ABSTRACT
Anna Jagiellon was a royal daughter (lat. reginula), an infanta (lat. infans), a monarch (lat. regina), and a woman whose life spanned the entire so-called Polish Golden Age. A woman whom capricious fate condemned to loneliness and disappointments, she was, at the same time, bestowed with an honor that only two women in the entire history of Poland have ever shared: being a monarch. Anna had the opportunity to observe at close range and even actively participate in the most important events in the history of this part of Europe: the union of Poland and Lithuania in 1569, the three successive elections of Polish-Lithuanian kings, the consolidation of religious tolerance and adoption of the first state constitution in 1573, the Polish victory over Moscow, and the conclusion of the Union of Brest in 1596. At the same time, she did not experience happiness or feel respected in her personal life. In childhood and youth, she was forgotten and abandoned by her parents, in adulthood hated and ignored by her brother, humiliated by the states of the kingdom, then neglected by her husband, and, in her final days, sidelined by her nephew, whom she treated as a son and whom she made king.
