The last Vasa monarch

Christina was born on December 8, 1626, at Stockholm castle. She was not the first born, but the only surviving child of the Swedish royal couple, Gustav II Adolf and Maria Eleonora of Brandenburg. The marriage alliance between the Swedish king and the German princess had been contracted as early as in 1620. The queen's weak constitution and seeming inability to produce a healthy child had long been a matter of concern to the nation at large. By the early decades of the 17th century, Sweden had begun to emerge as one of the leading nation-states of Europe, demonstrating an expansionist policy which has led to speculations about Gustav II Adolf's ambitions to found a northern, Baltic-based empire. But the position of the Swedish monarchs was not nearly as secure domestically, for the Vasa family's hereditary rights to the Swedish throne were of recent date and the legitimacy of the succession at the beginning of the 17th century could be held in doubt.

A union of the three Scandinavian realms had been established at a meeting in Kalmar in 1397. But in the succeeding century, the authority of the union monarchs was not infrequently contested. The modern Swedish monarchy was established by Gustav Eriksson (Vasa), who in 1521 led an uprising against the Danish Union Monarch Kristian II and in 1523 was elected king of Sweden. The ideas of the Protestant reformers played a central role in the construction of the independent Swedish realm and in the development of a national ideology. The Reformation was formally introduced in Sweden at this time, and property belonging to the Church was confiscated. The Reformation initially provided the Swedish monarch with considerable economic resources and, as in England, the king now became the head of the church as well as the head of state. In 1544, Sweden was declared a hereditary monarchy at a meeting of the Riksdag or Parliament.

Gustav Vasa reigned until 1560, but the following half century highlighted the instability of the young royal line. Gustav was succeeded by his son Erik XIV (reigned 1560-1568), who was deposed by his brother who reigned as Johan III from 1568 to 1592. Johan had married the Polish princess Katarina Jagellonica, and during his reign there was a tendency towards the re-Catholicization of Sweden. Their son Sigismund, who succeeded to the throne, had been raised as a Catholic. However, by the end of the 16th century, Protestantism was firmly established in Sweden. Though Sigismund had to promise to uphold Lutheranism in his oath of kingship, he was nevertheless deposed in favor of his uncle, Duke Karl, and forced to flee the country in 1598. Thus the last of Gustav Vasa's sons to occupy the Swedish throne was declared king by the Riksdag the following year, though he himself refrained from using this title for a number of years and was only officially crowned in 1604. Karl IX (reigned 1599-1604 as regent, 1604-1611 as king), once more sharpened strictures against Catholicism. As early as in 1595, he had closed the country's last monastery, the Brigittine foundation in Vadstena.

The deposition of Sigismund resulted in continuing conflicts between Sweden and Poland, where Sigismund was still regarded as the legitimate heir to the Swedish throne. When Karl IX died in 1611, in the midst of a war over dominance in the Baltic countries of Estonia and Livonia, his son Gustav Adolf was only 17 years old. His accession provided an opportunity for the Swedish aristocracy, which had played a significant role in the establishment of the royal power to begin with, to strengthen their position. The power of the Swedish monarch was thus notably circumscribed at the beginning of Gustav II Adolf's reign, but the king was able to use these conditions to his advantage rather than being constrained by them. This he did by initiating a lifelong cooperation with the leading representative of the noble estate, Axel Oxenstierna (1583-1654), who in 1612 was appointed Chancellor of the Realm.

When Gustav Adolf acceded to the throne, the monarchy had experienced a half century of internecine strife of almost Shakespearian proportions. Strong constraints on royal power had been imposed by the aristocracy, and the Vasa heir who succeeded to the throne was a young man who had yet to attain legal majority. Nevertheless, the reign of Gustav II Adolf became the turning point in that national consolidation under a royal power which had begun in the 1520's.

The consolidation of the Swedish hereditary monarchy had thus taken nearly a century since the election of Gustav I (Vasa). Given this, the continuation of the royal line through the birth of an heir was highly significant.

Youth and upbringing

"Those who assign an upbringing the force and effect of a second nature have undoubtedly grasped how significant this is for all people."
Queen Christina

Our most important source of knowledge about Christina's early years is her unfinished autobiography, or memoirs. This work, which was written in French and bears the title Histoire de la Reine Christine faite par elle-mesme, dediée à Dieu, describes Christina's childhood until her tenth year. Some scholars who have written about Christina maintain that it is not a very reliable source for her childhood, for it was begun when the former queen was already in her forties and continued, but never completed, during the last decade of her life. Yet even though the autobiography was composed at a distance of decades from the events that it described, it remains a highly valuable text.

