMOR), reads the Latin inscription above the scene, a perfect illustration of the refined court of Queen Bona and that of Sobocka in Ciechanów, Czersk and Warsaw. In this court scene in mythological disguise, Dorota wears an orange French-style dress with a large neckline in the back. Hercules is undoubtedly her husband Jan Dzierzgowski. The woman on the left, who looks like Sobocka, is probably her daughter Dorota, later Parzniewska, or less likely her sister Anna. The facial features of the two women behind Sobocka are different, so they are most likely her future daughter-in-law Anna Szreńska (Srzeńska) in the blue dress and her mother Barbara Kościelecka (died after 1550) in the green dress. Barbara, daughter of Stanisław Kościelecki (1460-1534), voivode of Poznań, was officially Beata Kościelecka's cousin (her "father" Andrzej was Stanisław's brother) and, like Beata, was a member of Queen Bona's court. Before April 1526, she married a courtier, Feliks (Szczęsny) Szreński (Srzeński) Sokołowski (ca. 1498-1554), who on April 12, 1526 acknowledged receiving a considerable dowry of 3,000 florins. In 1532, at the age of 29, he took office as voivode of Płock and in 1537 he received the starosty of Malbork. Like other members of the queen's court, Barbara was a colourful character and subject to commentary by Górski. On Barbara's orders, the noblewoman Pniewska, who was having an affair with her husband, was murdered. She also had a lover, probably Feliks Sieprski from Gulczewo, castellan of Rypin. Queen Bona, whose favor Szreńska enjoyed, tried to reconcile the spouses in 1533 through Bishop Krzycki, while Feliks denied all accusations of mistreating his wife at that time. Kościelecka soon began to manage the Płock starosty, which her husband had given her in 1531, on her own. Between 1537 and 1543, she bought small plots of land near Płock, creating "her own little farm". In 1540, following a complaint from the citizens of Płock that she was taking away the municipal benefits for this purpose, a royal commission investigated the matter on the spot, but it did not find any abuses on Szreńska's part. Later, she sold this farm with her husband's consent and made a profit from it. Barbara had good relations with Duke Albert of Prussia, who was painted by Cranach. In 1549, she asked him to send her a grey English puppy, and in 1550 - to sell 100 Silesian sheep. Szreńska had two daughters: Anna, mentioned above, wife of Zbożny Dzierzgowski, castellan of Sochaczew, and Barbara, who married Andrzej Firlej, castellan of Lublin (after "Polski słownik biograficzny: Sowiński Jan-Stanisław August ...", 1935, p. 253). The same woman in a green dress similar to the one in the Toulouse painting was depicted as the biblical heroine Judith holding the head of Holofernes in a painting by Lucas Cranach the Elder from around 1545 (oil on panel, 21 x 14.6 cm, Sotheby's New York, Auction 2282, January 27, 2010, lot 7). However, since the Toulouse painting is dated "1537", it could also be dated earlier. The painting was auctioned in London in 1963. Interestingly, the man's head resembles the features of Barbara's husband Feliks from his funerary monument in the parish church in Szreńsk. The monument was probably made in Kraków in a workshop influenced by Giovanni Maria Padovano in 1546 and shows him in splendid Renaissance armour that can also be seen in many of Cranach's paintings (compare "Funerary sculpture in sixteenth-century Mazovia" by Olga M. Hajduk, p. 69, 325-329). A short biography of Feliks and his daughters was included by Bartłomiej Paprocki in his Herby Rycerztwa Polskiego ..., published in Kraków in 1584 (p. 309). A stove tile with a male bust from the second quarter of the 16th century (District Museum in Toruń) and another tile with the biblical story of Joseph and Potiphar's wife from the first quarter of the 16th century (Klaipeda Castle Museum), as well as Martin Schoninck's The Story of Judith (The Siege of Bethulia) from 1536 (Artus Court in Gdańsk) prove that the fashion in Poland-Lithuania was very similar to that visible in Cranach's paintings. The voivode of Płock, Feliks Szreński, one of the most trusted collaborators of King Sigismund Augustus, died in 1554. All his property was passed on to his daughters born from his marriage to Barbara Kościelecka. The funerary monument of Anna Szreńska in the parish church in Pawłowo Kościelne, sculpted by the royal sculptor Santi Gucci Fiorentino in the 1560s, is very interesting because it refers to the Venetian images of the sleeping Venus. Lady Dzierzgowska née Szreńska is pointing at her womb. Perhaps by today's standards, all these women were not role models in their private lives, but as administrators and guardians of peace they contributed enormously to the economic and cultural development of Poland-Lithuania-Ruthenia before the Deluge. 
Portrait of Dorota Dzierzgowska née Sobocka by Hans Döring, ca. 1534-1537, Czartoryski Museum in Kraków.
Hercules at the court of Omphale with portrait of Dorota Dzierzgowska née Sobocka and members of her family by Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1537, Fondation Bemberg in Toulouse.
Portrait of Barbara Szreńska née Kościelecka as Judith with the head of Holofernes (bearing the features of her husband Feliks) by Lucas Cranach the Elder, ca. 1537-1545, Private collection.
King Sigismund I, his wife and his four daughters as Hercules and Omphale's maids by workshop of Lucas Cranach the Elder
"The Lydian maidens entrust their daily tasks to Hercules, and he, though equal to the gods, submits to the will of his lady. Thus lust robs a man of his intelligence, and fickle love robs him of his strength" (HERCVLEIS MANIBVS DANT LYDÆ PENSA PVELLÆ / IMPERIVM DOMINÆ FERT DEVS ILLE SVÆ / SIC CAPIT INGENTIS ANIMOS DAMNOSA VOLVPTAS / FORTIAQVE ENERVAT PECTORA MOLLIS AMOR), reads the Latin inscription above the scene of Hercules and Omphale in several paintings made by Lucas Cranach the Elder and his workshop in the late 1530s. The mythological hero, courageous and wise, was not afraid of powerful women, he succumbed to them and this obviously gave him great joy.
Sigismund I the Old was frequently compared to the mythological hero Hercules, it was a standard during renaissance. In 1537 the king was celebrating 20th anniversary of his coronation (January 24, 1507) and 70th anniversary of his birth (January 1, 1467). The composition of a painting from the Mielżyński collection, now in the National Museum in Poznań (oil on panel, 48 x 73 cm, inv. Mo 109), surprisingly correspond to the composition of the Jagiellon family around 1537. It is a workshop copy, most probably a copy of a copy, hence resemblance might be not so evident. Cranach workshop was famous for its "mass production" of quality paintings. The study for a portrait, a drawing with all details of the sitter's costume meticulously described, was prepared by some court painter or a Cranach's pupil sent to the patron. Just as in case of preparatory drawings to portraits of Margaret of Pomerania (1518-1569) and Anna of Brunswick-Lüneburg (1502-1568), Duchess of Pomerania, relatives of Sigismund through his sister Anna Jagiellon, Duchess of Pomerania (1476-1503), such drawings were sent from Poland to facilitate the work on commission. In this courtly scene showing Hercules, who was sold to the court of Queen Omphale where he had to remain as a slave for three years, we could distinguish the 70 years old king Sigismund (1467-1548), his 43 years old second wife Bona Sforza (1494-1557), and his four daughters: 18 years old Isabella (1519-1559), 15 years old Sophia (1522-1575), 14 years old Anna (1523-1596) and 11 years old Catherine (1526-1583). Cardinal Albert of Brandenburg (1490-1545), Bishop and Elector of Mainz, Archbishop of Magdeburg and Archchancellor of the Holy Roman Empire, was not afraid either and succumbed to ... the fashion for such disguised portraits, because the painting in the Danish National Gallery (Statens Museum for Kunst) bears his coat of arms and corresponds perfectly to the composition of the Cardinal's family in 1535, the year the painting was painted (panel, 82 x 118 cm, inv. KMSsp727). The work comes from the Danish royal collection, mentioned in the inventory of Christiansborg Palace in Copenhagen in 1784. In the centre, the prince-elector can be seen in secular costume as Hercules. Albert's daughter Anna Schütz von Holzhausen (ca. 1515-1599), the child from his previous affair with Elisabeth (Leys) Schütz von Holzhausen (d. 1527), places a woman's bonnet on his head. Agnes Pless née Strauss (1502-1547), mistress of the cardinal from around 1527 until his death in 1545, is depicted as another court lady of the mythological Omphale (or the queen herself). She gives the distaff to "Hercules" and looks at the viewer in a meaningful way. The older lady behind her is her mother Ottilia Strauss née Semer (d. 1543), the second wife of Agnes' father, the Frankfurt butcher Hans Strauss (d. 1519). In 1531/32, Agnes bought a house on the old market square in Halle an der Saale for over 2,000 guilders. She lived there with her mother and held court in great splendor. Her relationship with Albert was known to the public. She also received gifts from several nobles, such as a precious pearl necklace from Duke Henry of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel (1489-1568), later husband of Sophia Jagiellon (1522-1575). In 1541, following the victory of the Reformation, she left Halle with her mother and Albert. A reduced copy of the painting from the Danish royal collection, which was in the Albert Langen collection in Munich before 1899, is now in the Stiftsmuseum in Aschaffenburg (inv. 12578). It is believed to be a fragment of a larger composition that was cut into pieces and the portrait of Ottilie, also from the Langen collection in Munich, is now in a private collection (Hampel in Munich, June 27, 2019, lot 674). Such a secular disguise in a court scene should not be considered unusual. In a drawing attributed to the German sculptor and medallist Hans Schwarz and earlier to Albrecht Dürer, Christopher of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel (1487-1558), Bishop of Verden and Archbishop of Bremen, brother of Henry, is depicted in a completely secular costume - a fur coat and hat (Kupferstichkabinett in Berlin, inv. KdZ 6020). Cardinal Albert, a splendid patron of the arts and prince of the Renaissance, corresponded with King Sigismund I and imitated the fashion at the royal court of Poland-Lithuania-Ruthenia. 
Hercules at the court of Omphale with portrait of King Sigismund I (1467-1548), his wife and his four daughters by workshop of Lucas Cranach the Elder, ca. 1537, National Museum in Poznań.
Hercules at the court of Omphale with portrait of Cardinal Albert of Brandenburg (1490-1545), his daughter Anna Schütz von Holzhausen (ca. 1515-1599), his concubine Agnes Pless née Strauss (1502-1547) and her mother Ottilia Strauss née Semer (d. 1543) by workshop of Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1535, National Gallery of Denmark.
Portraits of Bona Sforza by workshop of Lucas Cranach the Elder
In a letter of 29 June 1538 in response to accusations that his second wife Bona appropriated the robes of his first wife Barbara Zapolya, the king Sigismund I testified that the Queen arrived to Poland with so many garments, clothes and ornaments that it would be enough for a few queens.
The Queen's passion for fabrics revived crafts and trade. Under her patronage, attempts were made to establish Italian-style silk weaving mills, as evidenced by entries in the accounts of the royal court (after Ksawery Piwocki's "Tkanina polska", 1959, p. 14). In December 1527 Federico II Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua sent a large shipment of costly materials, including gold cloth, silk and satin fabrics commissioned by Bona, to her Venetian agent Gian Giacomo de Dugnano. Trade took Venetian merchants all over the Mediterranean and as far as China, a fact that affected not only the city's economic prosperity but its cultural identity, making 15th century Venice one of the most culturally diverse cities in Europe (after Carol M. Richardson's "Locating Renaissance Art", 2007, p. 211). So was "Guanyin look" of Bona and her step-daughter in some paintings by Cranach inspired by Chinese art? Bona's taste for German garments and embroideries is confirmed by employment at her court of German embroiderers. Jan Holfelder from Nuremberg became her court embroiderer in about 1525 and Sebald Linck from Nuremberg or Silesia was mentioned in the accounts in the years 1537-1579. The "portrait of a woman" (ritratto di donna) produced by the workshop of Lucas Cranach the Elder, today kept in the Villa del Poggio Imperiale in Florence (oil on panel, 38 x 27 cm, Poggio Imperiale 558 / 1860), most probably comes from the old collections of the Grand Dukes of Tuscany. Similar to the Habsburgs, the Medici also collected effigies of the rulers of Europe and today some of the most important effigies of the monarchs of Poland can be found in Florence, sent to them as diplomatic gifts or commissioned by the grand dukes, like the portraits of Sigismund I (Uffizi Gallery, inv. 1890, 412), Stephen Bathory (inv. 1890, 8855) and the young Sigismund Vasa (inv. 1890, 2436). Several portraits of Bona, who in addition to being Queen of Poland and Grand Duchess of Lithuania with enormous possessions in Ruthenia, was also reigning duchess and heiress to several Italian duchies, should also have been provided to them, so we should assume that all have been lost or forgotten. The mentioned portrait is generally dated between 1525 and 1540 and the woman bears a striking resemblance to the queen in her portraits by Francesco Bissolo (National Gallery in London, NG631) and by Cranach against the idealized view of Kraków (Hermitage Museum, ГЭ-683), both identified by me. Given her more mature appearance, the portrait should be dated more to the 1530s than the 1520s. A similar portrait is now in the Arp Museum Bahnhof Rolandseck in Remagen, Germany (oil on canvas, mounted on wood panel, 31.2 x 26.8 cm). As in Cranach's earlier painting at Wilanów Palace (Wil.1518), the queen holds forget-me-nots, perhaps addressing her husband who, despite his old age, was still traveling across the vast country. 
Portrait of Bona Sforza d'Aragona (1494-1557), Queen of Poland by workshop of Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1530s, Villa del Poggio Imperiale.
Portrait of Bona Sforza d'Aragona (1494-1557), Queen of Poland holding a flower by workshop of Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1530s, Arp Museum Rolandseck.
Portraits of daughters of Bona Sforza by workshop of Lucas Cranach the Elder
Around the year of 1537 three of four daughters of Sigismund I and Bona Sforza reached puberty age (twelve for brides) and their marriage become a principal concern for the queen. Two years earlier, in 1535, the princesses were accommodated in a separate building, the Domus Reginularum (House of the Princesses), at Wawel Castle. Their apartment was richly furnished. The royal court accounts record expenses such as the purchase and repair of various luxury items, such as frames for paintings, ivory crucifixes, golden icons, chests and coffers with ornamental fittings, chessboards, dice, checkers and chess imported from Italy and bird-cages etc. (after "The Court of Anna Jagiellon: Size, Structure and Functions" by Maria Bogucka, p. 93-94).
All three, Isabella, Sophia, Anna, apart from the youngest 11 years old Catherine, were depicted with their hair covered with a snood in the painting from the Mielżyński collection showing the daughters and the wife of Sigismund I in 1537. The portraits of three unkown ladies from the late 1530s, created by workshop of Lucas Cranach the Elder, surprisingly fit the Mielżyński painting and effigies of daughters of Bona by workshop of Lucas Cranach the Younger from the 1550s. They were probably part of a series of copies commissioned to be sent to relatives and potential suitors. The woman in a green dress from a painting sold in London in 2004 (panel, 37.1 x 25.2 cm, Sotheby's, July 7, 2004, lot 32), perfectly matches the appearance and age of the eldest daughter of Sigismund and Bona. This painting was probably in the late 18th century in the collection of James Whatman in Maidstone, Kent. The lady in a crimson dress from a painting sold in New York in 2002 (panel, 56 x 38 cm, Sotheby's, January 24, 2002, lot 156), resemble the second daughter of the royal couple Sophia. The painting comes from the collection of Mrs. Rachel Makower (d. 1960), sold at auction in London on June 14, 1961. The woman in the painting held at the Winnipeg Art Gallery (panel, 76 x 56.5 cm, G-73-51), corresponds perfectly to the effigy of the third daughter - Anna in the Mielżyński painting. This painting was also acquired in London (Arcade Gallery). The garments are more German in style, however Italian influences with low-cut bodices are visible. In 1537 the royal tailor was Francesco Nardocci (Nardozzi) from Naples. Also the fabrics are Italian, Venetian sumptuous silk satins and velvets. During the Prussian Homage in 1525 the royal family was dressed in clothes made of rich Venetian fabrics acquired by Jan Boner in Venice (Acta Tomiciana, vol. IV). Before the advent of cheaper Mexican cochineal in the 1540s, Polish cochineal (Porphyrophora polonica) from which the natural dye carmine is derived, colloquially known as "Saint John's blood", and widely traded in Europe during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, was utilized in Venice to dye fabrics. Polish merchants were present in Venice since at least 1348 and the first permanent dipomatic agent of Poland-Lithuania in Venice between 1535-1543 was Lodovico Alifio, head of the chancellery of queen Bona. The royal embroiderer Sebald Linck from Nuremberg, active at the court from 1537, also worked for the Princesses, like in 1545 when he redo the collars offered by Primate Piotr Gamrat to Sophia, Anna and Catherine and embroidered their dresses with pearls. Splendid clothes and jewelry were made for the princesses by local craftsmen, but also ordered from abroad, such as necklaces ordered from Nicolaus Nonarth in Nuremberg in 1546 for Sophia, Anna and Catherine or expensive and fashionable berets, which the embroiderer Bartholomew had brought from Vienna; since he initially had only two, special care was taken to buy a third (after "Anna Jagiellonka" by Maria Bogucka, p. 10). The painting featuring Herodias in the Speed Art Museum in Louisville (panel, 57 x 49.8 cm, 1968.26) is similar to portrait of princess Sophia Jagiellon. Also her face features match perfectly her portraits in Spanish costume. The inscription identifying the sitter as mother of Salome was most probably added in the 17th or 18th century. The portrait, originally displaying also the decapitated head of John the Baptist, was cut later and lower part was sold separately. A radiograph of the portrait in the Winnipeg Art Gallery, depicting Anna, reveals that her right arm originally featured a decapitated head on an oval platter. The composition was altered during its production. All of Bona's daughters were therefore to be depicted in the popular guise of the legendary biblical and mythological femmes fatales such as Salome, Judith, Delilah or Lucretia. The painting by Lucas Cranach the Younger in the Güstrow Palace (Staatliches Museum Schwerin, panel, 89.5 x 70 cm, G 201), very similar to the Winnipeg portrait, shows Anna Jagiellon as Judith with the Head of Holofernes. A copy of this portrait from an old East Prussian aristocratic collection was sold in Munich in 2011 (panel, 92.7 x 82.5 cm, Hampel, June 30, 2011, lot 235). The painting is attributed to the circle of Lucas Cranach the Younger, but its style recalls works attributed to student of his father active in Lübeck, Hans Kemmer (ca. 1495-1561), such as the Adoration of the Magi (National Museum in Warsaw, M.Ob.2537 MNW) and Judith (National Museum in Wrocław, VIII-2670). The portrait by Cranach's studio, similar to the Winnipeg and Güstrow paintings, depicting the same woman, was in 1934 in the collection of the Jewish art dealer Rudolf Heinemann (1901-1975), partner in the Galerie Fleischmann in Munich (oil on panel, 58.4 x 43.2 cm). It was acquired from a private collection in Italy. The resemblance of the young woman to Anna's mother, Queen Bona, from her portrait of 1526 by Cranach in the Hermitage Museum (inv. ГЭ-683), identified by me, is so obvious that Max Jakob Friedländer and Jakob Rosenberg in their "Die Gemälde von Lucas Cranach" (items 238, 238 d, pp. 73, 118), clearly considered it to be an effigy of the same woman (hence the catalog number and dating), despite the fact that the costume indicates that the painting from Heinemann's collection was created at least ten years later. The wide sleeves of her dress and her unusual hat indicate that Anna wished to combine elements of Italian and German fashion of the time. In 1538 also the youngest daughter of Bona, Catherine Jagiellon, reached the legal age of marriage. Her mother, as for the rest of her daughters preferred Italian match to strengthen her position and the rights to the principalities she owned (Bari and Rossano) as well to these that she claimed (Milan). A small portrait of a girl as Saint Catherine by Lucas Cranach the Elder in Museo Civico Amedeo Lia in La Spezia (panel, 33 x 26 cm, inv. 249), between Florence and Genoa, in a costume from the late 1530s is very similar to effigy of the youngest daughter of Bona from the portrait of Sigsimund I's family from the Mielżyński collection and to other portraits of Catherine Jagiellon. 
