János I, also known as János Szapolyai, was born in Szepesváralja in 1480 or 1487, in the influential family of the House of Szapolyai. His father was Palatine István Szapolyai, and his mother was Princess Hedvig Tescheni. Between 1510 and 1526 János I ruled as voivode of Transylvania. During this period, he also crushed the peasant uprising of György Dózsa, for which he cruelly executed the insurgent leader, after the 1526 battle of Mohács, in which II. King Louis lost his life, János I was elected king of Hungary by the Székesfehérvár parliament and crowned. However, Ferdinand I of the House of Habsburg also laid claim to the throne, so a double election of the king took place. With the support of the Ottoman Sultan János Szulejmán I, he kept his throne, but he could not change the result of the double election of the king. I. In 1528, János was forced into Poland from the forces of Ferdinand I, and then he asked for the protection of Sultan Szolimán. Szolimán led a campaign on behalf of Hungary and restored János I to the castle of Buda and to the possession of a large part of the country. In 1538, based on the Várad Peace Treaty, he reconciled with Ferdinand, but after his death he left the entire country to the Habsburgs. I. János died in 1540, at the age of 53-60, as a result of a stroke. His son János Zsigmond succeeded him on the throne. After the life of János I, the country was divided into three parts: the Kingdom of Hungary ruled by the Habsburg family, the Turkish subjugation that was part of the Ottoman Empire, and the Principality of Transylvania, which was created from the eastern territories owned by Szapolyai. From his wife, Izabella Jagielló (1519–1559 ) was born to a Polish royal princess, István János Zsigmond (1540–1571), II. Hungarian king elected under the name János, prince of Transylvania under the name János Zsigmond, did not marry, had no children.

János Szapolyai (1526–1540) minted coins just like Ferdinand I (1526–1564) from the House of Habsburg. Until the beginning of the 1550s, the late medieval Hungarian monetary system survived almost without change. The medal image and fineness of the coins also correspond to the conditions of 1467/1470, as a continuation of the minting traditions established at that time. the quality of the issued coins can be said to be good, due to the increasing number of forgeries, the issue of minting was regularly on the agenda of the national assemblies of the time. Already at the State Assembly of King János in Buda in 1527, it was stated that everyone must accept the money minted by the king - under the penalty of death - the right to mint money belongs exclusively to the king, the money issued by him must be used as a means of payment. The good quality of King János' coins is indicated by the fact that in his coinage decree of 1531 he ordered the minting of ten latos (625‰) denarii from one hundred marks of silver. The gold forints of János of Szapolyai show a uniform medal image. The obverse shows the crowned Virgin Mary sitting on a crescent moon, with baby Jesus on her right. On the reverse side, Saint László was depicted in a portrait, with a halberd in his right hand and a country apple in his left hand. At the end of the 1530s, however, on some gold coins minted in Cluj-Napoca, Szûz Mária was replaced by the title of Szapolyai.