Rarely featured in official documents or in history books, the private lives of rulers or nobility are rather difficult to document, and private correspondence or diaries are the main sources in this respect. This is all the more true when it comes to the wives of those powerful men-the women who sometimes stood in for their spouses and even influenced the course of history.
One such woman was Anna Bornemisza, wife to the last but one prince of Transylvania, Mihai Apafi I, who left behind a substantial correspondence thanks to which we can now research the dramatic situation of the principality in the last half of the 17th Century.
Anna Bornemisza came from old Transylvanian nobility, but was also related to the nobles in Wallachia. In fact, the Apafis were quite close to the Brâncoveanu family, and owned properties in Făgăraș Country, including the Făgăraș Citadel where the princely couple even lived for a while.
Mihai Apafi