Portrait of Crown Princess of Poland-Lithuania Isabella Jagiellon (1519-1559) by workshop of Lucas Cranach the Elder, ca. 1537, Private collection.
Portrait of Crown Princess of Poland-Lithuania Sophia Jagiellon (1522-1575) by workshop of Lucas Cranach the Elder, ca. 1537, Private collection.
Portrait of Crown Princess of Poland-Lithuania Sophia Jagiellon (1522-1575) as Herodias by workshop of Lucas Cranach the Elder, after 1537, Speed Art Museum in Louisville.
Portrait of Crown Princess of Poland-Lithuania Anna Jagiellon (1523-1596) by workshop of Lucas Cranach the Elder, ca. 1537, Winnipeg Art Gallery.
Portrait of Anna Jagiellon (1523-1596) as Judith with the Head of Holofernes by Lucas Cranach the Younger, after 1537, Güstrow Palace.
Portrait of Anna Jagiellon (1523-1596) as Judith with the Head of Holofernes by Hans Kemmer, after 1537, Pivate collection.
Portrait of Anna Jagiellon (1523-1596) by workshop of Lucas Cranach the Elder, after 1537, Galerie Fleischmann in Munich, lost. Virtual reconstruction, © Marcin Latka
Portrait of Princess Catherine Jagiellon (1526-1583) as Saint Catherine by Lucas Cranach the Elder, ca. 1538, Museo Civico Amedeo Lia in La Spezia.
Portraits of Isabella Jagiellon and Sophia Jagiellon by Lucas Cranach the Elder
What better way to depict a potential bride then in a guise of virtuous biblical or historical heroine, the goddess of love or the Virgin?
On January 11, 1537 died in Dresden John, Hereditary Prince of Saxony, the eldest son of Barbara Jagiellon. It was now his younger brother Frederick, born in 1504, second of only two sons of Barbara to survive to adulthood, who would inherit the title of the Duke of Saxony from his father George, nicknamed the Bearded. Despite being mentally handicapped he was declared a heir by his father. Frederick was 33 and was unmarried. Maintaining the alliance with Saxony was important to Poland-Lithuania and it was beneficial for Papacy and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V if the Catholic and pro-Habsburg Albertine line (headed by George, a staunch opponent of Martin Luther), would stay in power. "The marriage of royal maidens, or what was called resolution, was in the spirit of the time a matter of very open diligence on the part of parents and family. They did not hesitate to use methods for this purpose that are not necessarily in keeping with today's sense of delicacy. Finding a husband for the princesses and daughters of the king was often one of the secret diplomatic orders, given not only to envoys, but also to merchants and agents of banking houses, etc.", comments the Polish historian Józef Szujski (1835-1883) about the marriages of the sisters of Sigismund Augustus (after "Ostatnie lata Zygmunta Augusta i Anna Jagiellonka", p. 298). The dowry of Jagiellonian women from the late 15th century was customarily 32,000 Hungarian florins payable in five or two installments. The eldest daughter of Sigismund and Bona, Isabella Jagiellon received 32,000 ducats in cash in 1539, and her bridal trousseau was worth 38,000 ducats, therefore her dowry amounted to 70,000 ducats. The wedding contract of the second in line Sophia, concluded in 1555, stipulated her dowry to 32,000 ducats (or 48,000 thalers) in cash and 100,000 thalers in jewels and other valuables, among which were huge amounts of table and church silver, about 60 precious garments, 5 tents, 34 tapestries, 32 carpets and lots of wonderful jewelry (12 berets set with precious stones, 9 gold necklaces set with precious stones, 34 pendants, 17 gold chains, two gold belts, 4 bracelets). She was accompanied by 8 carriages, including one gilded carriage and one chariot, valuable harnesses and 28 horses. Both princesses were unmarried in 1537, therefore their cousin Frederick of Saxony undeniably received their portraits. Two pendant paintings of Lucretia and Judith by Lucas Cranach the Elder, which were recorded in the inventory of the Ducal Kunstkammer (art cabinet) in Dresden as far as 1595, most likely destroyed in 1945, match perfectly effigies of two mentioned daughters of Sigismund I and Bona. Both paintings had identical dimensions (panel, 172 x 64 cm, inv. 1916), similar composition and were dated to around 1537. The resemblance of Isabella-Lucretia to the famous Venus of Urbino (Uffizi, 1890 no. 1437, mirror view) is striking, while the face of Sophia-Judith is almost identical to that of Herodias at the Speed Art Museum (1968.26). To describe Lucretia from these two panels, Max J. Friedländer and Jakob Rosenberg in their 1932 publication refer to a half-length Lucretia by Cranach from 153(9) which was in the Vilnius Museum (Wilna Museum, panel, 62 x 50 cm, compare "Die Gemälde von Lucas Cranach", p. 82, item 289). Bona Sforza favored her oldest daughter Isabella, who received a thorough education and she could speak and write four languages. Isabella was depicted as Lucretia, the epitomy of female virtue, chastity, fidelity and honour. The younger Sophia, considered the wisest and the most intelligent of all Bona's daughters and described as "an example and a mirror of virtue, piety, and dignity" (exemplum et speculum virtutis, pietatis et gravitatis) by Stanisław Sędziwój Czarnkowski in 1573, was shown as Judith, intelligent, strong, virtuous and devout woman who saved her people from destruction. Opting for closer ties with Emperor Charles V, Frederick was eventually married on January 27, 1539 in Dresden to Elisabeth (ca. 1516-1541), from the Counts of Mansfeld, one of the oldest noble families in Germany and sister of Peter Ernst I von Mansfeld, who participated in Charles V's expedition against Tunis in 1535. The groom died childless just four weeks later on February 26, 1539 followed by his father, who died on April 17, 1539. Duke George was succeeded by his Lutheran brother Henry IV (1473-1541), married to Catherine of Mecklenburg (1487-1561). In April 1538 Isabella Jagiellon was engaged to the King of Hungary. In 1539 John George of Brandenburg (1525-1598), the eldest son of Magdalena of Saxony, daughter of Barbara Jagiellon, reached the legal age of marriage (14). His father Joachim II Hector, Elector of Brandenburg and his stepmother Hedwig Jagiellon were concerned to find a good match for him. Exactly as in the case of Hedwig's portrait as Venus by Cranach from the early 1530s, there is a painting showing Venus from the late 1530s in Berlin. It was accquired by the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin from the Royal Castles' collection in 1830 (panel, 174 x 64.9 cm, inv. 1190). The woman depicted as Venus resemble greatly other effigies of Sophia Jagiellon. When on November 1, 1539 Joachim II openly introduced the Reformation into Brandenburg by receiving Communion according to the Lutheran rite, the marriage with a Catholic princess could not be considered and on 15 February 1545 his son married Protestant Princess Sophie of Legnica (1525-1546), great-granddaughter of King Casimir IV of Poland. Exactly the same effigy of princess Sophia's face as in the Berlin Venus portrait, like a template, was used in the effigy of Madonna and Child with grapes by Lucas Cranach the Elder in the Minneapolis Institute of Arts (panel, 57.1 x 34.6 cm, 68.41.4). She offeres the Child a bunch of grapes a Christian symbol of the redemptive sacrifice, but also a popular Renaissance symbol for fertility borrowed from the Roman god of the grape-harvest and fertility, Bacchus, similarly to the effigy of her father's first wife Barbara Zapolya (Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid). The same template was also used in the effigy of Madonna lactans in Vienna by workshop of Cranach, showing the Virgin breastfeeding the infant Jesus, a common motif in European art since the Middle Ages and a symbol of purity and humility. This motif was borrowed from the image of Isis lactans, a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world, nursing her son, Horus, the god of divine kingship. The painting, now in the Cathedral Museum (Dom Museum) in Vienna (panel, 84 x 57 cm, L/61), was deposited by the Weinhaus Parish in Vienna, a votive temple, built to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Vienna in which John III Sobieski, king of Poland led the army to a decisive victory over the Ottomans on September 12, 1683. In the spring of 1570, two years after death of her husband Henry V, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, Sophia Jagiellon converted to Lutheranism. 
Portraits of Isabella Jagiellon (1519-1559) as Lucretia and Sophia Jagiellon (1522-1575) as Judith by Lucas Cranach the Elder, ca. 1537, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden, lost. Virtual reconstruction, © Marcin Latka
Portrait of Crown Princess Sophia Jagiellon (1522-1575) as Venus with Cupid as the honey thief by Lucas Cranach the Elder, ca. 1539, Gemäldegalerie in Berlin.
Portrait of Crown Princess Sophia Jagiellon (1522-1575) as Madonna and Child with grapes by Lucas Cranach the Elder, ca. 1539, Minneapolis Institute of Arts.
Portrait of Crown Princess Sophia Jagiellon (1522-1575) as Madonna lactans by workshop of Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1538-1550, Dom Museum in Vienna.
Portraits of Isabella Jagiellon by Lucas Cranach the Elder and workshop and portrait of John Zapolya by workshop or circle of Lucas Cranach the Elder
The plan to wed Isabella Jagiellon (1519-1559), the eldest daughter of Sigismund I the Old and his second wife Bona Sforza, to John Zapolya (1487-1540), Voivode of Transylvania and King of Hungary emerged around 1531. Sigismund von Herberstein (1486-1566) in his 1531 report to King Ferdinand I of Austria (1503-1564) cites Hieronim Łaski (1496-1541) as a source of information: "The King of Poland will marry the eldest daughter of the current queen to Count John of Spis [the Habsburgs refused to give Zapolya the title of king]. Then Łaski told me that about the marriage of his master [John Zapolya] he had negotiated with the King of Poland and received a favorable answer". Perhaps Łaski himself, one of the most skillful politicians of the time, a close associate of Zapolya, or Bona, were the authors of this project. For many years the queen tried in vain to persuade her husband to take an anti-Habsburg position. The marriage of her daughter to Zapolya would mean a victory for the queen and a change in Polish policy (after "Jagiellonowie: leksykon biograficzny" by Małgorzata Duczmal, p. 60, 265, 413).
At that time, Zapolya again sought help from the West against the Habsburgs. The help for Zapolya was sought by Hieronim Łaski, who used the entire year of 1531 for diplomatic trips. From Kraków, he went to Bohemia, then to Vienna and Buda, then back to Kraków, but soon went to Innsbruck, then to France and Hesse, from there again to Kraków, then to Spis and finally to Transylvania, to Zapolya. However, he did not provide any concrete help to the Hungarian king. It was then that Łaski's idea was born, not entirely original, because Andrzej Krzycki, perhaps at the instigation of Bona, had already suggested such a solution in 1526, to marry Zapolya to a Polish princess. Łaski believed that in Europe only Poland could provide Zapolya with effective support against the Habsburgs (after "Izabela Jagiellonka, królowa Węgier" by Małgorzata Duczmal, p. 158). Accounts of royal expenses by royal banker Seweryn Boner (Severin Bonar, 1486-1549) confirm the expenditures made on Isabella's jewellery and clothing in 1536, such as the money allocated for her dress, a sapphire signet ring ordered for her to match her jewellery (Die 17 Decembris 1536. dedit pro Schaphiro pro signeto Sermae reginulae Isabellae monetae fl. 29 et a sculptura eiusdem signiti monetae fl. 8 facit in toto fl. 37/15), or a ruby rose sent to Nuremberg to have a new stone set in place of the missing one. At the same time, Bona ordered jewelry for Isabella from the goldsmiths in Wrocław. In 1537, the four princesses received a gold chain from her, also ordered in Wrocław (after "Izabella királyné, 1519-1559" by Endre Veress, p. 22, 27-28, 45). The city was at that time the economic centre of Silesia and many of Cranach's paintings were imported there, as evidenced by some paintings kept in the National Museum and the Archdiocesan Museum in Wrocław. The marriage project, so important for Hungary, was first seriously discussed in November 1537, when Franjo Frankopan (Franciscus Frangepanus, d. 1543), Archbishop of Kalocsa and Bishop of Eger, received a letter from Hetman Jan Amor Tarnowski, who proposed Isabella as a bride to the King of Hungary. Although the old, sick King John did not really want to marry, he yielded to the persuasion of his advisors. Zapolya first communicated his agreement to Tarnowski privately. All these negotiations were kept secret, especially from the Habsburgs and their agents in Hungary, such as Johan Weze (1490-1548), Archbishop of Lund and later Bishop of Constance. Weze was secretary to King Christian II of Denmark and a diplomat in the service of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and at that time negotiated the Treaty of Oradea (Nagyvárad / Grosswardein), signed on February 24, 1538. The King of Hungary planned to come to Buda on St. Martin's Day and to celebrate his marriage immediately after the New Year 1539, around the Epiphany. But this was impossible, because Isabella's wedding dress was not yet ready, and so it was agreed at the court in Kraków that the symbolic marriage would take place before King John's envoys at the end of January, and the religious ceremony in Hungary would take place in the first half of February, on the 9th, as the invitations had been sent out. The wedding ceremony on January 31, 1539 in Kraków was followed by a sumptuous feast, at which court poets such as Stanisław Aichler (Glandinus), Stanisław Kleryka (Anserinus), Sebastian Marszewski (Sebastianus Marschevius) and Wacław Szamotulski (Wenceslaus Samotulinus) read their occasional poems and wedding songs praising Isabella. Some of them were also published in Kraków, such as two works by Marszewski (Kórnik Library, Sygn.Cim.Qu.2205, Sygn.Cim.Qu.2206) or Aichler's Epithalamium Isabellae ... (Czartoryski Library, 250 II Cim). Queen Bona's physician, Giacomo Ferdinando da Bari (Jacobus Ferdinandus Bariensis, Jakub Ferdynand z Bari), in his De foelici connubio serenissimi Ungariae regis Joannis et S. Isabellae Poloniae regis filiae ..., also published in Kraków in 1539 (Kórnik Library, Sygn.Cim.Qu.2379), wrote about her marriage that not a hundred languages could adequately describe Isabella's physical and mental gifts and beauty and that her body is pretty, graceful, her face shows joy and modesty. Her limbs are beautiful and proportionate, and King John can rejoice in receiving such a bride, as can Hungary, which has suffered so much until now. A portrait of a young woman by Lucas Cranach the Elder in the Danish National Gallery (panel, 41.5 x 25.5 cm, inv. DEP4), bears a strong resemblance to other effigies of Isabella, in particular the best-known effigy of the Jagiellonian princess made by the workshop of Lucas Cranach the Younger around 1553 or later (Czartoryski Museum, inv. MNK XII-542). It can therefore be dated to around 1532, as the medal with the bust of Isabella by Giovanni Maria Mosca (Gallerie Estensi, Palazzo Coccapani in Modena, inv. R.C.G.E. 9313). The painting comes from the collection of Abraham Oppenheim (1804-1878) in Cologne, and its earlier history is unknown. This work is generally dated before 1537 because of the raised wings of the dragon in Cranach's mark. Although this portrait is also considered to represent Emilia of Saxony (1516-1591), the resemblance to the best-known portrait of the Saxon princess in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna (group portrait with her sisters, inv. GG 877) or to a portrait by Hans Krell in the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool (inv. WAG 1222), is barely visible. The same woman can be identified in another painting by Cranach and his workshop, now in the Hallwyl Museum in Stockholm, considered to be an effigy of the Roman goddess Venus (panel, 94 x 59.5 cm, inv. XXXII:B.156. HWY). This is also evident not only from the resemblance of the facial features, but also from the general context of such effigies of Jagiellonian women, identified by me. The woman even wears the same necklace as that visible in the portrait of Isabella in a green dress by the workshop of Lucas Cranach the Elder (Sotheby's London, January 24, 2002, lot 156). The painting is undated and is generally dated to 1526-1537. It was therefore most likely part of Isabella's dowry, which she took with her to Hungary and brought back to Poland on her return in September 1551. The painting was originally part of a larger composition depicting Venus and Cupid, similar to the portrait of Isabella's half-sister Hedwig Jagiellon, daughter of Barbara Zapolya, in the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin (inv. 594). It was most likely cut down by later, more prudish owners. Before its acquisition in 1915, the painting was located at Edsberg Castle, north of Stockholm, which once belonged to Gabriel Oxenstierna (1619-1673), much valued by the Brigand of Europe, as Stefan Czarniecki called him, King Charles X Gustav of Sweden. Isabella died just three years after her return to Transylvania on September 15, 1559, at the age of 40, allegedly as a result of a poorly performed abortion, a child of her lover Stanisław Nieżowski (ca. 1520-1573). Like Isabella, very few confirmed effigies of her husband have