BÁTHORY, SIGISMONDO, prince of TRANSILVANIA. - Born in Prague in 1572, died there in 1613. Raised to the principality at a very young age (1581), he assumed sole government at the age of sixteen. Contrary to the traditional policy of his country, he rose against the Turks, aligning himself, on the advice of the Jesuit Alfonso Carrillo, with the emperor Rodolfo II. Victorious in Wallachia (1595) and financially assisted by Clemente VIII, he suffered a severe defeat the following year at Mezőkeresztes, as a result of which he abdicated (10 Apr. 1598) in favour of the emperor, requesting in return 100,000 florins and the duchy of Oppeln. Repenting, he returned to Transylvania in the following August to resume government. He abdicated a second time in 1599; but, re-elected in 1601, shortly afterwards he again and definitively ceded power to the emperor.
Báthory, Sigismondo, Prince of Transylvania
BIBL.: J. Lénart, Vita, carattere e politico di S. B., principe di Transilvania, in Erdélyi muzeum, 1880, p. 217 ff.; Anon., in Révai Nagy Lexikon, 13 (1915), p. 404, where the monograph by L. Szadeczky on Maria Cristina, Sigismondo’s wife, containing important data, is cited. Niccolò Del Re
Cite this article
“BÁTHORY, SIGISMONDO, PRINCIPE DI TRANSILVANIA.” Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. II (1949), p. 588. Azione Romana digital edition, https://azioneromana.com/article/bathory-sigismondo-principe-di-transilvania.