Zsuzsanna Lorántffy

Born as one of three daughters of Mihály Lorántffy, one of the great lords of royal Hungary and his first wife Barbara Kamarás de Zelemér (d. 1609).

A passionate Calvinist, she assisted her husband in his successful struggle to introduce Protestant reforms in the Transylvanian church.

Her younger son, Sigismund Rákóczi, Prince von Siebenbürgen, (1622–1652), was married to Henriette Marie of the Palatinate, daughter of Elizabeth of Bohemia.

[1] Her Protestant religious beliefs compelled her to shun the pampered life of an aristocrat and instead to express her religion through action especially through development of girls' education.

While living in Nagyvárad she ensured that girls were taught not only the skills needed to run a home and bring up a family, but also to read, write, and do arithmetic.