survived and some are probably waiting to be rediscovered. John Zapolya, like his predecessor Louis II Jagiellon, whose portraits were painted by Bernhard Strigel, Hans Krell, Flemish and Italian painters, must have commissioned several of his painted effigies. The effigy which probably represents Zapolya most faithfully is a woodcut by the German engraver Erhard Schön (ca. 1491-1542) from Nuremberg, published by Hans Guldenmund (d. 1560), with the inscription in the upper part in German: Johans von Gottes gnaden König zu Hungern and Hans Guldenmundt below the effigy. Between 1532 and 1548 Guldenmund also created an engraving with the portrait of the Elector of Saxony John Frederick I (1503-1554), inscribed Gedruckt zu Nürnberg durch Hans Guldenmundt, bey den Fleisch pencken, which was undobtedly based on original by Cranach (British Museum, inv. 1850,0612.111). Considering the king's costume as well as Schön's dates of life, the original must have been made in the 1530s or in 1541 like the print depicting the siege of Buda by the Ottoman army, which is also attributed to him (University Library of Erlangen-Nuremberg, H62/DH 4). Woodcuts with portraits of Anna Jagiellonica (1503-1547), Mary of Hungary (1505-1558) and Hurrem Sultan (Roxelana, 1504-1558) are also attributed to Schön, who is considered to have spent his entire life and career in his hometown, where he died in 1542. Highly realistic depictions of the Siege of Buda, as well as the portraits mentioned, must be based on effigies by other artists, probably itinerant painters or draughtsmen or, in the case of the effigy of the Hungarian king, a drawing or portrait by his court painter or an artist who stayed temporarily at his court. It is interesting to note that the woodcut depicting the portrait of the Transylvanian humanist and Protestant reformer Johann Honter (Johannes Honterus, 1498-1549), who studied in Kraków, is very close to the style of Lucas Cranach, which is particularly visible in the part of the model's hands, shirt and beard (inscription: VIGILATE ET ORATE·JOHANES·HONT ...). Honter played a decisive role in the introduction of the Reformation in Transylvania and corresponded with Luther and Melanchthon. In the autumn of 1529 he stayed briefly in Nuremberg and in November he went to Kraków, where on March 1, 1530 he entered his name in the register of the Kraków Academy as Johannes Georgii de Corona. Honterus's first two works were published in Kraków - a description of the world Rudimentorum Cosmographiae libri duo (1530) and a Latin grammar De Grammatica Libri Duo (1532). In 1532 he printed in Basel his map of Transylvania, which he had already made in Kraków, and returned to his hometown of Brasov (Kronstadt in German) in January 1533, where he set up a printing press in 1539 to enable the distribution of his own works. The Protestant Reformers from Transylvania and Hungary Matthias Dévay (ca. 1500-1545), Valentin Wagner (ca. 1510-1557), János Sylvester (ca. 1504–1552) and István Szegedi Kiss (1505-1572), all studied in Kraków and Wittenberg. In his work Geschichte des Kronstädter Gymnasiums, published in 1845 in Brasov, Joseph Dück, citing three Saxon writers from the 18th century, mentions that Honter was Isabella Jagiellon's teacher. He was supposed to have taught the princess Latin and probably also taught her German. He dedicated to Isabella Preface to the Sentences of Saint Augustine (SENTENTIAE EX OMNIBVS OPERIBVS DIVI AVGVSTINI DECERPTAE), published in Brasov in 1539 with a title page decorated with her coat of arms (AD SERENISSIMAM PRINCIPEM / ET DO. DOMINAM ISABELLAM / Dei gratia Reginam Vngariæ, Dalmatiæ, Cro/atie, etcæ. Io. Honteri C. in Sententias diui / Augustini Præfatio). Honter and other members of the German-speaking community in Sarmatia and Transylvania undoubtedly supported and facilitated contacts with artists established in Germany. Portrait of a Bearded Man, formerly attributed to Lucas Cranach the Younger and now to the painter from Cranach's circle known as the Master of the Mass of Saint Gregory, shows a man in rich costume - a fur-trimmed cloak and a gold-embroidered collar set with pearls (oil on panel, 55.9 x 41.3 cm, Christie's London, July 8, 2008, lot 11). The painting was on private loan to the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg before 1930 and has appeared on the art market several times in recent decades. In 1910 it was reported as belonging to L. Hess in Wiesbaden in Hesse, where Łaski travelled in 1531. The signet ring on the sitter's right hand bears the mirrored letters HF, beneath which is a symbol possibly composed of other ligatured letters, interpreted as IH. Such symbols, usually coats of arms, were very important to the people who commissioned the paintings, so this ambiguity regarding the symbol could be the result of a copy, where the copyist misinterpreted or incorrectly painted the symbol, as in the similar painting in the Metropolitan Museum of Art by the circle of Lucas Cranach the Elder (inv. 32.100.61), which according to my identification is an effigy of King Sigismund I. The clearly visible letters HF are probably the monogram of the painter, which could be considered the work of Lucas the Elder's closest collaborator, his son Hans Cranach (ca. 1513-1537) - Hans Fecit, who probably produced his own works from 1527. If Hans copied a portrait made by his father or another German painter and the letters IH are monograms, it could originally be JHR in ligature, comparable to the signature of the Hungarian King John Zapolya: Joannes Rex Hungariæ. The painting is dated "1527" at the top left in Latin numerals (M·D·XX VII). The man in this portrait wears a floral diadem of a bridegroom, which means that he is either engaged or wants to find a wife. In 1526, in addition to the marriage with the Jagiellonian princess, Zapolya also considered marrying the widow of Louis Jagiellon - Mary of Hungary (Mary of Austria), sister of Emperor Charles V and King Ferdinand I, although she stated that she would rather go to a convent than betray her brother by marrying Zapolya. In early 1527, the Habsburgs still deceived Zapolya into believing that this marriage was not out of the question. In this way, they wanted to persuade John to yield. Mary also rejected other candidates, although they were not enemies of the Habsburgs like Zapolya. The 1527 portrait is very similar to Erhard Schön's woodcut with the portrait of the Hungarian king. 
Portrait of Crown Princess Isabella Jagiellon (1519-1559) by Lucas Cranach the Elder, ca. 1532, Statens Museum for Kunst.
Portrait of Crown Princess Isabella Jagiellon (1519-1559) as Venus by Lucas Cranach the Elder and workshop, ca. 1537, Hallwyl Museum in Stockholm.
Portrait of John Zapolya (1487-1540), King of Hungary and Croatia by workshop or circle of Lucas Cranach the Elder, probably Hans Cranach, 1527, Private collection.
Woodcut with portrait of Johannes Honterus (1498-1549) by workshop or circle of Lucas Cranach the Younger, 1540s, Picture Collection of Archive and Library of the Evangelical Church A.B. Kronstadt in Brasov.
Allegorical portraits of Bona Sforza by Lucas Cranach the Elder and workshop
"Bona loved power and did not like to share it with anyone, not even her own son - as evidenced by her reluctance to handing over Lithuania to him. For this reason, even earlier, in 1538, she prevented the functioning of the institution of four resident senators alongside Sigismund Augustus, created during the Diet of that year" (after Maria Bogucka's "Bona Sforza", 1989, p. 224).
The 1537 anti-royalist and anti-absolutist rebellion (rokosz) of the Polish nobility, ridiculed by the nickname of the Chicken War, criticized the role of queen Bona, whom they accused for the "bad upbringing" of young Sigismund Augustus, centralizing policies and seeking to increase her power in the state. As a result the 1538 Diet declared elections vivente rege, that Bona forced, illegal in the Polish kingdom and insisted that all estates had the right to be present at such events in the future. That same year it was also agreed that the only son of Bona will marry archduchess Elizabeth of Austria (1526-1545), which Bona "a great enemy of the king of Rome" Ferdinand I, her father, strongly oposed. So does she commissioned a painting to express her dissatisfaction? The painting by Lucas Cranach the Elder, dated 1538, from the old collection of the Royal Wilanów Palace in Warsaw (oil on panel, 60.3 x 42.1 cm, Wil.1749, recorded in 1743) can be considered as such. It shows Lucretia, a noblewoman in ancient Rome, whose suicide led to the political rebellion against the established power. Bona is credited with introducing many Italian "novelties" to Poland-Lithuania-Ruthenia and portraiture was very developed at that time in her native country. Numerous portraits of the queen's relatives of the House of Sforza, such as the portrait of her paternal grandfather Galeazzo Maria Sforza (1444-1476), Duke of Milan, by Piero del Pollaiuolo (Uffizi Gallery, inv. 1890, 1492) became a classic of European portrait. However, the effigies of the queen are not mentioned in the inventories of notable collections, such as those from the second half of the 17th century of the Lubomirskis or the Radziwill family, which indicates that they were probably forgotten or hidden in mythological or religious disguises (portrait historié). The 1661 inventory of the Lubomirski collection indicates that only the most recent effigies were saved and that the oldest were left at the "mercy" of the barbarians during the Deluge. Similarly Boguslaus Radziwill (1620-1669), who evacuated his possessions to Königsberg/Królewiec. The register of his paintings from 1657 (AGAD 1/354/0/26/84), however, lists a few paintings by Cranach (one of the rare names of painters mentioned in this inventory), including two or three paintings of Lucretia probably by him (the author's name is not mentioned) - "A painting on a board of a woman man who killed herself" (Obraz na desce białeygłowy ktora się zabiła, [...] obraz ktora się sama zabia), as well as several portraits whose identity has already been lost: "Two Italian Ladies", "Two unknown ladies", "Unknown cavalier", "Unknown Hetman", "Large paintings of women ... 3", "A Cardinal", "Moldavian Voivode", "Radziwill without a name", "A German person in a cuirass", "Foreign Duchess", "Face of a woman", "Holy head", "A girl with a dog" and "Image of Antichrists". Very similar Lucretia as a naked three-quarter length figure, covered only by a veil, is in the private collection (oil on panel, 75.5 x 57.7 cm, with the Weiss Gallery, London in 2014). Her facial features were modelled on other effigies of the Queen by Cranach and resemble greatly the effigy in Villa del Poggio Imperiale. The same effigy, almost like a template, was used in the painting depicting the Virgin and Child with grapes in front of a curtain held by an angel in the National Gallery in Prague (oil on panel, 85 x 59 cm, O 9321). This painting is attributed to workshop of Lucas Cranach the Elder and dated to about 1535-1540. It was previously in the collection of the Sternberg family (recorded since 1806), most probably in Prague. Mary is depicted here as a noble vine, whose fruit is Jesus. At the same time, the vine is the Redeemer himself and his branches are believers: "If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing" (John 15:5). Like the Virgin, Bona was the mother of the king, so she is equally important. This painting could be a gift for Bona's main opponent, Ferdinand of Austria (1503-1564), who resided in Prague. Similar Madonna is in Gdańsk, which was the main port of Poland in the 16th century (National Museum in Gdańsk, oil on panel, 55 x 36.5 cm, inventory number MNG/SD/268/M). However, the pose of the Virgin and the Child resemble more closely the portrait of Queen Bona Maria Sforza in guise of Mary in the Städel Museum in Frankfurt. The Child is offering an apple to his mother, a symbol of original sin (peccatum originale), as well as temptation, salvation and the royal power (royal orb or royal apple). According to a Milanese manuscript, probably from the 17th century, Bona was criticized by her opponents, like probably all strong female leaders in history, for three things in Poland: monetae falsae, facies picta et vulva non stricta - allegedly fake coins mixed in with her dowry, excessive use of cosmetics and licentiousness (after Mónika F. Molnár, "Isabella and Her Italian Connections", p. 165). "If I seem a lecherous image to the viewer, what kind of shame do you have a greater ideal? You will marvel at my power and accomplishment in that form, so I will become religious to you" (Si videor lasciva tibi spectator imago, / Die maius specimen quale pudoris habes? / Virtutem factumque meum mireris in ista / Forma, sic fiam religiosa tibi), wrote in his Latin epigram entitled "On Lucretia depicted more lasciviously" (In Lucretiam lascivius depictam), secretary of Queen Bona Andrzej Krzycki (1482-1537), Archbishop of Gniezno. 
Allegorical portrait of Bona Sforza as Lucretia by workshop Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1538, Wilanów Palace in Warsaw.
Portrait of Bona Sforza as Lucretia by Lucas Cranach the Elder or workshop, ca. 1535-1540, Private collection.
Portrait of Bona Sforza as Madonna and Child with grapes by workshop of Lucas Cranach the Elder, ca. 1535-1540, National Gallery in Prague.
Portrait of Bona Sforza as Madonna and Child with an apple by workshop of Lucas Cranach the Elder, ca. 1535-1540, National Museum in Gdańsk.
Portrait of king Sigismund I by circle of Lucas Cranach the Elder
In 1538 Sigismund I and his second wife Bona Sforza were celebrating 20 years of their fruitful marriage which produced a heir to the throne and four daughters, one of which was about to become the Queen of Hungary and large festivities were held at the Wawel Castle.
The portrait of a man in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (oil on panel, 55.9 x 42.5 cm, 32.100.61) from 1538, date top center: MDXXXVII(I), is very similar to the effigy of King Sigismund I from Aleksander Gwagnin's Sarmatiae Europae descriptio, published in Kraków in 1578 and other portraits of the king. The oldest confirmed provenance of the painting is the Lindemann collection in Vienna in 1927, therefore coming from the collections of the Habsburgs, relatives of Sigismund, or transfer from the collections of Polish-Lithuanian magnates, who transferred their collections to Vienna after the Partitions of Poland, are possible. Christian II of Denmark (in the Museum der bildenden Künste) and Elector Frederick III of Saxony (in the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia) are depiced in very similar black caps with earflaps, costumes and beards in their portraits by Cranach and his workshop from the 1520s. Therefore the painting could be a copy of a portrait from the 1520s. The initals on a signet ring displaying a coat of arms are illisible and unidentifiable as of today, however they are very similar to these visible on signet seal of Sigismund I with monogram SDS (Sigillum Domini Sigimundi) in the State Archives in Gdańsk and in Poznań. Finally the age of the sitter (?) on the painting is also illisible and identified as xlv, so it could be XX, as 20th anniversary or LXXI, as age of Sigismund in 1538 and commissioned by the king or his wife on this occasion as one from a series commemorating it? "If the present work had a female pendant, which is quite possible, the orange as a symbol of fertility would have been especially appropriate" (after The Met Catalogue Entry). The 1657 inventory of paintings by Boguslaus Radziwill (1620-1669) held at the Central Archives of Historical Records in Warsaw (AGAD 1/354/0/26/84), which lists several paintings by Cranach and very probably his circle, includes two paintings by the master which could be pendants, such as the portrait of Joachim Ernest (1536-1586), prince of Anhalt-Zerbst, depicted as Adam, and his wife Agnes of Barby-Mühlingen (1540-1569) as Eve (Dessau Castle, inv. I-58 and I-59). One of the paintings was "Lucas Cranach's art with Venus and Cupid" and the other was "Lucas Cranach's painting of an old man". Both were probably destroyed during numerous wars, invasions and accidental fires, but the general context suggests that the portraits represented Sigismund I the Old and his second wife Bona Sforza "in the guise" of Venus. Similarly to the Met painting, although naked, the king was most likely depicted in a small painting showing the Fountain of Youth (in the right corner), painted by Hans Dürer in 1527 (National Museum in Poznań, MNP M 0110, signed and dated center left, on a tree trunk: 1527 / HD). The man embraces his wife, also depicted nude, who in turn greatly resembles the effigies of Queen Bona, identified by me, in particular the painting in London (National Gallery, NG631). The couple watches the bathers in the mythical spring which restores youth to anyone who drinks or bathes in its waters. It is quite possible that Bona used such "magic" potions, but in the paintings both will remain young and beautiful forever. 
Portrait of king Sigismund I by circle of Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1538, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Portraits of Andrzej Frycz Modrzewski and Jan Łaski the Younger
Andrzej Frycz Modrzewski was born on 20 September 1503 in Wolbórz in central Poland. He studied in Kraków between 1517 and 1519. He was ordained a vicar in about 1522 and worked in the office of Jan Łaski the Elder, Primate of Poland.
