Bianca was born in Pavia as the eldest daughter of Duke Galeazzo Maria Sforza of Milan, by his second wife, Bona of Savoy.

[2] When Bianca was not yet five years old, her father was assassinated inside the Church of Santo Stefano in Milan on 26 December 1476, which was the Feast Day of St. Stephen.

She returned to Milan, under the tutelage of her uncle Ludovico Il Moro, who cared little about her education and allowed her to indulge her own interests, mainly needlework.

With this marriage, the Hungarian ruler wanted to secure his son's future inheritance of Hungary and Bohemia and to make him Duke of Austria.

The union was unhappy: shortly after the consummation of the marriage, Maximilian complained that Bianca may have been more beautiful than his first wife, Duchess Mary of Burgundy, but was not as wise.

It was impossible for the young bride to win the affection of her husband, who considered her too uneducated, talkative, naive, wasteful with money, and careless.

She very much liked her stepchildren Philip the Handsome and Margaret,[2] but, as was remarked by Hermann Wiesflecker, Bianca Maria remained "all her life a child who played while sitting on the floor" and was criticized for forgetting the dignity of her position as Maximilian's wife.

[7] According to Daniel Unterholzner, although there was early rumours of pregnancies, Bianca apparently could not become pregnant (the time she shared with Maximilian was already little, due to his busy schedule, and decreased more and more).

Recent research though indicates that Bianca was an educated woman who had a political role as a mediator for different kinds of agenda both involving Ludovico Sforza and Maximilian.

[17] Joseph Grünpeck, the court historian of Maximilian, said that she died "dehydrated" (cachexia) and the ultimate blame laid with the husband's neglect of her.

[19] In Maximilian's horoscope, the astrologer had predicted that in his third epoch of life, he would meet a very young woman of good faith, "devoted to her husband, decent, and righteous," and who would bring him benefits and prosperity, but she herself would be sickly and unhappy.

Carnivals, dances, tournaments, weddings, mummeries, music, entrances, theater, hunting and fishing were integral parts of the queen's (later empress) court life.

[23] Her first hofmeisterin, appointed in 1493, was Violanta Cayma, who followed her from Italy, enjoyed the trust of both Maximilian and Bianca, and played a key role in correspondence with the Milanese court.

Franca Leverotti notes that there was a change after the wedding of Bianca and Maximilian in 1494 (also when Milan personnel was imported together with her)—the administrative reforms began to take shape under the influence of the Milanese model rather than the Burgundian one.