According to Christina, it was her birth itself that set the stage for her ambiguous attitude to the traditional feminine role, which would remain a major theme throughout her life. Christina would have heard the account of her birth from those adults who were present on the occasion: "I was born with a caul and only had the face, arms and legs free. My entire body was hairy and I had a coarse, strong voice. For this reason the midwives who received me initially believed that I was a boy. They filled the castle with their false shouts of joy, which for a moment deceived even the king himself . . . but a profound embarrassment spread among the women when they realized that they had been mistaken." The only person brave enough to confront the king was his sister, Katarina, who carried the newborn child in to the king in such a way that he himself could see that it was a girl. But Gustav II Adolf gave no sign of displeasure when he received his daughter. He only said "Let us thank God, my sister. I hope that this girl shall become as good as any boy. I ask God to preserve her, since He has given her to me." Thereafter Gustav II Adolf arranged for the Te Deum to be performed, followed by all the celebrations customary for the birth of a male heir.*  "In other words," Christina concludes her account, "he was as great on this occasion as on all others." If we are to believe Christina, her mother, Maria Eleonora, experienced only disappointment at her birth. "[The queen] could not abide me for, she said, I was a girl, and I was ugly. She was not entirely incorrect in this judgment," Christina remarks.

Christina was born when Sweden was about to enter into active participation in the European-wide conflict known today as the Thirty Years War, which would end only in 1648. Through participation in the war in Germany, Sweden momentarily achieved the status of a European Great Power and Christina's father, Gustav II Adolf, became a martyr for the Protestant cause through his death at the battle of Lützen on November 6, 1632. Christina was now formally acclaimed as monarch but during the twelve years of her minority (1632-1644), Sweden was ruled by a regency government headed by the Chancellor of the Realm, Axel Oxenstierna, who was responsible for the successful conclusion of the war and for the domestic government of Sweden, a responsibility which included the upbringing of the young queen.

In modern historiography, Maria Eleonora has been portrayed as an unstable woman, and much weight has been placed on the intense and prolonged rituals of mourning to which she dedicated herself following the death of the king. Our knowledge of these circumstances derives from the eyewitness account of Christina herself, who dwelt primarily with her mother in the years immediately following Gustav Adolf's death. However, the Council of the Realm eventually decided to separate Christina from her mother, a decision which may have had a political motivation - that is, a desire to control the young monarch. A reading of Christina's autobiography does underline the extent to which her relationship to Maria Eleonora contributed negatively to her construction of a feminine identity. Thus, Christina was chiefly raised by a group of elderly statesmen, and it was Oxenstierna himself who educated Christina in the art of statesmanship.

Another important figure in Christina's life during this period was her tutor, Johannes Matthiæ Gothus (1592-1670), who had been Gustav II Adolf's court chaplain from 1629 and was later appointed Bishop of Strängnäs. Matthiæ taught Christina classical languages, history, and religion, and seems to have exercised a considerable influence on the development of her religious thought. Unlike the majority of the Swedish clergy, Matthiae held a liberal theological stance, and one must conclude that Gustav II Adolf had chosen him as Christina's future preceptor precisely for this reason. Though Christina later tried to absolve him from any responsibility in preparing her conversion to Catholicism, it seems likely that she emphasized the independence of her religious evolution in order to protect her former tutor. In fact, Matthiae was judged harshly by the Swedish clergy at large and, following Christina's abdication, removed from his position as Bishop of Strängnäs.

Queen of Sweden (1644-1654)

Christina came of age in 1644, the very year that negotiations towards the Westphalian Peace began in Münster and Osnabrück. In foreign politics, the conclusion of the war in 1648 with the attainment of favorable conditions for Sweden was the major issue of Christina's reign. In the panegyric literature of her time, Christina was portrayed as that queen who had brought a long-desired peace to Europe. However, this was in many respects a merely propagandistic image: Sweden's military strength during the last phase of the Thirty Years War made it profitable for the Swedes to prolong the peace negotiations in order to obtain the largest possible compensation for the dissolution of the Swedish military forces in Germany. Christina's instructions for the Swedish plenipotentiaries in Westphalia, Johan Oxenstierna and Johan Adler Salvius, were, according to the mediators, vacillating.