At the turn of 1531/32 he went to Germany, probably on the mission entrusted to him by Łaski, and he enrolled in the University of Wittenberg. The letter of recommendation from Łaski enabled him to live in Philip Melanchthon's house. Acquaintance with the prince of German humanists turned into friendship over time and he also met Martin Luther and other Protestant reformers. The leading painter in the city, who also held the office of mayor, was Lucas Cranach the Elder. Frycz was a diplomatic agent and he often traveled between Wittenberg and Nuremberg and to Poland. He probably left Wittenberg in mid-1535, when a great plague broke out in the city. In November 1536 Modrzewski was sent by Jan Łaski to Basel to take over Erasmus of Rotterdam's great library, purchased by Łaski during the lifetime of the great humanist. Then he went briefly to Paris, Nuremberg, Strasbourg and Kraków and at the beginning of February 1537 he was in Schmalkalden as an observer on a congress of Protestant princes. On May 1, 1537 he took part in the talks in Leipzig on dogmatic issues with Jan Łaski the Younger and Melanchthon and after the conference he stayed longer in Nuremberg to learn German. At the beginning of 1538, he was at the fairs in Frankfurt am Main. Most probably through Wittenberg, he returned to Poland. Later, in 1547 he became a secretary of king Sigismund II Augustus. During his studies and travels in Germany he undeniably dressed as other students and Protestant reformers, however as a nobleman of Jastrzębiec coat of arms and hereditary mayor of Wolbórz, he could allow himself a more extravagant attire, like Cardinal Albert of Brandenburg. A portrait of a man who was 35 in 1538 (ANNODO: M.D.XXXVIII / AETATI SVÆXXXV / 1538), painted by Cranach, from private collection, can be therefore considered as effigy of Frycz Modrzewski (panel, 49.7 x 35.3 cm, Sotheby's New York, Janary 27, 2005, lot 188). From the 18th century to before 1918 it was in the Benedictine Abbey in Lambach, near Linz in Austria. Its prior history is unknown. In October 1567 Queen Catherine of Austria, third wife of Sigismund Augustus, settled in the castle in nearby Linz with her servants and all the goods she has accumulated during her 14-year stay in Poland. Although Catholic, the Queen was known for generally favorable views on Protestantism. Andrzej Dudycz (András Dudith de Horahovicza), bishop of Knin in Croatia and Imperial envoy who agitated for her stay in Poland, soon after his arrival to Poland in 1565 joined the Protestant church of Polish Brethren and married a Polish woman. The Queen studied the Bible and other theological works and supported nearby monasteries. She died childless in Linz on 28 February 1572 and donated most of her property to charity. The same man was depicted in a portrait of a man with beret in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna (oil on canvas, 103 x 82 cm, inv. GG 1552). It is dated similarly as the painting by Cranach: 1538 + NATVS + ANNOS + 35 +. The portrait was in the collection of Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria in Brussels and was included in the Theatrum pictorium (Theatre of Painting), a catalog of 243 Italian paintings in the Archduke's collection, under number 56. The painting is attributed to the Lombard-Venetian school and it was probably made in Brescia, a city in Lombardy that was part of the Republic of Venice. Its style recalls the works of Moretto da Brescia, such as his portrait of Count Fortunato Martinengo, dating from around 1540-1545 (National Gallery in London, inv. NG299), but also those attributed to Bernardino Licinio, such as the portrait of a man in a red coat (Hampel Fine Art Auctions in Munich, June 26, 2014, lot 245). This ambiguity regarding authorship could result from a copy; for example, Moretto could have received a painting from Licinio to copy and draw inspiration from the style of the painter active in the capital of the Republic of Venice. The same man can also be identified in a painting attributed to Joos van Cleve (d. 1540/1541), now at Petworth House and Park, West Sussex (oil on panel, 43.2 x 33 cm, inv. NT 486251). This work may have been at Northumberland House in 1671. It is dated around 1535-1540 and was thought to depict Sir Thomas More (1478-1535), hence the inscription in the upper left corner: Sir.Tho. More. This traditional identification is probably related to the fact that Cleve painted the portrait of Henry VIII without having met the King of England (Hampton Court Palace, inv. RCIN 403368). The costume and facial features of this man are very reminiscent of portraits of Modrzewski by Cranach and the Lombard-Venetian painter. The man is also wearing the same ring as in the Vienna painting. The portrait of Jan Łaski the Younger (Johannes a Lasco, 1499-1560), a Polish Calvinist reformer, in the Johannes a Lasco Library in Emden in northwest of Germany, is painted on a wood panel and dated dendrochronologically to about 1555 (oil on panel, 81.5 x 66 cm). Łaski worked in Emden between 1540 and 1555. This portrait is attributed to an unknown Netherlandish painter or less known painter Johannes Mencke Maeler (or Johann Mencken Maler) active in Emden around 1612. Stylistically this effigy is very close to the portrait of Andrzej Frycz Modrzewski in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna and to the style of Bernardino Licinio, who died in Venice before 1565. His workshop frequently used wood instead of canvas, like in paintings attributed to Licinio and his workshop in the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest. The way the model's hands were painted is reminiscent of the paintings of Giulio Licinio (1527-1591), nephew of Bernardino, son of Arrigo, such as the roundels commissioned in 1556 by the procurators of Saint Mark de supra for the ceiling of the reading room of the Biblioteca Marciana. In 1559, Giulio moved to Augsburg and, between 1562 and 1570, together with his brother Giovanni Antonio Licinio, he worked for the Habsburgs on the decoration of Bratislava Castle. The inscription in the upper part of the frame with the coat of arms of Łaski - Korab, confirms the identity of the model (JOANNES A LASCO POLONIE BARO). Another known painted portrait of Łaski from 1544, now lost, was also painted by a Venetian painter. The composition and technique visible in the only known photo of the painting clearly indicate this. Inscription in Latin in the upper part of the painting: ÆTATIS SVÆ 45 ANNO 1544 (after "Szlakami dziejopisarstwa staropolskiego ..." by Henryk Barycz, p. 60), confirmes his age - 45 years in 1544. The style of this painting is reminiscent of works attributed to Giovanni Battista Maganza (ca. 1513-1586), father of Alessandro (1556-1630), who, according to my research, painted several portraits of Sarmatian nobles and monarchs. Particularly similar is the style of composition with several figures, now in a private collection, representing Judith with the head of Holofernes, attributed to Giovanni Battista. Another similarly painted composition is in a private collection in Poland. It is a version of the original composition attributed to Paolo Veronese (1528-1588) depicting the Virgin and Child with Saint Barnabas and Saint John the Baptist (oil on canvas, 89.5 x 90.5 cm, Rempex in Warsaw, auction 188, December 19, 2012, lot 114), another copy of which, possibly by Andrija Medulić, known as Andrea Schiavone (d. 1588), was in the Wilanów Palace in Warsaw before the Second World War (oil on canvas, 91 x 100 cm, inv. 106). Łaski studied in Vienna and later in Italy, at the universities of Bologna and Padua. He knew Latin, Greek, German, and Italian and traveled to many European countries, including England and East Frisia. Several printed images with his portrait were produced in the Netherlands, including the engraving in the National Library of Poland (G.25203) with a Dutch inscription at the bottom. Other of his best-known effigies were also produced by the Dutch engraver Hendrik Hondius I (1573-1650). The portrait of a man wearing an eastern hat decorated with feathers - aigrette (szkofia, egreta) and a brooch closely resembles Łaski's effigies (oil on panel, 55.5 x 44 cm, Capitolium Art, Auction 387, December 13-14, 2022, lot 27). The painting comes from a private Italian collection and bears the inscription in the center right: ALASSCO.,, interpreted as the painter's signature, although it appears to be an Italianized version of Łaski's Latin name: [Joannes] a Lasco. The painting is attributed to a 16th-century Northern European artist, while its style closely resembles the works of a Flemish Renaissance painter who was active in Bruges in the 16th century - Pieter Pourbus (ca. 1523-1584), such as his Adoration of the Shepherds in the Church of Our Lady in Bruges, signed and dated: PERTVS POVRBVS. / FACIEBAT. AN° DNI, 1574,. This diversity of painters and representations perfectly reflects the diversity of Renaissance Sarmatia, as well as its main thinkers. 
Portrait of Andrzej Frycz Modrzewski (1503-1572), called "the Father of Polish democratic thought", aged 35 by Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1538, Private collection.
Portrait of Andrzej Frycz Modrzewski (1503-1572), called "the Father of Polish democratic thought", aged 35 by Moretto da Brescia or circle, 1538, Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.
Portrait of Andrzej Frycz Modrzewski (1503-1572), called "the Father of Polish democratic thought" from the Theatrum Pictorium (56) by Lucas Vorsterman II after Moretto da Brescia or circle, 1660, Princely Court Library in Waldeck.
Portrait of Andrzej Frycz Modrzewski (1503-1572), called "the Father of Polish democratic thought", by Joos van Cleve, ca. 1538, Petworth House.
Portrait of Jan Łaski the Younger (Johannes a Lasco, 1499-1560), Polish Calvinist reformer by Giulio Licinio, ca. 1544-1555, Johannes a Lasco Library in Emden.
Portrait of Jan Łaski the Younger (Johannes a Lasco, 1499-1560), Polish Calvinist reformer, aged 45 by Giovanni Battista Maganza, 1544, lost. Virtual reconstruction, © Marcin Latka
Portrait of Jan Łaski the Younger (Johannes a Lasco, 1499-1560), Polish Calvinist reformer by Pieter Pourbus, 1550s, Private collection.
Portrait of Illia, Prince of Ostroh by Giovanni Cariani or Bernardino Licinio
"Mr. Nicolaus Nypschitz, my singularly generous friend and supporter, has recently sent me two letters, one from his Sacred Imperial Majesty, which is of the greatest importance and comfort to me, the other from your Reverend Paternity, my most respected master and friend, which was most agreeable to me" (Dominus Nicolaus Nypschitz amicus et fautor meus singulariter generosus, in hiis paulo transactis temporibus binas ad me transmisit literas, unas a Sacra Maiestate Imperiali, que michi maximi momenti et consolationis adsunt; alias vero ab Vestra R. Paternitate a domino et amico meo observantissimo, que michi etiam plurimum in modum extiterant gratissime), is a fragment of a letter of Illia (1510-1539), Prince of Ostroh (Helias Constantinovicz Dux Ostrogensis) to Bishop Jan Dantyszek (1485-1548), envoy of Poland-Lithuania at the Imperial court in Vienna (before 1878 in the Czartoryski Library in Paris, Mss. Nr. 1595, published in "Jagiellonki polskie w XVI. wieku ..." by Aleksander Przeździecki, Józef Szujski). In this letter, dated from the castle of Ostroh on the Wednesday before the feast of the Transfer of Saint Stanislaus (September 22), in the year 1532, he also thanked the prelate for his recommendations to the Emperor (me comendare in gratiam Cesaree Catholice Maiestatis) and other letters.
In the imperial archive in Vienna there was also a letter of Prince Illia (or to him) dated February 2, 1538, in which the Prince asked King Ferdinand for a passport to travel to Jerusalem. Sigismund I's sentence from December 20, 1537 released Illia from the obligation to marry Anna Radziwill. Shortly after this, in 1538, the Prince decided to visit the Holy Land and arrived at the king's court to obtain the necessary documents and authorizations. However, the ruler dissuaded him from traveling because of a threat from the Tatars and Saracens and Queen Bona took steps to reunite the young prince with her favorite Beata Kościelecka, which ended in an engagement. Around that time, Illia, who loved a luxurious life and visit the royal court quite often, is said to have sent gardeners from Italy and set up an orangery in Ostroh. According to the 1620 description, his castle in Ostroh had Venetian glass in the windows, and there was also a stock of glass from Gdańsk. The dining room with a stove and a large a cabinet with silverware was quite large (five windows, a high vault) and the rooms had stoves with green tiles of local and Italian production. The Orthodox Church of the Epiphany in Ostroh with its Gothic elements, founded by his father Constantine (ca. 1460-1530), was probably built by Italians who worked at that time in Kraków, and the church utensils were allegedly ordered almost exclusively abroad, in Germany and Italy. His famous father, often compared to ancient heroes and leaders, introduced Illia into military service. The papal legate Jacopo Pisoni wrote in 1514, that "Prince Constantine can be called the best military leader of our time... in battle he is not inferior to Romulus in bravery", he also described his devotion to the Greek Church and added that he is "more pious than Numa". Queen Bona's physician, the Italian Giovanni Valentino, in a letter of September 2, 1530 to Duke Federico Gonzaga of Mantua, written immediately after Constantine's death, stated that he was "so much pious in his Greek faith that the Ruthenians considered him a saint" (after "Prince Vasyl-Kostyantyn Ostrozki ..." by Vasiliy Ulianovsky, pp. 42, 158, 160, 323-324, 524-525, 1171-1172). From the second half of the 17th century, portrait gallery of the Princes of Ostroh was kept in the Dubno Castle, built by Constantine in 1492. Their collections as well as their clothing represented both Eastern and Western traditions. At the coronation sejm in February 1574, Constantine Vasily (1526-1608), Illia's stepbrother, arrived with his sons, one of them was dressed in Italian, and the other in Cossack style, as well as four hundred hussars, dressed in Persian style. He offered king Henry of Valois a very expensive and original gift - five camels. Inventory of the treasury of the Princes of Ostroh in Dubno of March 10, 1616, made six years after the death of Constantine Vasily (Archives in Dubno, published in 1900 by Jan Tadeusz Lubomirski), lists many items from the princely collections. Apart from Turkish fabrics, Persian rugs, gold and silver tableware, clocks, music boxes, a bezoar, precious Eastern, Cossack, German and Italian saddles, armours and armament, gold and gilded maces, the treasury also contained the gifts, like these from the Wallachian Hospodar, and souvenirs and trophies from the Battle of Orsha in 1514: "Moscow cannon with a Centaur, with the Moscow coat of arms", "a long florid cannon", and the golden mace of the Great Tsar of Moscow. Zofia Tarnowska, hetman's daughter, and wife of Constantine Vasily, contributed: three armours of the Tarnowski family, a great cannon, "a second cannon from Tarnów", and also items received from her mother, Zofia Szydłowiecka: "painting on copper of Szydłowiecki" and "The Great Chain of Lord Szydłowiecki", possibly a gift from the Emperor, received in 1515 by the chancellor Krzysztof Szydłowiecki. Among 41 cannons cast in Dubno, Ostroh, Lviv, imported from Gdańsk or donated by Hornostaj, Radziwill and Lubomirski families, Bishops of Kraków and the Vasas, one was a gift from Queen Bona. In the treasury there were also: "Venetian armour, misiurka helmet of Damascus steel, made in Venice, studded with gold", "Wax picture of the Duke of Brandeburg behind glass in a round little box", gold face of His Majesty Prince Constantine Vasily, "German chest from Vienna" with silverware, "German vanity table woven with silk", "Marble table from Poland", "Turkish green tent, Turkish tent from Mr Jazłowiecki", "The third chest, inside it: Leopards 108, Tigers 13, Dyed bears 2, Dyed lioness 1". The inventory also lists many paintings, some of which were purchased in Lublin, Kraków and abroad, like "14 paintings bought in Lublin, 6 paintings bought in Kraków, 4 large, 2 small", "Alabaster image with the Descent from the Cross of Jesus in golden frame", "Picture of the Lord's Passion framed in silver", "Picture made of stone [pietra dura] from the voivode of Podolia", "A picture of peacock feathers", as well as "Moscow paintings" and many other objects typical of early 17th century art cabinets. The paintings, as much less valued than weapons and fabrics, were described very generally, with particular emphasis on the valuable material on which they were painted or framed. In private collection in the United States there is a "Portrait of a warrior", attributed to Giovanni Cariani (after "Giovanni Cariani" by Rodolfo Pallucchini, Francesco Rossi, p. 350). It was also attributed to Bernardino Licinio (by William Suida), Bartolomeo Veneto and Paolo Moranda Cavazzola. Licinio's authorship is also very likely, the style of these two painters is sometimes very similar, which indicates that they could cooperate, in particular on large orders from Poland-Lithuania. In the 19th century the painting was in the Palais Coburg in Vienna, built between 1840-1845 by the Ernestine line of the Wettin Dynasty, Dukes of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. Its previous history is not known, so it is possible that it was sent to Vienna already in the 16th century. The costume of a young man indicates that the portrait was created in the 1530s - similar to that seen in a portrait of the three-year-old Archduke Maximilian of Austria (1527-1576), son of King Ferdinand, by Jakob Seisenegger, dated '1530' (Mauritshuis in The Hague), similar to costume of a soldier in the Christ crowned with Thorns by Lucas Cranach the Elder, dated '1537' (Grunewald hunting lodge in Berlin) and to attire of Matthäus Schwarz from his portrait by Christoph Amberger, dated '1542' (Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum). His crinale cap is also more Northern European, and close to that visible in many effigies of king Sigismund I. The young man is holding a stick or a cane and viaticum, a small provision for a journey, as in the known portraits of pilgrims. The marble relief on the right is an explanation of the reason for his penance. It shows a woman holding a baby and a man leaving her. Between them there is another child or a blindfolded figure, like in the scenes of the marriage of Jason and Medea, created after 1584 by the Carracci family (Palazzo Fava in Bologna), and Jason rejecting Medea by Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini from about 1711 (Northampton Museum and Art Gallery). Princess and sorceress Medea, who figures in the myth of Jason and the Argonauts, was a daughter of King Aeetes of Colchis on the east coast of the Black Sea, further south from the domains of the princes of Ostroh. Out of love, she helps Jason and the Argonauts to get the golden fleece guarded by Aeetes and flees with them. Then Jason abandons her to marry the daughter of King Creon of Corinth. In revenge, guided by emotions contrary to reason, Medea murders Creon, his daughter and her own children. So the young man from the portrait wants to make amends for abandoning a woman - breaking the engagement with Anna Radziwill, fixed by his father. From 1518 the Radziwills were Imperial Princes (title granted by Emperor Maximilian I, grandfather of King Ferdinand) and the story of the Argonauts was undoubtedly particularly appealing to the Habsburgs who were members and grand masters of the Order of the Golden Fleece. The symbol on his crinale cap is the Seed of Life or more broadly Seed of Life within the Flower of Life, one of the ancient sacred geometry symbols. It is often used to symbolize the sun, the cycle of life and the seasonal cycles of nature. It is also "a symbol of fertility, the Divine Feminine, and growth since it contains the Vesica Piscis symbol, which initially represented the female vulva or womb. [...] Many cultures use the rosette [Seed of Life] to avoid bad luck and the central six petals symbolize blessings. In Eastern Europe, the Seed of Life and the Flower of Life were called 'thunder marks' and were carved on building to protect them from lightning" (after "Seed Of Life Secrets You Want To Know" by Amanda Brethauer). Leonardo da Vinci studied this symbol in his Codex Atlanticus (fol. 459r), dating from 1478 to 1519 (Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan). The central six petals also bring to mind the six-pointed star from the portrait of Alexander (d. 1603), Prince of Ostroh (Ostroh Castle) and coat of arms of his brother Janusz (d. 1620) on the main gate of the Dubno Castle. The young man with high cheekbones, often associated with people of Slavic origin, resemble greatly Prince Illia from his effigies by workshop of Cranach, identified by me (Hercules and Omphale's maids from Kolasiński collection, preparatory drawing for Saint George fighting a dragon), and effigies of his father Prince Constantine. 
Portrait of Illia (1510-1539), Prince of Ostroh by Giovanni Cariani or Bernardino Licinio, ca. 1538, Private collection. Virtual reconstruction, © Marcin Latka
Portrait of manager of the royal mints Justus Ludwik Decjusz by Dosso Dossi
"Whoever wrote that justice [Iustitia or Justitia in Latin] is not worth selling for all the gold in this world predicted the future well. He predicted that near the city of Krakus there would be a village bearing the famous name of justice, your village, Ludwik, which is not worth selling for all the gold hidden in the earth in its dark bosom. I am so delighted with the recently erected mansion, and the garden, and the shade cast by the beautiful vineyards, and the forest that seems to wander in the nearby hills; I am so charmed by ponds with waters as transparent as glass; I like it so much to be free to drink at my will, sweet daughter of Auson's land [Italy]" (partially after "Dzieła wszystkie: Carmina" by Andrzej Trzecieski, p. 167), praises the beauty of the suburban villa of Justus Ludwik Decjusz, Polish poet Klemens Janicki (Clemens Ianicius, 1516-1543) in his Latin epigram "To Justus Ludwik Decjusz, the father" (Ad Iustum Ludovicum Decium patrem).
