GIOVANNI ALBERTO, king of POLAND. - The third son of Casimiro IV, king of Poland (b. 1459), in 1490 contested with his elder brother Ladislao, king of Bohemia, for the crown of Hungary, to which both had been called by opposing parties. Defeated and repulsed, he consoled himself by obtaining the crown of Poland upon his father's death (1492). At that time the Florentine Filippo Buo-
Buonaccorsi (Callimachus Experiens), formerly his tutor and now his secretary, exercised great influence over him.
Famous is the political programme drawn up by Callimaco for the King (Consilium Callimachi), inspired by ideas that might be called Machiavellian. On Callimaco's advice, G. A. was reconciled with his brother Ladislao, establishing a harmonious domestic and foreign policy (the agreements of Buda, 1492, and Lewocra, 1494).
In order to carry out the plan of transplanting the Teutonic Order to Wallachia and having Prussia ceded to him, G. A. advanced into Moldavia in 1493 to wrest from the Turks the ports of Ielija and Bialogrod on the Black Sea and to subdue the hospodar Stefano. The expedition ended with the destruction of the Polish army near Cernovitza, and thus Polish ambitions toward the Black Sea came to an end. The absolutist programme in domestic policy collapsed as early as 1496 at the Diet of Piotrkow, in which G. A., although relying on the szlachta (rural nobility), was obliged to yield to the magnates, to the detriment of the Crown and the urban bourgeoisie. King G. A. d. 17 June 1501.