Bianca Maria Sforza, born in Pavia in 1472, was the eldest daughter of Duke Galeazzo Sforza of Milan and his second wife, Bona of Savoy. Her early life was quite turbulent. At just 21 months old, Bianca was betrothed to her first cousin, Duke Philibert I of Savoy, and sent there to be raised alongside him. At five years old, her father was assassinated inside the Church of Santo Stefano in Milan, stabbed to death by three high-ranking officials of the Milanese court. In the spring of 1482, Philibet died, and ten-year-old Bianca was sent back to Milan under the tutelage of her uncle Ludovico Il Moro. She received very little education and mainly indulged in needlework.
In July of 1485, Bianca was once more engaged, this time to John Corvinus, the only, but illegitimate, son of King Matthias of Hungary. Despite the contracts being signed, the formal marriage never took place. She was briefly considered as a match for King James IV of Scotland in 1492.
It wasn’t until March 1494 that Bianca married this time to the widowed King Maximilian I of Germany, who received a large dowry of 400,000 ducats. The union was unhappy: Maximilian complained that while Bianca was more beautiful than his first wife, Duchess Mary of Burgundy, she was not as learned. She had a good relationship with her stepchildren, Philip the Handsome and Margaret. Although there were rumours of a pregnancy and miscarriage early on in the marriage, Bianca did not give birth to any children, probably die to Maximilian being away most of the time.
By 1500, Maximilian had lost all interest in Bianca; she lived in her own court in Tyrol while Maximilian travelled around his various lands campaigning for the title of Holy Roman Emperor, which he gained in 1508, making Bianca empress. She did not enjoy this position long Bianca died at Innsbruck on December 31, 1510. She was buried at Stams, and while her husband did not attend her funeral or even dedicate a gravestone to her, he and his court wore black in commemoration of her death. The official cause of death was given as excessive consumption of snails.
Source:
Maximilian I, in Historic World Leaders, Arthur White.