Janicki, who during his stay in Venice in the years 1538-1540 found himself in the circle of humanists grouped around Cardinal Pietro Bembo, described the residence of the informal minister of finance (financial adviser) and secretary to the king Sigismund I the Old, built in the style of Italian Renaissance between 1530-1538 in Wola Justowska near Kraków. The design of the building is attributed to Giovanni Cini from Siena, Bernardo Zanobi de Gianottis (Romanus) from Rome or Filippo da Fiesole (Florentinus) from Florence. The owner of the magnificent villa, the royal secretary Justus Ludwik Decjusz (Justus/Jodocus Ludovicus Decius in Latin or Justo Lodovico Decio in Italian) was born Jost Ludwig Dietz in about 1485 in Wissembourg, a town north of Strasbourg in today's France. He settled in Kraków at the turn of 1507/1508. At first he was a secretary and associate of Jan Boner, his countryman, the royal banker and administrator of the salt mines in Wieliczka and Bochnia, thanks to which he was able to make many trips to Italy, Netherlands and Germany and establish contacts for Boner. From 1520 Decjusz was a secretary and diplomat of King Sigismund I. It was he who was sent to Venice in 1517 to buy an engagement ring and richly decorated fabrics for the king in preparation for the king's wedding to Bona Sforza. In June 1523 he was sent as a royal envoy to Venice, Naples and to Queen Bona's mother, Duchess Isabella of Aragon in Bari, taking with him as a gift a statue of Saint Nicholas made of gilded silver. In 1524, together with Jan Dantyszek, he was in Ferrara and in Venice, and a year later in 1525 he was entrusted with the task to purchase pearls in Venice for Bona, which was accomplished with the help of a Jewish merchant Lazarus from Kazimierz, who was sent by the king to Venice as a commercial expert (after "Biuletyn Żydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego", Issues 153-160, p. 6). Decjusz soon became influential and made personal acquaintances with Erasmus of Rotterdam and Martin Luther. From Emperor Maximilian I he received a noble title, which was confirmed in Poland in 1531 and the Tęczyński family adopted him to the Topór coat of arms. Decjusz's career peaked with his appointment as the king's personal adviser and overseer of the royal mint. He was appointed by the king the manager of the mints in Kraków and Toruń, and later also in Königsberg (Królewiec in Polish) and entrusted with the task of reforming the monetary system in the Crown, Lithuania and the Duchy of Prussia. The reform program was included in the work "Treatise on minting coins" (De monetae cussione ratio) from 1525, where he argued that a ruler could profit from minting money. He was also the author of a three-volume Latin work entitled "On the Ancient Origins of the Poles" (De vetustatibus Polonorum), an early version of the Sarmatian myth about the origin of the Polish kings. A man born into a patrician family in a German-speaking community far from the historical lands of the Jagiellonian elective monarchies, he became one of the most important politicians of multicultural Poland-Lithuania, one of the largest countries of Renaissance Europe. Justus was also one of the richest people in Poland-Lithuania, owner a tenement houses in Kraków and in Toruń, and estates near Kraków renamed in his honour Wola Justowska, mines of lead and silver in Olkusz, estates in Silesia and the Duchy of Świdnica, including a copper mine in Miedzianka (Kupferberg), the Bolczów Castle, the villages of Janowice and Waltersdorf. The year 1538 was inportant for Decjusz, who on 7 March had to prove the reliability of his monetary policy in Toruń at the Sejm and who received a confirmation of mining privileges from Emperor Ferdinand I, as well as for Polish commercial contacts with Venice. In 1538 Michael Wechter of Rymanów, a bookseller from Kraków, who received a very expensive printing commission from Bishop Jan Latalski, published in Venice the Kraków Breviary (Breviariu[m] s[ecundu]m ritum Insignis Ecclesie Cracovien[sis], preserved copy in the Ossolineum, XVI.O.528). Earlier edition was printed in France in 1516 by Jan Haller and Justus Ludwik Decjusz, who, possibly, was also indirectly involved in the 1538 edition. At that time, contacts with the ducal court in Ferrara also intensified. In April 1537 Giovanni Andrea Valentino (de Valentinis), court physician of Sigismund the Old and Bona, was sent to Ferrara and Mantua, Mikołaj Cikowski, whose brother Jan was a courtier of the Dukes of Ferrara, became a courtier, and soon the royal secretary, on July 2, 1537 Ercole II, Duke of Ferrara adressed a letter to Queen Bona, and in October 1538 the queen sent her envoys to Ferrara (after "Działalność Włochów w Polsce w I połowie XVI wieku" by Danuta Quirini-Popławska, p. 80). Wealthy Venetian merchants who imported from Poland cochineal, animal skins and furs, as well as woolen cloth and exported huge amounts of mirrors and glass for the windows, silk products, expensive fabrics and stones of eastern origin, gold and silver wire, metal threads and various women's ornaments, as well as wine, spices and books (after "Z kręgu badań nad związkami polsko-weneckimi w czasach jagiellońskich" by Ewelina Lilia Polańska), they were undeniably interested in Polish-Lithuanian monetary policy and their finance minister. In the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest there is a "Portrait of a Moneychanger" (inventory number 53.449, oil on canvas, 107.5 × 89 cm), attributed to Dosso Dossi, a court painter of Duke Ercole II d'Este in Ferrara, who also travelled to Venice and painting in a style mainly influenced by Venetian painting, in particular Giorgione and early Titian. Before 1865 this picture was in the collection of the Duchess of Berry in Venice and later acquired by Count Jeno Zichy, who bequeathed it to the museum. The man wears a black fur-lined coat similar to late Medieval houppelande or knee-length Italian cioppa and black crinale headband. Such headdress was popular with the older generation of men well into the 1530s. Ennoblement of the progenitor of the Odrowąż family by Stanisław Samostrzelnik, created in 1532 (Kórnik Library), Bishop Piotr Tomicki and King Sigismund I and his courtiers kneeling before Saint Stanislaus, also by Samostrzelnik, created between 1530-1535 (National Library of Poland), marble tombstone of Mikołaj Stanisław Szydłowiecki (1480-1532) by Bartolommeo Berrecci or workshop, created in about 1532 (Parish Church in Szydłowiec) and a wooden sculpture of a man in a crinale cap by Sebastian Tauerbach from a coffered ceiling in the Chamber of Deputies at the Wawel Castle, created between 1535-1540, are examples of crinale in the court fashion in Poland-Lithuania. King Sigismund I the Old was depicted in very similar crinale in a print by Monogrammist HR and Hieronymus Vietor, created in 1532 (State Graphic Arts Collection in Munich). On an inkstand there is a slip of paper inscribed in Italian: Adi 27 de febraro 1538 M Bartolommeo, voria festi contento de dare in felipo quelli ... denari perché io ne o bisognio ne Vostro io Dosso. The last word of the letter to Messer Bartolommeo dated February 27, 1538 with the signature was formerly rather difficult to decipher. Elena Berti Toesca in 1935 linked the painting and the person who signed the paper and needs the money with Io[annes] Dosso, that is to say Dosso Dossi (after "Italian Renaissance Portraits" by Klára Garas, p. 32). This Messer Bartolommeo could be the secretary of the Duke of Ferrara Bartolomeo Prospero who corresponded with Bona's court physician Giovanni Andrea Valentino and his cousin Antonio, the same who in 1546 (March 20) recommended Bartolomeo to send a portrait of Ercole's daughter Anna d'Este (1531-1607) not by royal mail, but by a private route in the hands of Carlo Foresta, one of the agents of Gaspare Gucci from Florence, a merchant in Kraków (after "Studia historyczne", Volume 12, Issues 2-3, p. 182). The man is holding a scale and weighing coins, in a composition similar to typical northern school portraits of merchants (like in paintings by Adriaen Isenbrant, Quentin Matsys or Marinus van Reymerswaele). His costume is also more northern, this was the reason why, apart from the physical appearance, this image was previously identified as a portrait of a famous German banker Jakob Fugger. However, he died in 1525, so he could not have been involved in the 1538 letter. The man is therefore Justus Ludwik Decjusz, manager of the royal mints, who was accused of the depreciation of the Polish silver coin and abuse and who cleared himself at the Sejm in 1538. Decjusz died in Kraków in 1545 at the age of about 60, consequently he was about 53 in 1538, that match the appearance of the man in the Budapest portrait. Scales of Justice is a symbol of Themis, goddess of justice (Justitia), divine law and order, like in the Latin version of Decjusz's first name Justus (the Just) and in a print with Allegory of Justice (IVSTICIA) by Sebald Beham (1500-1550) in the National Museum in Warsaw (inventory number Gr.Ob.N.167 MNW). 
Portrait of Justus Ludwik Decjusz (ca. 1485-1545), manager of the royal mints holding a scale by Dosso Dossi, 1538, Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest.
Portrait of Princess Isabella Jagiellon nude (Venus of Urbino) by Titian
Who would not like to marry a goddess? A beautiful, educated and wealthy daughter of a king? But she had an important flaw, she was from a distant country with elective monarchy, where parliament decided everything. Her husband will have no right to the crown, his children would need to stand in election, he woud have no title, he could even not be sure that her family will stay in power. She was finally not a niece of an Emperor, hence she cannot bring valuable connections and prestige. This was a hudge disadvantage to all hereditary princes of Europe. This was the case of Isabella Jagiellon, the eldest daughter of Sigismund I and Bona Sforza. She was born in Kraków on 18 January 1519 and named after her grandmother, Isabella of Aragon, Duchess of Milan and Duchess of Bari.
Together with her brother, Isabella received a good education, including from humanist Johannes Honter, and she could speak four languages: Polish, Latin, German, and Italian. Her mother willing to reclaim the inheritance of Isabella of Aragon pursued a French and an Italian marriage for her daughter. She hoped that King of France would install his son Henry and Isabella in the Duchy of Milan. Isabella, being the eldest granddaughter of the rightful Duke of Milan after her mother, would strengthen the French claims to the Duchy. These plans were abandoned after Battle of Pavia on February 25, 1525. Then Isabella's grandmother wanted to marry her granddaughter for one of her late husband's cousins Francesco II Sforza, Duke of Milan, however Sigismund I opposed as Francesco's hold of the title was tenuous. In 1530 Bona proposed Federico Gonzaga, a son of her friend Isabella d'Este, and sent her envoy Giovanni Valentino (de Valentinis) to Mantua. Bona's daughter was 11 and the potential groom 30 years old. Federico, however, who was made Duke of Mantua by Emperor, pushed for marriage with Maria Paleologa and after her death with her sister Margaret Paleologa, as she brought March of Montferrat as her inheritance and claimes to the title of Emperor of Constantinople. Then Valentino corresponded (25 November 1534) about Isabella's marriage with Ercole II d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, the eldest son of Alfonso I d'Este and Lucrezia Borgia, another friend of Bona. He wrote to Ercole that since the king and queen of Poland have a fifteen-year-old daughter, full of virtues and refined beauty (verluti et bellezza elegantissima), it would be a pity to marry her among German barbarians, from which nationality many powerful men are seeking her hand (after "Izabela Jagiellonka, królowa Węgier" by Małgorzata Duczmal, p. 75). In 1535 Habsburgs proposed Ludovico, eldest son of Charles III, Duke of Savoy. The marriage was negotiated by Bona's secretary, Ludovico Monti and the envoy of King Ferdinand of Austria, Baron Herberstein, but Ludovico died in 1536. Between 1527-1529 and 1533-1536 Isabella lived in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. In his texts entitled De Europa written in the 1440s Enea Silvio Bartolomeo Piccolomini, future Pope Pius II, reported about women in Lithuania, that: "Married noble ladies have lovers in public, with the permission of husbands, whom they call assistants of marriage" (Matronae nobiles publicae concubinos habent, permittentibus viris, quos matrimonii adiutores vocant). These assistants, whose number depended on the position and financial situation of the husband, who were fed at his expense, replaced him by old custom in his marital duties if he had neglected them due to illness, prolonged absence or any other cause. The husbands were not allowed to have lovers and marriages were easy to dissolve by mutual consent (Solvuntur tamen facile matrimonia, mutuo consensu, compare "Stosunki Eneasza Sylwiusza z Polska i Polakami" by Ignacy Zarebski, p. 366). In other writings, he also claimed that Isabella's great-grandfather, Jogaila of Lithuania (Ladislaus II), at the age of almost one hundred, finally had descendants with his subsequent wives, but this was also thanks to marriage assistants (after "Jadwiga (5. Wilhelm i republika listów)" by Marta Kwaśnicka). Although some 19th and 20th century authors have attempted to prove that Piccolomini had invented or propagated this "rumor", it should be kept in mind that "there is a grain of truth in every rumor". Such habits undoubtedly terrified many male readers across Europe. On November 12, 1537 Mikołaj Nipszyc wrote to Albert, Duke of Prussia about "the secret women's practice, which you could get over with, if the princess Isabella was rendered a good favor in this way". He was probably referring to marriage of Isabella with elected King of Hungary, John Zapolya, secretly planned by Bona. But he could also refer to a painting. In October 1536, on the order of the queen, an unknown capellano Laurencio was paid for his mission to Venice. Everything in Titian's painting known as Venus of Urbino emphasize the qualities of a bride depicted (Uffizi Gallery in Florence, oil on canvas, 119 x 165 cm, 1890 n. 1437). She is beatiful, young, healthy and fertile. She is loyal and faithful and a sleeping dog symbolize devotion, faithfulness and fidelity. She is loving and passionate and red roses in her hand symbolize this. She is also wealthy, her servants are searching the coffers of her dowry for a suitable dress. Sumptuous wall hangings are undeniably allso part of her dowry and a pot of myrtle, used in marriage ceremonies, suggest that she is available for marriage. Her face resemble greatly other effigies of Isabella Jagiellon. The painting is identifiable with certainty at the Villa del Poggio Imperiale in 1654-1655. In Villa del Poggio Imperiale, there is a portrait of Isabella's mother by Lucas Cranach from the same period and in Poland preserved one of the oldest copies of Venus of Urbino (Museum of Art in Łódź, oil on canvas, 122 x 169.5 cm, MS/SO/M/153). The latter painting possibly comes from the Radziwill collection and could be tantamount to description in the catalogue of paintings exhibited in Królikarnia near Warsaw in 1835: "TITIAN. (copy). 439. Venus lying on a white bed, a dog at her legs, two servants occupied with clothes. Painted on canvas. Height: elbow: 1, inch 20, width: elbow: 2, inch 20" (TITIAN. (kopia). 439. Wenus leżąca na białem posłaniu, przy jej nogach piesek z tyłu dwie służące zajęte ubraniem. Mal: na płótnie. Wys: łok: 1, cali 20, szer: łok: 2, cali 20, after "Katalog galeryi obrazow sławnych mistrzów ..." by Antoni Blank, p. 123). Two old replicas with minor changes to the composition are in the Royal Collection in England (RCIN 406162 and 402661) - one was recorded at Whitehall Palace in London in 1666 (no. 469) and the other in the King's Little Bedchamber at Windsor Castle in 1688 (no. 754). One of them of good quality could come from Titian's workshop (oil on canvas, 109.5 x 166.3 cm, RCIN 406162). Certainly the English monarchs were more interested in the portrait of the Polish-Lithuanian princess and queen of Hungary than the unknown mistress of the Duke of Urbino. The painting in Florence is generally considered as tantamount to that of the "naked woman" (la donna nuda), mentioned in the letters of March 9 and May 1, 1538 that Guidobaldo della Rovere (1514-1574) wrote to his agent in Venice, Gian Giacomo Leonardi. Another reduced version of the painting, probably from Titian's workshop, was sold on July 8, 2003 (Sotheby's London, lot 320). In the version held at Nottingham City Museums and Galleries (Nottingham Castle), the model is transformed into Diana, goddess of the hunt, childbirth, and fertility (oil on canvas, 68 x 115.5 cm, inv. NCM 1910-1960). Her womb is covered, probably referring to her status as a married woman. The green color of the curtain behind her also evokes fertility. This painting is closer to the style of Lambert Sustris and the facial features more closely resemble the portrait of Isabella Jagiellon, then Queen of Hungary and Croatia, holding a white dog (private collection), attributed to Sustris. It was presented to the museum in 1910 by Sir Kenneth Muir-Mackenzie (1845-1930) and, before that, was probably in the collection of his father-in-law William Graham (1817-1885). Similar pose is visible in monument to Barbara Tarnowska née Tęczyńska (d. 1521) by Giovanni Maria Padovano in the Tarnów Cathedral from about 1536 and monument to Urszula Leżeńska by Jan Michałowicz of Urzędów in the Church in Brzeziny, created between 1563-1568. These are not the only particular examples of the combination of elements of life and death in 16th-century art preserved in the former territories of Renaissance Sarmatia. The National Art Museum in Kaunas, Lithuania holds an interesting painting inspired by the Venus of Urbino: Vanity (oil on canvas, 97 x 125 cm, inv. ČDM MŽ 1188). It is one of several copies of this composition, the original of which was also painted by Titian - probably the one from the Kingston Lacy Estate, Dorset (inv. NT 1257116), originally held in the Widmann collection in Venice. In this composition, the sitter is looking upwards towards a painted plaque above her head, on which is written: OMNIA / VANITAS (All is vanity). The symbols of the vanity of royal power, a crown and a scepter, lie at her feet; on the ground, near her hand, are bags of money and a pile of gold coins. The large silver vase, or rather the urn, symbolizes death. Similar to the version in the Accademia di San Luca in Rome, the most likely author of the Kaunas painting is Alessandro Varotari (1588-1649), known as Il Padovanino, who frequently copied Titian's paintings in early 17th century. As its style suggests, the Kingston Lacy Estate painting can be dated to the late period of Titian's work, in the 1560s, and therefore after the death of Isabella Jagiellon. In the 17th and 18th centuries, famous paintings from other eras frequently inspired wealthy patrons to commission similar works of art. Usually these paintings were well known to customers, so they wanted to have a similar work of art or be represented "in the guise" of that particular figure. One of the best-known examples, at least in Poland, of this practice is the painting identified as self-portrait by Jan Lievens, now kept at Wawel Castle (inv. 600). It comes from the Jerzy Mycielski collection and is inspired by the lost portrait of a "Young Man" by Raphael from the Czartoryski Museum. In the Bratislava Municipal Gallery (A 2446) there is another transposition of this famous work by Raphael, painted at the end of the 17th century and possibly depicting a member of the Dal Pozzo family. Interestingly, the portrait by Raphael, which was stolen by the Nazi German invaders during World War II, probably does not depict "a man" at all, as the same youth was depicted in the School of Athens by Raphael (Vatican Museums), identified as the female mathematician Hypatia and "his" face also resembles a woman from a painting in the Louvre (INV 612 ; MR 434), variously attributed to Raphael, Giulio Romano or the school of Raphael and identified to represent Doña Isabel de Requesens y Enríquez de Velasco (d. 1532), vicereine of Naples. The most beautiful inspiration by the "Venus of Urbino" in what is considered 18th-century Polish painting is probably the posthumous portrait of Anna Lampel née Stiegler (d. 1800), imagined as a reclining Venus. It was painted around 1801 (i.e. at the beginning of the next century) by the painter Marcello Bacciarelli, born and educated in Rome and naturalized as a Polish nobleman in 1768 by the Commonwealth's parliament. Anna, a theater actress of Austrian origin, was a lover of the actor, director and playwright Wojciech Bogusławski (1757-1829) and she died in 1800 in Kalisz, probably in childbirth. Bogusławski then commissioned a large portrait of Anna which he kept until the end of his life. The model is lying on a bed in a negligee. Next to her is Cupid or putto (genius of death) who extinguishes the torch of life. Anna holds her hand on a small dog, a symbol of fidelity. In the background on the left is an idealized landscape. The painting revives the same canon and concept of the "disguised portrait" that was also popular in the Renaissance and ancient Rome, particularly similar to the statue of a wealthy Roman lady depicted as Venus on a lid of her sarcophagus, now kept at the Pio Clementino Musem (inv. 878). The scene is generally thought to be imaginative and Bacciarelli used other effigies of Anna as inspiration (compare "Zidentyfikowany obraz Bacciarellego" by Zbigniew Raszewski, p. 194-196). The painting as well as a drawing and a preparatory painting sketch for the composition are held in the National Museum in Warsaw (Rys.Pol.6085, MP 1102, MP 5150). They had to be approved by the sponsor and differ in many details, which indicates that Bogusławski had a great influence on the final effect and that he must have been well acquainted with "Venus of Urbino" and other Venetian nudes, despite the fact that, according to known sources, he never visited Italy. The art collector, physician and historian Paolo Giovio (1483-1552), bishop of Nocera de' Pagani, who owned several portraits painted by Titian, must have been familiar with the likenesses of Bona's eldest daughter, because he claimed that she "combined the charm of an Italian woman with the beauty of a Polish woman" (Madama Isabella, figliuola di Gismondo Re di Polonia, fanciulla di virile di Polonia, & erudito ingegno; & quel che molto importò per allettare l'animo di lui amabilissima per vaghezza Italiana, & per leggiadria Polonica, after "La seconda parte dell'historie del suo tempo ...", published in Florence in 1553, p. 771). In 1549 Giovio moved to the court of Cosimo I de' Medici in Florence, where he died in 1552. 