In domestic politics, her brief personal rule was dominated by two issues: that of the reincorporation of Crown lands which had been lost through donation to the nobility, and the issue of the succession. The question of a future marriage alliance for Christina had been raised when she achieved majority. The Elector of Brandenburg had been mentioned as a potential spouse for the queen, as had her cousin the Palatine Duke Karl Gustav. However, as early as 1647 Christina had voiced her reluctance to marry, and by the time the war was concluded, it had become generally known that she intended not to marry at all. In 1649, Karl Gustav was declared successor to the throne, and in 1650, he was given the title "hereditary prince of the realm" on the occasion of Christina's coronation. Karl Gustav himself believed that the queen's intention was that of assigning him a politically inconsequential role as heir to the Swedish realm, and was therefore reluctant to accept his title.

Ironically, Christina's intention to abdicate had probably already been formulated at the moment that she was officially crowned Queen of Sweden in 1650. It is apparent that three interrelated decisions had matured simultaneously during the years 1644 to 1650: first, Christina's intention to remain unwed; second, her decision to convert to Catholicism, and finally, as a consequence, that she must abdicate from the Swedish throne. The possible reasons for her abdication and the precise relationship between them are questions which have dominated modern Swedish studies of the queen. Some scholars have seen Christina's conversion to Catholicism as genuine and thus accepted this as a primary motive. Others have emphasized her reluctance to enter the married state and her subsequent inability to secure the succession by providing the nation with an heir. In Catholic Europe, she could live in a society where a life in celibacy was viewed as an ideal rather than as a failure. Yet a third major interpretation of Christina's so-called "abdication crisis" underlined her weariness with the tasks of government following the conclusion of the Thirty Years War. Certainly, her aversion to marriage has been most frequently discussed in this context - an aversion which might have had its origin in her troubled relationship with her mother, but also in the social constraints which marriage imposed on any woman in the 17th century, and which would have been particularly troublesome for a woman raised to take on the role of a monarch.

One aspect of Christina's reign that should be mentioned is the presence of a foreign cultural elite at the Swedish court from the late 1640's, a factor which can have contributed to her attraction to Catholicism. Christina's reputation as a highly learned woman with a deep interest in the fine arts, a "Minerva of the North", had spread throughout Europe. Men of letters eagerly sought the patronage of the Swedish queen. Isaac Vossius, Gabriel Naudé, and Nicolaus Heinsius, to mention but a few, were recruited to the Swedish court to look after Christina's library, enriched after 1648 through the booty taken from Prague. Christina's private physician in this period was the Frenchman Pierre Bourdelot, and her foremost contact among the foreign ambassadors resident at the Swedish court was also French, Pierre Chanut. Christina's marked leaning towards the French culture and language was evident early, and her most celebrated foreign guest was the philosopher René Descartes, who dwelt at the Swedish court for only a few months before dying of pneumonia in February of 1650.

Among the Swedish nobles, Christina's pronounced favorite was Magnus Gabriel De la Gardie (1622-1686), who had served as emissary to the French court in 1646 and who would also distinguish himself as a patron of culture. De la Gardie's jealousy of the numerous foreigners at Christina's court resulted in his loss of the queen's favor in 1653, when he was exiled from court. Though there is no concrete basis for this supposition, a number of authors have speculated that Christina might have been infatuated with de la Gardie.

By 1651, Christina was sufficiently certain of her inclination towards the Catholic faith to take direct contact with the General of the Jesuit Order, Francesco Piccolomini. In a brief and cautiously formulated letter, she expressed admiration for the Jesuits and requested direct contact with the order. The Jesuits Paolo Casati and Francesco Malines were sent to Sweden in 1652. After brief conversations with the queen, they concluded that she was on all essential points already convinced of the veracity of Catholic doctrine. The major part of their discussions with her touched upon the practical question of whether she might remain Queen of Sweden while secretly a Catholic or not.

During the last two years of her reign, Christina's thoughts were not of government but rather of the major change in her life situation that awaited her. Many of her books and works of art had been shipped from Sweden under various pretexts, and her abdication took place on June 6, 1654 in Uppsala. The eyewitness account of the nobleman Per Brahe gives us a vivid sense of the emotional impact of this moment in Swedish history, when not only the reign of Christina, but the era of the Vasa dynasty came to en end:

The queen's renunciation took place on the morning of the 6th of June. It was a pitiful act. The queen came out of her chamber with the crown on her head, the orb and sceptre in her hand, dressed in her coronation robes, and otherwise wearing a simple white garment, and began her oration . . . . Thereafter Her Majesty put down one royal emblem after another, stepped down from her throne, addressed the hereditary prince, who would soon be crowned king, recommending to him the good of the fatherland . . . . The queen stood and spoke so beautifully and so freely, occasionally one sensed that she was close to tears: Her Majesty moved many an honest man and woman, for all the women were also present, to tears, and expressed regret, that she should end both her line and her rule, before God did so: she appeared as beautiful as an angel.

