Some reproached Isabella Jagiellonka for her expensive purchases, others - like Christian Schesaeus, the Renaissance humanist - said that she was a woman with a "brave heart", while Mikołaj Rej added with approval that she "shook the world a lot". Nowadays forgotten, she played an important role as queen-regent of Hungary. So it is worthwhile, in addition to looking for traces of Dracula, to go to Alba Iulia to lean on the tomb of the Polish queen.

Isabella Jagiellonka - Polish princess, princess of Lithuania, queen of Hungary
Isabella Jagiellonka (1519-1559) was a Polish princess and princess of Lithuania, and in later years, queen of Hungary and - on behalf of her son - queen-regent. Biographers contribute many details to this general characterisation.

From a very young age, the beloved daughter of Queen Bona and Sigismund I the Old was being groomed for the crown, and there is no great exaggeration in this phrase, for according to the customs of the time, the first suitors came when the princess was barely two months old. From then on, successive suitors arrived, each with political arguments behind them. Finally, in 1539, the twenty-year-old Isabella married John Zápolya, King of Hungary, thirty years her senior. Unfortunately, her spouse died after only a year of living together, leaving a descendant, named John Sigismund in honour of his father and grandfather.

However, contrary to the original arrangement, which was supposed to guarantee relative peace, the young widow and her young son faced chaos and lurking dangers all around. Suffice it to say that although John Sigismund was immediately proclaimed king of Eastern Hungary, he was unable to take power. For this reason, the Jagiellonian Regent faced a battle for the throne with her rival for the Hungarian crown, Ferdinand I of Habsburg, on the one hand, and her late husband's advisor, the influential bishop George Utiešenović, on the other. She received support from Sultan Suleiman himself and his Slavic wife, Roxolana, as immortalised in Turkish paintings. Unfortunately, even such a powerful supporter could not guarantee peace for Isabella Jagiellonka.

Despite a settlement with the Habsburgs, according to which the compensation for relinquishing her rights to the Hungarian crown on behalf of herself and her son was to be the Silesian lands, this was insufficient compensation. As a result, the Polish royal settled in Poland and conducted further political negotiations from there.

Stefan Batory's Transylvanian retinue
In February 1556, the diplomatic scales tipped on the side of Isabella Jagiellonka. While in Lvov, she learned that the Transylvanian Diet had ceded sovereignty over Hungary to her and John Sigismund. Already in September of the same year, she was welcomed at Koloszwar (now Cluj-Napoca) by Stefan Batory himself, then a young Hungarian magnate.

The Pole regained power, but failed to hold the entire kingdom and, as a result of various clashes, took only the Duchy of Transylvania and the towns of Tokaj, Chust and Great Varadin. Once again, however, her reign was not free of antagonisms. The implacable Habsburgs kept stirring up new conflicts, and the queen herself, with a reputation for tolerance - Transylvania was then a multi-religious melting pot - was accused of poisoning her opponents. It is unclear how much of this is true and how much - as in the case of her Italian mother, Bona Sforza - a black legend.

To this day, many more or less sensational rumours circulate about the death of Isabella Jagiellonka. Witnesses agree, however, that the brave queen spent the last six months in bed, from where she commanded her troops and only got up with the rest of her strength for visits from MPs. She died on 15 September 1559 through an attack of an unknown illness. All we know is that she still managed to say goodbye to her son and give him her last instructions, the most important of which was to seek an agreement with Austria.

Tomb of Isabella Jagiellonka in St Michael's Cathedral in Alba Iulia
. Izabela Jagiellonka was posthumously 'enchanted into marble', to use a poetic phrase by Kazimierz Przerwy-Tetmajer. In the then capital of Transylvania, Alba Iulia, near the north side aisle in St Michael's Cathedral, there is a royal chapel. There, among other tombstones, including that of John Sigismund, slightly to the side, is the tomb of Isabella Jagiellon.

It is magnificent, free-standing, made of white stone, leaning with its longer side against the wall, and represents the so-called pulpit type. It consists of a kind of rather high catafalque covered with reliefs depicting motifs from the parable of the Good Samaritan. Above this is the figure of the deceased Queen of Hungary captured in coffin pose, that is, with her figure erect, her head resting on a small cushion and her hands modestly folded on her stomach.

The Jagiellonian woman's attire is noteworthy, as it is not an ordinary robe, but a ceremonial garment with heavily decorated, buff sleeves, crowned with a crown and sceptre. It is significant that they were chosen to be used, given that at one time Ferdinand Habsburg ordered Jagiellonka to return them. At the feet of the deceased are shields of arms: the Polish one with the so-called Jagiellonian eagle, the Hungarian one and the coats of arms of her husband King Jan Zápolya and her mother, Queen Bona.

The necklace and ring of Queen Isabella Jagiellonka
. When the young Isabella Jagiellonian began her monarchical life in a foreign country hundreds of kilometres away from home, she asked her parents in letters what to eat here (let us remember that it was thanks to Queen Bona that Polish cuisine assimilated the so-called Italian and other Mediterranean delicacies), how to sleep and how to function in everyday life. In this school of life, however, she did not have many advisors.

She compensated for the sudden death of her husband, the birth of her son and the hardship of ruling the country on her own - as her malicious subjects said - with all sorts of valuables. How much truth there is in this is difficult to say today. As a beloved daughter, she was pampered at home; it is known that her mother gave goldsmiths from Kraków bullion to make chains for her daughters, and the regent herself instructed her brother Sigismund II Augustus where and what jewellery to buy. This expensive hobby left behind jewellery polonies - two necklaces in the National Museum in Budapest and an unusual ring with a "sharp diamond" that is, unfortunately, in a private collection.

Sic fata volunt - motto of Izabela Jagiellonka
. Isabella Jagiellonka's bond with a distant kingdom was, as it turned out, much stronger than jewels. The Hungarian cardinal Ferenc Forgách noted in his diaries that in 1551, the regent, forced to leave Transylvania, was said to have uttered or, others argued, even engraved on oak bark her motto SFV - Sic fata volunt, or 'Fate wills it'.

Who knows how the fate of this part of Europe would have turned out, had the insightful and gifted queen not died prematurely?