Portrait of a young man or woman in a fur coat by Raphael, 1513-1514, Czartoryski Museum, lost during World War II. Virtual reconstruction, © Marcin Latka
Portrait of Princess Isabella Jagiellon (1519-1559) nude (Venus of Urbino) by Titian, 1534-1538, Uffizi Gallery in Florence.
Portrait of Princess Isabella Jagiellon (1519-1559) nude (Venus of Urbino) by follower of Titian, after 1534, Museum of Art in Łódź.
Portrait of Princess Isabella Jagiellon (1519-1559) nude (Venus of Urbino) by follower of Titian, after 1534, The Royal Collection.
Portrait of Princess Isabella Jagiellon (1519-1559) nude (Venus of Urbino) by workshop of Titian, after 1534, Private collection.
Portrait of Isabella Jagiellon (1519-1559), Queen of Hungary and Croatia as Diana by Lambert Sustris, after 1539, Nottingham Castle.
All is vanity by Alessandro Varotari, first half of the 17th century, National Museum of Art in Kaunas.
Postmortem portrait of Anna Lampel née Stiegler (d. 1800), depicted as a reclining Venus, by Marcello Bacciarelli, ca. 1801, National Museum in Warsaw.
Portraits of Isabella Jagiellon by follower of Titian and Jacopino del Conte
"As fate wills it. Queen Isabella" (Sic fata volunt. Ysabella Regina) – the eldest daughter of Sigismund I and Bona Sforza painted these words with her own hand on the wall of her beautifully painted bedroom. This inscription still existed in 1572 (after "Izabella királyné, 1519-1559" by Endre Veress, p. 28, 36-37, 81, 489-490).
No painted effigy of Isabella from the period between 1538 and 1553, made before Cranach's famous miniature, appears to have survived to the present day. However, sources confirm the existence of such effigies. In a letter dated August 31, 1538, Bona Sforza speaks of two portraits of her daughter, one half-length and the other full-length, made by a court painter of Jan Dantyszek, Prince-Bishop of Warmia, perhaps a painter from a German school of painting. However, it is not excluded that Dantyszek, a diplomat in the service of Sigismund I, who traveled frequently to Venice and Italy, had at his court a painter from Titian's workshop. In the letter, Bona also complains that the features of her daughter in the portrait are not very faithful (Scimus P. V. habere imaginem Sme filie nostre Isabelle. Ea imago, si semiplena est, et similis illi imagini, quae a capite secundum pectus est depicta, quam apud nos pictor V. P. vidit: volumus ut eam nobis V. P. mittat. Sin autem hec ipsa imago plena est et staturam plenam in se continet, estque similis illi imagini, quam pictor V. P. isthic existens depinxit, quia turpis est, nec omnino speciem formamque filie nostre refert, eam non cupimus habere. Itaque P. V. non hanc, sed semiplenam imaginem ad nos mittat et valeat feliciter. Dat. Cracovie die ultima Augusti Anno domini M. D. XXX. VIII°, after "Jagiellonki polskie w XVI. wieku: Obrazy rodziny i dworu Zygmunta ..." By Aleksander Przezdziecki, Volume 1, p. 82, 281). It is very likely that she herself ordered a better effigy from Titian's workshop. Until 1848, there was supposed to be a portrait of Isabella in Gyalu Castle in Transylvania (now Gilău in Romania), where she had stayed for some time, but the owner of the castle took it to Vienna and the painting disappeared (after "Izabela Jagiellonka, królowa Węgier" by Małgorzata Duczmal, p. 40, 187-188). The marriage of Bona's daughter, "a girl of a brave and educated mind, who combined the charm of an Italian woman with the beauty of a Polish woman" (Fanciulla di virile e erudito ingegno, amabilissima per vaghezza italiana e per leggiadria polonica), as famous art collector Paolo Giovio (1483-1552), Bishop of Nocera de' Pagani, described her, was an important event. In 1538, the royal tailor Pietro Patriarcha (Patriarca) from Bari made a number of dresses in damask, satin, velvet, silver and colored brocades for the trousseau of the future Queen of Hungary (after "Działalność Włochów w Polsce ..." by Danuta Quirini-Popławska, p. 58). On January 15, 1539, five hundred Hungarian knights arrived to Kraków. The marriage contract with the dowry of 32,000 ducats in cash was probably signed between January 28 and February 2. Her trousseau was worth 38,000 ducats, which makes a total of 70,000 ducats. This was a huge sum compared to the wages of the time in Poland-Lithuania-Ruthenia - a master carpenter, for example, employed at Wawel, received 34 to 48 groszy per week (grosz - a copper coin worth about 1/30 of a zloty). When Hieronim Łaski sold three villages in 1526, he received 3,000 zloty (ducats) in exchange. Due to Zapolya's precarious situation, Isabella's marriage contract was quite complicated. It was therefore foreseen that within the next two months King John would deposit 70,000 ducats in cash for his wife in a bank in Venice or in the bank of the Boner family, or directly in the hands of the King of Poland. Despite these precautions, Isabella's dowry in cash was not paid out just in case, and she did not take the entire trousseau to Hungary, but only the value of 26,005 ducats. The dowry and the rest of the trousseau were to be sent when Zapolya had settled the matter of the dower or paid the appropriate sum into the bank. Zapolya also undertook to leave 2,000 ducats from his own estates in Transylvania as a wedding gift to the young bride. If Isabella died without issue before her husband, the dowry and the trousseau would be returned to the family. Among the dresses she took to Hungary were three dresses embroidered with silver, a brown satin dress with sable fur, a black damask dress, a green brocade dress, a violet damask dress, as well as many expensive furs. Many beautiful fabrics were also needed for her carriages. Her golden bridal carriage was covered with brocade fabric, while the interior was upholstered in crimson brocade decorated with gold and silver roses, and her second carriage was upholstered in red silk. She also received expensive church utensils for her home altar, silver candlesticks, censers and the like, while the Kraków City Council presented the future Queen of Hungary with a gilded silver cup of "Hungarian workmanship", purchased from Erasmus Schilling (d. 1561), an international wholesaler. Besides Italian and Latin, before her arrival in Hungary, Isabella probably knew some Hungarian, because there were Hungarians at the royal court and accounts from 1520 confirm the performance of a "Hungarian joculator" (Hungarus joculator), who was paid 1 florin, and of an Italian acrobat who saltas faciebat, who was paid 6 florins. Shortly after her coronation (February 23, 1539), she sent a letter in Italian to King Ferdinand I, addressed "From Buda, March 20, 1539" (Datum a Buda, 20 Martii 1539): "I do not doubt that Your Majesty will also deign to bear good love towards the Most Serene Lord and my dearest husband, for his virtue, for my consolation, for the common good of the kingdoms so close to you. [...] knowing already that I am greatly grateful to Your Majesty, and that I am also most desirous of having the love of the Most Serene Queen [Anna Jagellonica (1503-1547)], Your Majesty's consort and my most beloved sister, to whom I most desire to be a devoted sister" (Non dubito, che medesmamente se degnarà Vostra Maestà portar bon amor ancora verso el Sermo [Serenissimo] Signor et marito mio carissimo, per sua virtù, per mia consolatione, per lo ben commune degli regni a se tanto vicini. [...] conoscendo gia io assai gratia de Vostra Maestà esser ancora desider[at]osissima aver lo amor della Serma [Serenissima] regina de Vostra Maestà consorte et mia sorella amantissima, alla qual summamente desidero esser sorella commendatissima). The interest that the Queen of Hungary aroused in the Italians is illustrated by a letter from Ludovico Monti, agent of Sigismund Augustus, to Ercole II, Duke of Ferrara, dated May 1554. Monti speaks of the very tense relations between Ferdinand I (King of the Romans since 1530) and the eldest daughter of Bona Sforza who, after the death of her husband in 1540, had been deprived of most of the kingdom: "Queen Isabella had left Opole in disagreement with the King of the Romans, and was staying at Piotrków, and the King of the Romans had sent ambassadors to the King and his Most Serene Mother, but they had done little" (La reina Isabella era partita di Opolia discorde col re de Romani, et stava in Pijotrkowia, et il re de Romani havea mandato ambasciatori al re et a la serenissima madre, ma poco havevano fatto, after "L'Europa centro-orientale e gli archivi ..." by Gaetano Platania, p. 78). The facial features of a lady with a dog in the portrait made by Titian's entourage are identical to those from the known effigies of Isabella Jagiellon - the miniature by the workshop of Cranach the Younger, made in Wittenberg (Czartoryski Museum, inv. MNK XII-542) and the full-length portrait (Royal Castle in Warsaw, inv. ZKW 61), both in widow's costume. This painting, from a private Italian collection, is also attributed to Lambert Sustris (oil on canvas, 98 x 74 cm) and was auctioned in 1996 as a possible effigy of Eleonora Gonzaga (1493-1570), Duchess of Urbino. It is likely that the same painting was put up for sale in 2000, however, the woman has dark hair, which brings her closer to the known effigies of Eleonora Gonzaga. A similar effigy, representing a blonde woman holding a zibellino, comes from the Contini Bonacossi collection in Florence, as do several portraits of the Jagiellons, identified by me. It is now in the Samek Art Museum in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania (oil on panel, 100 x 76.2 cm, inv. 1961.K.1200), sold to Samuel Henry Kress (1863-1955) on September 1, 1939. This painting is attributed to the School of Agnolo Bronzino or Florentine school of the 16th century (compare Fototeca Zeri, Numero scheda 37442). The most likely author is therefore Jacopino del Conte (ca. 1515-1598), a pupil of Andrea del Sarto, active in Rome and Florence. The style of the painting is similar to the portrait of a boy in the National Gallery in London (inv. NG649), which according to my identification is a portrait of Isabella's son, John Sigismund Zapolya, and the Madonna in the National Museum in Warsaw (inv. M.Ob.639 MNW). However, at first glance, the resemblance of the facial features is not so obvious: is it then the painting mentioned by Bona in her letter or a copy of it offered to the Medici family in Florence? The portrait that was in the Hungarian National Museum before 1853, known from a lithograph, depicted a woman in a similar costume, sitting in the 16th-century Savonarola chair and holding a fan. The lithograph was made in 1853 by the Hungarian lithographer Alajos Rohn. This portrait was identified as an effigy of Mary of Anjou (1371-1395), Queen of Hungary, granddaughter of Elizabeth of Poland (1305-1380) - I. MARIA MAGYAR KIRÁLYNŐ. A copy of the painting from Budapest from the 18th or 19th century or painted after Rohn's lithograph was sold in Vienna in 2021 as by a follower of Alessandro Allori (oil on panel, 17.5 x 12.8 cm, Dorotheum, April 27, 2021, lot 89). This painting was on the art market in Brussels, where it was acquired in the 1980s. It is likely that Sustris, to whom the painting with the white dog is attributed, created a painting clearly inspired by Titian's famous Venus of Urbino, which was in a private collection in France before 1997 (oil on canvas, 110 x 138.5 cm). The facial features, although idealized, are also reminiscent of Venus of Urbino and the woman in the portrait with the white dog. The pose of the nude woman and her hairstyle are similar to those depicted on the reverse of a medal of Giovanni Battista Castaldo (1493-1563) to commemorate the capture of the town of Lipova in Transylvania in November 1551. This medal was probably made in Milan around 1552, commissioned by Castaldo, whose portraits were painted by Titian and Antonis Mor. On the left is a trophy of Ottoman arms and the inscription reads the "Transylvania captured" (TRANSILVANIA CAPTA), while the nude female figure seated on the bank of a river holds a crown in her left hand and a sceptre in her right (Bargello Museum in Florence, inv. 6223). 
Portrait of Isabella Jagiellon (1519-1559), Queen of Hungary and Croatia with a dog by follower of Titian, 1538-1540, Private collection.
Portrait of Isabella Jagiellon (1519-1559), Queen of Hungary and Croatia holding a zibellino by Jacopino del Conte, 1538-1540, Samek Art Museum.
Portrait of Isabella Jagiellon (1519-1559), Queen of Hungary and Croatia holding a fan, 1853 lithograph after lost original by Titian or Jacopino del Conte from about 1539, Private collection.
Portrait of Isabella Jagiellon (1519-1559), Queen of Hungary and Croatia holding a fan, 18th or 19th century after lost original by Titian or Jacopino del Conte from about 1539, Private collection.
Portrait of Isabella Jagiellon (1519-1559), Queen of Hungary and Croatia nude by follower of Titian, ca. 1551, Private collection.
"Transylvania captured", reverse of a medal of Giovanni Battista Castaldo (1493-1563), ca. 1552, Bargello Museum in Florence.
Portrait of court physician Giovanni Andrea Valentino by Gaspare Pagani
"John Andrew de Valentinis from Modena, provost of Kraków, Sandomierz and Trakai, etc. very proficient doctor of medicine, who served the venerable Cardinal Ippolito d'Este, the Most Serene King Sigismund I and the Most Serene Queen Bona Sforza for many years, so summoned by the almighty God on February 20, 1547, he moved to eternity" (Ioannes Andreas de Valentinis natus Mutinensis praepositus cracoviensis, sandecensis, trocensis et cetera, artium medicinaeque doctor peritissimus qui reuerendissimi Cardinali Hippoliti Estensi atque Serenissimi Poloniae Regi Sigismundo I et Serenissimae Reginae Sfortiae faeliciter pluribus servivit annis, tandem a Deo Optimo Maximo vocatus. XX • Februarii M • D • XLVII ad aeternam migravit vitam), reads the Latin inscription on the tombstone plaque of Giovanni Andrea Valentino (ca. 1495-1547), court physician of Queen Bona Sforza in the St. Mary's Chapel (Bathory Chapel) at the Wawel Cathedral.