From Uppsala to Rome

Christina left Sweden immediately after the abdication, traveling with only a small entourage, and arrived in Hamburg on July 23, 1654. It is uncertain when she decided that Rome would become her permanent residence after the abdication. However, this decision would have been based on her necessity to live in a Catholic country and her reluctance to become the subject of another monarch. Practical economic arrangements for her life after the abdication had been established through an Abdication Agreement which allowed her the retention of a number of dower lands in Sweden, the Baltic region, and Pomerania (the islands of Öland, Gotland and Ösel, the secularized Bishoprics of Bremen and Verden, and the town and castle of Norrköping). Christina would during her lifetime receive the income from these domains, which were to be administered by a Governor General in Sweden. While in Hamburg, she encountered the eminent international bankers Diego and Manoel Texeira, exile Jews related to the Portuguese royal house. They were soon engaged to administer Christina's economic affairs. It had originally been calculated that her annual income would total approximately 200,000 riksdaler; in effect she seldom received more than 60,000 per annum. Eventually a contract was drawn up whereby Manoel Texeira advanced Christina a fixed sum every month, while collecting the said funds from her Swedish/German dower lands.

While plans for Christina's conversion to Catholicism and eventual reception in Rome were being drawn up, Christina spent a lengthy interim period in Antwerp and Brussels. King Philip IV of Spain had acted as Christina's protector in the period preceding the abdication, for it would have been impossible for her, given the existing Franco-Swedish alliance dating from 1631, to discuss her plans with the French diplomatic representatives in Stockholm or with the court of Louis XIV.

Christina was privately received into the Catholic Church on Christmas Eve of 1654. The reigning pontiff, Innocent X Pamphili, died shortly thereafter, on January 7, 1655. This must have contributed to Christina's uncertainty regarding her possible residence in Rome, for a successor to Innocent was not elected until April. It was Fabio Chigi, former nuncio (papal diplomatic representative) in Cologne and mediator for the Catholic parties at the Westphalian peace conference, who was elected to the papal throne. From 1651 to 1655, Chigi had been Secretary of State of the Vatican, and thus formally responsible for the plans relating to Christina's conversion. He experienced a personal sense of triumph that the daughter of Gustav II Adolf, the "champion of Protestantism", should have converted to the Catholic faith, and it now became a particular point of pride that she should be received in Rome in the first year of his reign. As Pope Alexander VII (reigned 1655-1667) he demanded that Christina be publicly received as a Catholic before entering the Papal States. She thus journeyed to Innsbruck in October of 1655 and was met there by the papal legate Lucas Holstenius (1596-1661) - a noted humanist, prefect of the Vatican library, and himself a convert to Catholicism. Her official reception into the Church took place on November 3.

Christina was accorded singular honors upon her entry to Rome in December of 1655. The arch leading to Piazza del Popolo, where Christina was formally greeted by members of the College of Cardinals, was redecorated and still bears the inscription composed for the occasion: FELICI FAVSTOQ INGRESSVI ANNO DOM MDCLV (For a happy and auspicious entry in the year of the Lord 1655). Christina was invited to reside in the Vatican during her initial week in Rome and was confirmed at the pontifical mass in St. Peter's Church on Christmas Day. On that occasion, she added the confirmation names Maria Alexandra to her own, and would henceforth call herself Christina Alexandra. Her marked use of this name underlined her assumption of a new identity as a Catholic.

Christina's initial decade following the abdication was necessarily a time of great instability. She had to create an entirely new platform, and she continued to make unconventional choices which often provoked criticism. As an unwed woman, she was expected to live a more secluded life than that which she chose. Though she would not have been expected to enter monastic orders, it would have seemed suitable in the eyes of her Catholic environment that she dedicate herself to pious works. Instead, she chose to continue her very active role as a politician, and soon became engaged in the politics of the papal court. One of her most significant early contacts in Rome was Cardinal Decio Azzolino (1623-1689).