The tombstone, funded by Bona as the executor of Valentino's will, was carved by Giovanni Soli from Florence or Giovanni Cini from Siena. The sculpted effigy of a canon holding a chalice and adorned with coat of arms of two paws in circles on each side depict most probably Valentino, although it is traditionally identified as the image of Bernard Wapowski (Vapovius, 1475-1535), canon of Kraków. Valentino, a nobleman from Modena, son of Lodovico and his wife née Barocci, had a vulture's paw in his coat of arms. He studied with a famous physician Niccolò Leoniceno (1428-1524) in Ferrara and he became the court physician of Queen Bona Sforza in 1520 (after "Studia renesansowe", Volume 3, p. 227). He played a very important role at the royal court in Poland acting as an agent of the Dukes of Mantua and Ferrara and over time he rose to the rank of a secretary. He also acted as an intermediary in sending valuable gifts between courts in Poland and Italy, like in June 1529 when he sent, through Ippolito of Mantua who arrived to Vilnius, a skin of a white bear to Alfonso (1476-1534), duke of Ferrara, a very rare and sought after item even in Lithuania (according to Valentino, only the king had one piece, which was used to cover the carriage). Perhaps this emissary brought the queen a portrait of Marquess of Mantua, Federico II Gonzaga (1500-1540), most likely by Titian. Bona was showing the portrait to the court barber Giacomo da Montagnana from Mantua "with the same ceremony with which the mantle of Saint Mark is shown in Venice", so that the barber had to kneel before it with folded hands, reported Valentino in a letter to Alfonso (after "Królowa Bona, 1494-1557: czasy i ludzie odrodzenia", Volume 3, p. 187). Giovanni Andrea became rich thanks to Bona's support and numerous endowments. He owned a house in Vilnius and estates near Brest. As a trusted household member of the royal family, he was sent as an envoy to Italy several times, like in 1537 when he also visited his family in Modena. Valentino contributed to the education of his relatives, like two nephews of Bonifazio Valentino, canon of Modena and Pietro Paolo Valentino, son of Giovanni. Other members of his family received on November 25, 1538 from Ercole II d'Este, Duke Ferrara, at his request, exemption from payment of import duty in Modena. When in Poland, Valentino also conducted scientific research and his observations on Polish cochineal found an echo in Antonio Musa Brassavola's work on syrups (after "Odrodzenie w Polsce: Historia nauki" by Bogusław Leśnodorski, p. 132) and commissioned works of art. In about 1540 he founded the altar of St. Dorothy for the Wawel Cathedral (today in the Bodzów Chapel in Kraków), created by circle of Bartolomeo Berecci and adorned with coat of arms of Poland, Lithuania and the Sforzas as well as Latin inscription: IOANNES ANDREAS DE VALENTINIS EX MUTIN BON PHYSICVS SANDOMIRIENSIS PRAEPVS DEDICAVIT. He died after a fourteen-day illness on the night of February 19/20, 1547 at the age of about 52 and left all his property in Poland to a family residing in Italy. In the Ducal Chancellery of Modena are the ducal instructions addressed to Valentino on March 18, 1523. Giovanni Andrea left the duke in his will a golden cup and a small dwarf (una coppa d'oro e uno suo naino picolino e ben fattos, after "Lodovicus Montius Mutinensis ..." by Rita Mazzei, p. 12). In the Philadelphia Museum of Art there is a "Portrait of an Elderly Physician" (oil on canvas, 67.3 × 55.3 cm, inventory number Cat. 253), created in about 1540 and attributed to Gaspare Pagani (d. 1569), Italian painter active in Modena, first documented in 1521. This painting was acquired in 1917 from the collection of John G. Johnson and was previously attributed to Dosso Dossi, court artist to the dukes of Ferrara. According to the description of the work in the museum "this man is identified as a physician by the caduceus, or staff, in his hand. The caduceus became a symbol of the medical profession because of its association with Asclepius, a legendary Greek physician and god of healing". However, caduceus was also the symbol of Mercury, Roman god of commerce, travellers and orators, the emissary and messenger of the gods. Both rods were each given to Asclepius and to Mercury by Apollo, god of the sun and knowledge. So this man was a doctor and an emissary, just like Giovanni Andrea Valentino. 
Portrait of court physician Giovanni Andrea Valentino (ca. 1495-1547) by Gaspare Pagani, ca. 1540, Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Portrait of Beata Kościelecka holding a book by Bernardino Licinio
"In the hands of Her Majesty the Queen for images to the Kraków Cathedral florins 159/7, which the factor of Her Majesty paid in Venice" (In manus S. Reginalis Mtis pro imaginibus ad eccl. Cathedralem Crac. fl. 159/7, quos factor S. M. Reginalis Veneciis exposuit), a note in the royal accounts (In communes necessitates et ex mandato S. M. Regie) on August 9, 1546 (after "Renesansowy ołtarz główny z katedry krakowskiej w Bodzentynie" by Paweł Pencakowski, p. 112), is the only known confirmation so far that the paintings were ordered by Queen Bona in large quantities in Venice. Many nobles living at the court, attending Sejm (parliament) sessions, or just visiting the capital and interested in affairs of state around the court, imitated the style there and other customs.
Between January 14 and March 19, 1540 Sejm was held at the Wawel Castle in Kraków. During this Sejm, on February 15, in the cathedral, Hieronim Bozarius (possibly Girolamo Bozzari from Piacenza near Milan) presented Sigismund Augustus with a hat and a sword consecrated by Pope Paul III. The exact agenda of the session it not known, however one of the important topics discussed was undoubtedly the case of inheritance of Ilia, Prince of Ostroh, who died just few months earlier on August 19 or 20, 1539. Two very influential women were involved in the matter - the widow Beata Kościelecka, illegitimate daughter of Sigismund I and protegee of Queen Bona and Princess Alexandra Olelkovich-Slutska, second wife of Ilia's father and mother of his brother Constantine Vasily, a descendant of Grand Princes of Kiev and Grand Dukes of Lithuania. On August 16, 1539, Ilia, who according to Nipszyc succumbed too much to his energetic wife Beata, signed a will in which he left his possessions to his unborn child and his wife and named king Sigismund Augustus and his mother Bona as guardians. Until Ilia's half-brother came of age, Beata was to manage her husband's vast estates and his brother's estate (after "Dzieje rodu Ostrogskich" by Tomasz Kempa, p. 61). The will was confirmed by the king. Nevertheless, the inheritance disputes soon began. Constantine Vasily applied for his part of the Ostroh property and recognition of his rights to custody of the minor Elizabeth (Halszka), daughter of Ilia and Beata. In 1540 Sigismund took under sequestration the estate and confirmed his coming of age in 1541 at the age of 15. At that time Beata's management of the estates caused dissatisfaction of many nobles and the king. She changed a significant part of the officials appointed in Ilia's estates, used all the profits for her own needs and did not pay the debts of her late husband and father-in-law, the administrators appointed by her did not take care of the defense of the lands against Tatar attacks, but several times a year they collected serebshchyna (quitrent in silver coins, established in 1513 by Sigismund). Complaints poured in about the princess from the servants, neighbors and government officials. Under such conditions, on March 3, 1540 Sigismund instructed Fyodor Andreevich Sangushko (d. 1547), marshal of Volhynia and one of the guardians - to exercise control over the profits from the Ostroh estates and Beata's decisions. The trial regarding the Ostroh inheritance began in Vilnius on August 27, 1540. Princess Alexandra and her son were represented by Florian Zebrzydowski with a statement about the illegality of the transfer of the inheritance to Beata that she "to the great hurt and harm of Prince Vasily kept for herself and she did a lot of damage there and destroyed those estates". The final decree of the Compromise Court was issued on December 20, 1541. The property left by Prince Ilia (with the exception of Beata's dowry) was divided into two parts. The division was carried out by Princess Beata and Prince Constantine Vasily was to decide of one of the two parts of the estate (after "Dzieje rodu Ostrogskich" by Tomasz Kempa, p. 64). Pedro Ruiz de Moros's malicious epigram entitled In Chorim probably refers to Beata. In the 1540s, the poet attacked influential women in Queen Bona's circle. The woman in the poem, whom the poet calls Choris, was already a mother, and yet appeared as a young girl with her head uncovered and her hair loose (In cunis vagit partus, tu fusa capillos / Incedis. Virgo es sic mulierque, Choris). Portrait of a lady in a red dress holding a petrarchino by Bernardino Licinio in the Musei Civici di Pavia (oil on canvas, 100 x 78 cm, inventory number P 24) is very similar to the portrait of Beata from 1532 by the same author in terms of facial features, costume and pose. Her clothes and jewellery indicate high position, noble origin and wealth. The little book that the she shows closed in one hand is complement of the sumptuous robe, as a fashionable item to show off the refined silk binding. As in the portrait of Queen Bona Sforza by Licinio being seen holding a petrarchino, a book by Petrarch, was a courtly intellectual fashion. Inscription in Latin on the marble parapet "1540 DAY/ 25 FEB" (1540 DIE/ 25 FEB) refers to an important event in her life. She is not wearing a black mourning gown, so she's not commemorating someone's death, therefore it could be some important document like a royal decree that didn't survive. At the end of 1539 or at the beginning of 1540, Princess Beata came to Kraków asking the king to confirm her husband's will. Her signed portraits (BEATA KOSCIELECKA / Elice Ducis in Ostrog Conjunx) from the beginning of the 1540s indicate that she closely followed the fashion prevailing at the royal court. Beata's costume, jewellery and even the pose in these effigies are identical as in the portraits of the young Queen Elizabeth of Austria (1526-1545), who preferred the German style. The painting was transferred to the Museum from the School of Painting in Pavia, where in inventory of 1882 it was recored as coming from the collection of the Marquis Francesco Belcredi in Milan, offered in 1851 and attributed to Paris Bordone. The painting is identifiable in the collection of Karl Joseph von Firmian (Carlo Firmian, 1716-1782), who served as Plenipotentiary of Lombardy to the Austrio-Hungarian Empire. In 1753 Firmian was recruited as ambassador to Naples, where many belongings of Queen Bona were transferred after her death. 
Portrait of Beata Kościelecka holding a book by Bernardino Licinio, 1540, Musei Civici di Pavia.
Portrait of Anna of Masovia in crimson dress by Bernardino Licinio
"Let me look at the power or royalty of the Piasts, When it comes to noble origin: no woman is equal to you" (Virtutem spectem seu regia sceptra Piasti, Unde genus: par est femina nulla tibi), praised the Duchess of Mazovia (DUCISSÆ MASOVIÆ) the Spanish poet educated in Italy Pedro Ruiz de Moros.
Italian fashion and novelties quickly reached Poland-Lithuania. One of the few surviving examples is the epitaph painting of Marco Revesla (Revesili, Revexli or Revesli, d. October 19, 1553) from Novara near Milan, who was a pharmacist at the court of Queen Bona. It is considered as one of the earliest reflections of The Last Judgment by Michelangelo, created between 1536-1541 (after "Wczesne refleksy twórczości Michała Anioła w malarstwie polskim" by Kazimierz Kuczman). The painting is in the Franciscan Monastery in Kraków and it was founded by his wife Catharina Alentse (also Alantsee, Alants or Alans). Her family came from Venice and was well known in Kraków and in Płock in Masovia in the first half of the 16th century. Giovanni or Jan Alantsee from Venice, who died before 1553, an aromaticist and pharmacist of Queen Bona, was a mayor of Płock who in August 1535 initiated the construction of waterworks in the city. He was also suspected of poisoning of the last Masovian dukes on the queen's order. Despite tremendous losses during many wars and ivasions, some traces of Venetian portraiture from the 16th century preserved in Masovia. During exhibition of miniatures in Warsaw in 1912 two tondo miniatures by Venetian school were presented - portrait of a Venetian lady from the second half of the 16th century (oil on canvas, 10.6 cm, item 190), owned by the Zamoyski Estate and a miniature of a lady in a costume from the mid-16th century (oil on wood, 7.5 cm, item 192), owned by Count Ksawery Branicki (after "Pamiętnik wystawy miniatur, oraz tkanin i haftów" by Władysław Górzyński and Zenon Przesmycki, p. 31-32), both were probably lost during World War II. After the incorporation of Masovia Polish troops immediately occupied Warsaw, Princess Anna, sister of the last dukes and beloved daughter of Sigismund I (Quam si nostra filia esset), as the king called her in a letter, was to live in a smaller castle in Warsaw until she got married. According to the agreements of 1526, Anna was to give the king her extensive Masovian estates in exchange for a dowry of 10,000 Hungarian ducats and renounce hereditary rights to the duchy. However, the ambitious duchess delayed the decision to marry. In 1536, when she was approaching 38, King Sigismund entrusted Andrzej Krzycki, secretary of Queen Bona, Piotr Gamrat, bishop of Przemyśl and Piotr Goryński, voivode of Masovia, to arrange marriage pacts with Stanisław Odrowąż (1509-1545), voivode of Podolia. On March 1, 1536, Krzycki, his retinue and many senators arrived in Warsaw for the wedding. After a year of delaying the decision the Duchess refused to return her possessions to the king which caused a conflict between the couple and Sigismund and Bona and led to the deprivation of Odrowąż of his offices, and even to skirmishes between the armed forces of the Crown and the private troops of the Duchess of Masovia. The dispute was ended by the Sejm of 1537, which forced Anna and her husband to take an oath before the king, to renounce hereditary rights to Masovia and her estates for the benefit of the Crown. Her husband was deprived of the starosty of Lviv and Sambir, and was forced to leave Bar in Podolia. After leaving Masovia, Anna settled in the Odrowąż estates, where her husband was promoting religious innovations (according to Piotr Gamrat). For the rest of her life, she stayed mainly at the castle in Jarosław between Kraków and Lviv, where around 1540 she gave birth to her only daughter, Zofia. The couple reconciled with Sigismund and Bona. In 1540 Stanisław offered the queen the village of Prusy in Sambir land and between 1542-1543 he become voivode of Ruthenia. The final monetary settlement with the queen took place in March 1545 and Bona paid him 19,187 in gold. Portrait by Bernardino Licinio from the Schaeffer Galleries in New York (oil on panel, 38.5 x 33.5 cm), depict a lady whose facial features are very reminiscent of the effigy of Anna of Masovia in mourning with a portrait of her brother (Castello Sforzesco in Milan). She is older and her costume and hair style resemble greatly that of Bona's protegee Beata Kościelecka, created in about 1540 (Musei Civici di Pavia), identified by me. Her dress of Venetian silk is dyed entirely with Polish cochineal and she holds her hand close to her heart as if taking an oath of allegiance. A portrait of the Duchess of Mazovia (Xzna Mazowiecka), most likely Anna, and probably an effigy of her mother (Radziwilowna Xzna Mazowiecka) are mentioned in the 1657 inventory of the painting collection of Boguslaus Radziwill (1620-1669), which included several paintings by Lucas Cranach, a painting by Paolo Veronese and several Italian paintings (AGAD 1/354/0/26/84, p. 20, 22). 
Portrait of Anna of Masovia (ca. 1498-1557) in crimson dress by Bernardino Licinio, ca. 1540, Private collection.
Portraits of Queen Bona Sforza as Diana the Huntress-Egeria by Lucas Cranach the Elder and Lucas Cranach the Younger
"Such a good queen and such a hunter, That I don't know: are you Juno or are you Diana?" (Tam bona regina es, bene tam venabula tractas Ut dubitem Iuno an sisne Diana magis), plays with words and the name of Queen Bona ("Good" in Latin) comparing her to Juno, queen of the gods, goddess of marriage and childbirth and to Diana, goddess of the hunt and wild animals in his epigram entitled "Cricius, bishop of Przemyśl, to Bona, queen of Poland" (Cricius episcopus Premisliensis ad Bonam reginam Poloniae), her secretary Andrzej Krzycki (1482-1537).
On August 2, 1540 Giovanni Cini, an architect and sculptor from Siena, concludes a contract with Helena Malarka (quod honesta Helena malarka sibi nomine), a female painter in Kraków, for work on finishing her house "in the street of the Jews" (in platea Judaeorum), but at the same time he delegates the work to his assistants, due to his imminent return to Lithuania (after "Nadworny rzeźbiarz króla Zygmunta Starego Giovanni Cini z Sieny i jego dzieła w Polsce" by Stanisław Cercha, Felix Kopera, p. 22). Helena adopts the city law in 1539 and she was mentioned in a register Liber juris civilis inceptus as a widow of another painter Andrzej of Gelnica in Slovakia (Helena Andree pictoris de Gelnicz relicta vidua). This Malarka (Polish for female painter) was apparently a very rich woman that she could afford to have a house in the city center, Jewish Street, today Saint Anne's Street (Świętej Anny), is close to the Main Market Square and the main seat of the Jagiellonian University (Collegium Maius), as well as the royal architect to renovate it. Judging by the available information she was most probably a Jewish female painter from Italy or Poland-Lithuania, close to the royal court of Queen Bona Sforza. So was she involved in any secret or "sensitive" missions for the royal court, like preparation of initial drawings for the royal nudes? In the National Gallery of Art in Washington there is a painting of the Nymph of the Spring by Lucas Cranach the Elder, created after 1537 (oil on panel, 48.4 x 72.8 cm, inventory number 1957.12.1). It probably comes from the collection of Baron von Schenck in Flechtingen Castle, near Magdeburg. The city was the seat of Cardinal Albert of Brandenburg (1490-1545), Archbishop of Magdeburg and Mainz, patron of the arts and collector, whose concubines Elisabeth "Leys" Schütz and Agnes Pless were frequently painted in guise of different Christian Saints by Cranach. The cardinal, who maintained good relations with the Jagiellons, undoubtedly had effigies of King Sigismund and Queen Bona. The painting shows Diana the Huntress as the Nymph of the Sacred Spring, whose posture recalls Giorgione's and Titian's Venuses. Egeria, the nymph of a sacred spring, celebrated at sacred groves close to Rome, was a form of Diana. She was believed to bless men and women with offspring and to assist mothers in childbirth. Beguilingly through lowered eyelids she observes two partridges, a symbol of sexual desire, like in a very similar painting depicting the lady-in-waiting of Queen Bona - Diana di Cordona (Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum in Madrid). The inscription in Latin on this painting "I am the Nymph of the Sacred Spring. Do not disturb my sleep. I am resting" (FONTIS NYMPHA SACRI SOM: / NVM NE RVMPE QVIESCO) can be taken as an indication that the person who commissioned the painting did not speak German. The landscape behind her is a view of Grodno although seen through the lenses of a German painter and mythological, magical aura. The topography match perfectly the main city of the Black Ruthenia (Ruthenia Nigra) in present-day Belarus, as depicted in an engraving Vera designatio Urbis in Littavia Grodnae with coat of arms of king Sigismund Augustus, created by Matthias Zündt after a drawing by Hans Adelhauser (made in 1568), reproduced in Georg Braun's Civitates orbis terrarium (published in 1575), and the panorama by Tomasz Makowski (created in about 1600). Bona was known for her passion for hunting, but one hunt in Niepołomice near Kraków for bison and bears in 1527 ended tragically for her. She fell from her horse, miscarried her son and was unable to have children later. Possibly in connection to this, in 1540, thanks to his renowned medical and gynecological practice, as well as an edition of his volume on childbirth dedicated to Bona and her daughter Isabella, Giorgio Biandrata (1515-1588) from Saluzzo near Torino was called to the court of Poland-Lithuania and appointed as personal physician to the queen. The main feature of the city was a large wooden bridge (depicted as stone one in the painting) with a gate tower. The first permanent bridge across the Neman River in Grodno is mentioned in 1503. On the left we can see the brick Gothic Old Castle, built by Vytautas the Great between 1391-1398 on the site of previous Ruthenian settlement. On the right there is a Gothic St. Mary's Church, also known as Fara Vytautas, founded before 1389. In 1494, Alexander Jagiellon, Grand Duke of Lithuania, demolished the old wooden structure and erected a new church on its place and in 1551, by order of Queen Bona, the church was repaired. Grodno economy belonged to the queen. During her management, many reforms of the city's organization were carried out and new trade privileges were granted. In 1540, she confirmed the former privileges and allowed the mayor and jurors to have seals. In 1541, Sigismund, at her request, reduced the kopszczyzna (tax on wine sales) from 60 to 50 kop groszy. The queen's residence was built on Horodnica by her secretary Sebastian Dybowski and the oldest hospital in Grodno was founded by Bona in 1550. In Kobryn near Brest, there was a letter from Queen Bona written on December 20, 1552 from Grodno to the starost of Kobryn, Stanisław Chwalczewski, ordering him to designate a plot for building a house with a garden for the goldsmith Peter of Naples (Piotr Neapolitańczyk, Pietro Napolitano), distinguished at the court, where he could freely pursue his craft (after "Słownik geograficzny Królestwa Polskiego ...", Vol. 4, p. 205). Another very similar painting of Diana the Huntress-Egeria, attributed to Lucas Cranach the Elder or his son, today in the San Diego Museum of Art (oil on panel, 58 x 79 cm, 2018.1), comes from Polish collections. In 1925 it was in the collection of Rudolf Oppenheim in Berlin. According to Wanda Drecka this painting is probably identical to the "Reclining Nymph" by Cranach the Elder, exhibited in Warsaw in the Bruhl Palace in 1880 as the property of Jan Sulatycki. In both described paintings in Washington and in San Diego the face of the sitter resembles greatly the effigies of Queen Bona as Lucretia. Paintings of Diana and her nymphs were present in many collections in Poland-Lithuania among the works of Venetian and German School of painting. The "Inventory of belongings spared from Swedes and escapes made on December 1, 1661 in Wiśnicz" in the Central Archives of Historical Records in Warsaw (number 1/357/0/-/7/12), lists some of the preserved paintings from the collection of Helena Tekla Ossolińska, daughter of Great Crown Chancellor Jerzy Ossoliński, and her husband Aleksander Michał Lubomirski, owner of the Wiśnicz Castle. The description is very general, however some of these paintings were from the 16th and 17th century Venetian and German School: "Great painting of Diana with greyhounds", "Herodias holding the head of St. John in Ebony Frames", possibly by Cranach, "Abram killing Isaac. Titian", "The Blessed Virgin with little Jesus on wood. Alberti Duri", that is Albrecht Dürer, "Tres virtutes cardinales. Paulo Venorase", that is Cardinal virtues by Paolo Veronese, "Copy of Susanna's painting", i.e. Susanna and the Elders, "Two Landscape paintings from Venice on one St. John taking water from a spring on the second a Shepherd with cattle", "Portrait of Her Majesty in the shape of Diana with greyhounds", i.e. portrait of Helena Tekla as Diana the Huntress and many portraits, like that of Venetian Duke Molini (most probably Francesco Molin, Doge of Venice, reigning from his election in 1646 until his death), Dukes of Florence, Modena, Mantua and Parma. In the collection of Stanisław Dziewulski before around 1938 there was Cranach's Diana (semi-sitting, with a landscape with deer in the background), sold to a private collection in Warsaw (after "Polskie Cranachiana" by Wanda Drecka, p. 29). In the Dziewulski collection in Warsaw before the Second World War there was also a painting of Diana at rest, painted on panel and attributed to the Netherlandish painter. The National Museum in Warsaw keeps an old photo of this painting (DDWneg.1166 MNW, DDWneg.17585 MNW). It was a workshop copy of a version kept at the Senlis Museums (D.V.2006.0.30.1, Louvre MNR 17), considered to be a portrait of Diane de Poitiers (1500-1566), mistress and advisor to the King of France Henry II. Its provenance is not known, but a contemporary, almost exact copy indicates that it could be a gift for Queen Bona from France. "The pagan and mysterious image of the nymph Egeria, a hidden being who directs but does not act, seems to be a symbol of a Christian woman" (after "Dzieje Moralne kobiet" by Ernest Legouvé, Jadwiga Trzcińska, p. 73) and perfect allusion to Queen Bona Sforza. 
Portrait of Queen Bona Sforza as Diana the Huntress-Egeria against the idealized view of Grodno by Lucas Cranach the Elder, ca. 1540, National Gallery of Art in Washington.
Portrait of Queen Bona Sforza as Diana the Huntress-Egeria by Lucas Cranach the Elder or Lucas Cranach the Younger, ca. 1540, San Diego Museum of Art.
Portrait of Christoph Scheurl from the Polish Chronicle by Lucas Cranach the Elder
"Truly, with the exception of the one and only Albrecht Dürer, my compatriot, that incontestably great genius, it is to you alone, for this century, that is granted […] the first place in painting", praised Lucas Cranach the Elder in 1509 in a letter addressed to him the Nuremberg humanist, lawyer and diplomat Christoph Scheurl (1481-1542). In a print entitled Oratio doctoris Scheurli attingens litterarum prestantiam ..., published in Leipzig in 1509, the author dedicates the preface to the painter. In the same year, Cranach produced a beautiful portrait of Scheurl, dated under the artist’s insignia "1509", today preserved in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg (inv. Gm2332), representing him at the age of 28 (CHRISTOFERVS • SCHEVRLVS • I • V • D / NATVS • ANNOS • Z8).
Scheurl was born in Nuremberg, the eldest son of Christoph Scheurl, originally from Wrocław in Silesia, and his wife, Helena Tucher. From 1498 he studied in Bologna, where he probably met Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543). In 1510, the year after his portrait was painted, Christoph visited his uncle Johann Scheurl (d. 1516), a graduate of the University of Bologna, in Wrocław (after "Prawnicy w otoczeniu Mikołaja Kopernika" by Teresa Borawska, p. 302). Scheurl maintained close ties with Wrocław, his father's city, and often visited Silesia. A keen historian, he corresponded with Justus Ludwik Decjusz (ca. 1485-1545) in Kraków and asked him for information on the history of Poland and Ruthenia. He greatly appreciated Maciej Miechowita (1457-1523), whose book Chronica Polonorum ("Polish Chronicle") he had in his library (after "Na marginesie „Polskich Cranachianów”" by Anna Lewicka-Kamińska, p. 148-149). This book, written in collaboration with Andrzej Krzycki (1482-1537), secretary to Queen Bona Sforza, and published by Jost Ludwik Decjusz in 1521 in Kraków, is now in the Jagiellonian Library (BJ St. Dr. Cim. 8516). The title page of Chronica Polonorum, belonging to Scheurl, is hand-coloured and preceded by a bookplate, a hand-coloured woodcut depicting the owner and his two sons kneeling before the crucified Christ. The coat of arms and the inscription below the bookplate (Liber Christ.[ophori] Scheurli. I.V.D. qui natus est. 11 Nouemb. 1481, / Filij uero Georg. 19. April. 1532. & Christ. 3. August. 1535.) confirm the identity of the model. The bookplate is unsigned, however, according to Anna Lewicka-Kamińska, "it is undoubtedly the work of Cranach the Elder" and was probably made around 1540, and certainly before 1542. In 1511, at Scheurl's request, Cranach made a woodcut bookplate (also unsigned) for his parents. Scheurl's uncolored bookplate, attributed to Lucas Cranach the Younger and his workshop, is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (inv. 21.35.14). Although indirectly and implicitly, this bookplate can be considered as one of the evidences of the contacts of the Polish-Lithuanian-Ruthenian clients with Cranach and his workshop, of which very few traces remain in the territories of the former Jagiellonian Monarchies. It is interesting to note that the painted frieze of the Tournament Hall of Wawel Castle, probably begun by Hans Dürer, Albrecht's brother, around 1534 and completed after 1535 by a Wrocław painter Anton Wiedt, is largely inspired by four woodcuts depicting knightly tournaments by Lucas Cranach the Elder from 1506 and 1509 (compare "Rola grafiki w powstaniu renesansowych fryzów ..." by Beata Frey-Stecowa, p. 35). 
Hand-colored woodcut with portrait of Christoph Scheurl (1481-1542) and his two sons kneeling before the crucified Christ from the Polish Chronicle by Lucas Cranach the Elder, ca. 1540, Jagiellonian Library.
Portrait of Nicolaus Copernicus by Lucas Cranach the Younger and portrait of Rheticus by Hans Maler
Probably in May 1539 Georg Joachim Iserin de Porris (1514-1574), known as Rheticus reached Frombork, where the young professor from Wittenberg was warmly welcomed by the 66-year-old scholar Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543). Rheticus stayed there for two years and he was to become Copernicus' only student. At the farewell, as Rheticus recalled in his preface dedicated to Emperor Ferdinand I, Copernicus ordered him to finish "what he himself, due to his age and the inevitability of the end, could no longer complete". Rheticus convinced the astronomer to publish his work. In 1540, Franz Rhode in Gdańsk published Narratio Prima ("First Account") in the form of an open letter to Johannes Schöner, constituting the first printed edition of Copernicus' theory. The interest in the work - which soon had to be renewed - encouraged Copernicus to publish his main work. In October 1541, Rheticus returned to Wittenberg, where he served as Dean of the Faculty of Arts for seven months. He wanted to print Copernicus's main work in Wittenberg. However, this was not possible primarily because of Melanchthon's resistance. Copernican theory was met with incomprehension, rejection, and sometimes even sharp ridicule from the Wittenberg reformers.
Rheticus did not share this view. In 1542, while still in Wittenberg, he published, with Copernicus's consent, a small fragment of De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, the so-called Trigonometry. Perhaps he hoped that in this way he would gain Melanchthon's favor in terms of printing the work. However, in vain. Rheticus commissioned the printing of the work in Nuremberg from Johann Petreius, the best Nuremberg printer. In 1542 Rheticus left Wittenberg and accepted a position at the University of Leipzig. Accordind to Franz Hipler (1836-1898), Rheticus took the image of Copernicus with him on his return to Wittenberg in order to add a portrait of the author to the main Copernican work when it was printed (after "Die Porträts des Nikolaus Kopernikus", p. 88-89). This original image of the astronomer was most likely re-used almost half a century later in Icones sive Imagines Virorum Literis Illustrium ... by Nikolaus Reusner, published in Strasbourg in 1587 (p. 128). What's interesting the portait of Sarmatian astronomer was published before the portrait of Martin Luther (p. 131), who called Copernicus a "fool" in his "The Table Talk" (Tischreden Oder Colloqvia Doct. Mart. Luthers, published in 1566 in Eisleben by Urban Gaubisch, p. 580, Bavarian State Library, Res/2 Th.u. 63). The effigy of Luther was undobtedly based on a work by Cranach. The woodcuts by Cranach the Younger, his workshop or circle, were also based on painted effigies or created simultaneously, as evidenced by the great similarity of several of them, for example the woodcut with the portrait of Luther by Cranach the Younger's entourage from around 1546 in the National Gallery of Art in Washington (inv. 1943.3.2874), resembles the painted portrait of the reformer in the National Museum in Wrocław from around 1540 (inv. MNWr VIII-2987). A woodcut with portrait of Nicolaus Copernicus holding a lily of the valley in the Kunstsammlungen der Veste Coburg (paper, 14.7 x 11.5 cm, inv. I,50,25) is considered to be the work of Lucas Cranach the Younger or his circle because of the absence of a famous mark (winged serpent). However, the style of this woodcut and the mastery of its execution indicate that despite the absence of a mark, it could be the work of Cranach himself. There is also a coloured copy in a private collection in Italy and probably before 1600 it was also reused in an engraving commissioned by Sabinus Kauffmann made in Wittenberg (Witebergae, apud Sabinum Kauffmanum, National Museum in Kraków, inv. MNK III-ryc.-56303). This engraving, together with the portrait of Copernicus, which was in the Warsaw Observatory before World War II (oil on panel, 51 x 41 cm), indicate that one or more portraits of the astronomer were made by Cranach and his workshop around 1541. The painting from the Warsaw Observatory was destroyed in 1944 during the Warsaw Uprising, when the German army bombed and burned the building. It bore an inscription in Latin confirming the identity of the model (D. NICOLAVS COPERNICVS DOCTOR ET CANONICVS / WARMIENSIS ASTRONOMVS ...) and the following inscription on the left near the astronomer's lips: NON PAREM PAVLO VENAM REQVIRO / GRATIM PETRI NEQ POSCO SED QVAM / IN CRUCIS LIGNO DEDERAS LATRONI / SEDVLVS ORO ("I do not ask for a grace equal to the grace of St. Paul, nor for the forgiveness that St. Peter received, but for such as you granted to the thief on the tree of the cross, I constantly beg"). The author of the text on the portrait of the astronomer was Enea Silvio Piccolomini (1405-1464) - Bishop of Warmia between 1457-1458, humanist, cardinal and Pope Pius II from 1458, who dedicated these words in 1444 to Emperor Frederick III. The same inscription is also found on the epitaph of Copernicus created before 1589, located in the Cathedral Basilica of St. John in Toruń. The Warsaw portrait was considered the 17th century copy of a lost original and in the upper right corner was the coat of arms, most likely that of a previous owner of the painting. The coat of arms resembles that of the von der Decken family from Lower Saxony and various other families (Zerssen, Twickel and Zieten families). The work was donated to the Observatory in 1854 by Franciszek Ksawery Pusłowski (1806-1874) and the note on the back added that the painting came from the collection of the Królikarnia Royal Palace in Warsaw and in addition to that, at the bottom there was a small seal on red wax with the Janina coat of arms (after "Wizerunki Kopernika" by Zygmunt Batowski, p. 51), so it is possible that the painting belonged to the Sobieski family. The portrait was reproduced in a woodcut published in "Kłosy" in 1876 (No. 593, p. 301, National Library of Poland, b2150801x) and the original in a 17th century engraving in the National Museum in Kraków (MNK III-ryc.-54707). This effigy depicts the astronomer as being relatively young, so the original was probably made at the beginning of the 16th century. The lily of the valley he holds in his hands is considered a symbol of the medical guild, but it is also used as a symbol of love, motherhood and purity, mainly in connection with the veneration of the Virgin Mary in Renaissance painting. The lily of the valley was not unusual as an attribute in portraits during Copernicus' lifetime, as evidenced by a painting from the first half of the 16th century, which has been in the possession of the Paris Observatory (Musée de l'Observatoire) since 1824 as a presumed portrait of Copernicus. It was deposited there by P. F. de Percy, a surgeon in the Napoleonic armies, who had brought it back from one of his campaigns. Its Polish provenance could therefore not be ruled out. The man, probably a nobleman, judging by his attire, is holding a lily of the valley. His pose and the direction of his gaze indicate that this could be a counterpart painting for a woman's portrait. The author of this alleged portrait of Copernicus is considered to be a painter from the circle of Joos van Cleve or Christoph Amberger. In the woodcut by Cranach the Younger and the portrait from the Warsaw Observatory, Copenisus looks at the viewer or towards the sky. The portrait of Copernicus that was in the Gołuchów Castle before the Second World War was also close to Cranach's style (oil on panel, 43 x 31.5 cm, inv. KFMP 1000, inscription: R · D · NICOLAO COPERNICO). This painting was attributed to Crispin Herrant, court painter to Duke Albert of Prussia (1490-1568), who maintained lively artistic contacts with the Bishop of Chełmno in Lubawa, Jan Dantyszek (1485-1548) and was painted by Cranach. Herrant was considered to have been a student of Albrecht Dürer, but strong influences of Cranach's style are also visible in his works (after "Kulturgeschichte Ostpreussens in der Frühen Neuzeit" by Klaus Garber, Manfred Komorowski, Axel E. Walter, p. 436). He also worked in Lidzbark, where he painted two portraits of Mauritius Ferber (1471-1537), Bishop of Warmia, as well as for the Polish magnates Stanisław Kostka and Stanisław Tęczyński (after "Malarstwo Warmii i Mazur od XV do XIX wieku" by Kamila Wróblewska). It is to Rheticus that we owe the Copernican revolution and probably also the most beautiful effigy of the astronomer by Cranach the Younger. Without his involvement, the paradigm shift from a geocentric to a heliocentric view of the world would probably have been long in coming, and Nicolaus Copernicus's main work might never have been published (after "Z Wittenbergi do Fromborka i z powrotem: Retyk i Kopernik" by Reiner Haseloff, p. 8-10). It should be noted, however, that his colleagues in Wittenberg described his personality as abnormal and enthusiastic, with homosexual tendencies. They perceived Rheticus as a man who was carried away by the fame and knowledge of older men, and fantasized about them. This led them to believe that the sole purpose of Rheticus's request for leave from Melanchthon in Wittenberg was to get closer to Copernicus (compare "The Melanchthon Circle, Rheticus, and the Wittenberg Interpretation of the Copernican Theory" by Robert S. Westman, p. 165-193). There is no known portrait of Rheticus. Before going to Frombork, the young scholar travelled to Nuremberg in October 1538, then to Ingolstadt, Tübingen and his hometown of Feldkirch in Austria, near Liechtenstein. In the Liechtenstein Museum in Vienna there is a "Portrait of a Young Man", attributed to Hans Maler, a painter born in Ulm and active as a portrait painter in the village of Schwaz, near Innsbruck, where he painted numerous portraits of members of the Habsburg court. This painting was probably acquired by Johann II (1840-1929), Prince of Liechtenstein (oil on panel, 35.1 x 25.3 cm, inv. GE 711). The alleged author of the painting, Hans Maler, is believed to have died around 1529, however this painting is clearly in his style and bears the date 1538. According to the Latin inscription in the upper part of the painting, the man was 24 years old in 1538 (᛫ ÆTATIS SVÆ XXIII IOR ᛫ / ᛫ 1 5 3 8 ᛫), exactly like Rheticus, when he went to Austria and then to Frombork. 
Portrait of Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) by Crispin Herrant, ca. 1533, Gołuchów Castle, lost during World War II. Virtual reconstruction, © Marcin Latka
Portrait of Georg Joachim de Porris (1514-1574), known as Rheticus, aged 24 by Hans Maler, 1538, Liechtenstein Museum in Vienna.
Woodcut with portrait of Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) holding a lily of the valley by Lucas Cranach the Younger, ca. 1541, Veste Coburg.
Woodcut with portrait of Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) holding a lily of the valley by Lucas Cranach the Younger, after 1541, Private collection.
Portrait of Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) holding a lily of the valley, first half of the 17th century, Warsaw Observatory, destroyed in 1944. Virtual reconstruction, © Marcin Latka
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