Christina's role in the Papal elections

In preparation for Christina's arrival, Pope Alexander VII decided that she would need an escort during her initial days in Rome, a liaison who could introduce her to the habits and etiquette of the papal court. He chose Cardinal Decio Azzolino for this sensitive task. Azzolino, born in 1623, was close to Christina in age. Since 1653, he had been Secretary of that department in the Roman Curia responsible for communications with European royalty. He had been appointed cardinal in 1654 and was thus well prepared for such an assignment.

Azzolino was not only one member of seventy in the Catholic Church's senate, the College of Cardinals, he was also the leader of a newly established political party among these cardinals, the Squadrone Volante ("flying squadron"). In the century following the introduction of the Protestant Reformation, the Roman Papacy had become successively dependent on the Catholic secular states, France and Spain. By the middle of the 17th century, the intervention of these states in the internal politics of the Holy See had increased dramatically, and this intervention was often in evidence during the papal elections. The Squadrone Volante (so nicknamed because the faction, having originally eleven members, functioned as a swing group in the College of Cardinals) originated in 1655 as a loose coalition whose primary objective was the election of the most worthy candidate to the papal throne - Fabio Chigi, who did indeed become pope in that year. However, the cardinals soon coalesced around a political platform, which posited the reacquisition of the Papacy's political neutrality in relation to the Catholic Crowns as a prerequisite for a strengthened papal authority. Inherent in their program was the idea that only through a professionalization of the Church's administration could such a goal be achieved.

Already during the course of her journey through the Papal States in the autumn of 1655, Christina had met several members of the new faction and remained impressed by their program for ecclesiastical reform. Her meeting with Decio Azzolino on New Years' Eve of 1655 and the close friendship which soon developed between the two contributed to her formal affiliation with the Squadrone Volante. The program of the faction - particularly the goal to strengthen a debilitated papal authority - clearly appealed to Christina on an ideological basis. Christina was a pronounced royal absolutist, and stated in more than one context that she held the hereditary monarchy to be the best form of government. A reading of the French maxims she composed during the latter decades of her life also reveals that she strongly supported the hierarchical organization of the Catholic Church - in other words, her political and her religious conceptions were based on similar ideals. It was thus consistent that she should support the goals of the new faction.

By the first months of 1656, Christina was established as the royal patron of the Squadrone Volante. Christina's patronage was of some importance, particularly in the first years of the faction's activity. The members of the Squadrone were initially perceived as young and rebellious men. Several of them, like Azzolino, had only recently attained the position of cardinal. Thus, Christina's protection provided the group with a measure of social legitimacy which it initially lacked.

Christina's first decade in Rome was, as mentioned, a troubled time of adjustment. She journeyed outside Italy on several occasions. In 1656-1657 she traveled to France, where her involvement in Cardinal Mazarin's plan for the conquest of the Kingdom of Naples led to her execution of Gian Rinaldo Monaldesco. Monaldesco was a member of Christina's royal household, but he was also a Neapolitan patriot who opposed French ambitions to conquer the small kingdom. By acting as an informer he was able to thwart Mazarin's and Christina's plans, and the former queen therefore had him executed at Fontainebleau castle in November of 1657.

Christina's execution of Monaldesco had European-wide reverberations. Her right to kill this treasonous member of her court rested upon an important distinction established in her Abdication Agreement: although she had resigned from government, she had not lost her royal status, since this was a quality of birth. The universally negative reaction to the execution underlined that the rest of Europe saw her only as a former sovereign, who did not retain such royal prerogatives. Her action was also perceived as an insult to the reigning King of France, on whose territory the execution had taken place.

Upon her return to Rome in 1658, Christina was ostracized by that society which had so warmly welcomed her only two years previously. Sforza Pallavicino, the Jesuit historian who described Christina's early Roman years in his biography of Pope Alexander VII, noted that " . . . the antechambers of the queen, which in other times had been filled with prelates and barons, now seemed a desert." However, Pallavicino himself and Decio Azzolino interceded with the pope on Christina's behalf, and her relationship to Alexander slowly improved. In 1662, her life in Rome achieved greater stability when she moved into a permanent residence, Palazzo Riario (present-day Palazzo Corsini) on Via della Lungara in Trastevere.

During the 1660's, Christina also made two brief visits to her native land. The first took place in 1660, on the occasion of the funeral of her successor, King Karl X, who had died unexpectedly that year. At that time, she had to renegotiate the conditions of her Abdication Agreement of 1654 with the Regency Council for King Karl XI. The Council now viewed Christina with considerable suspicion since her Catholicism and close connection to the papal court were publicly known. It was now decided that Christina would not be allowed to bring any Catholic priest on future visits to Sweden. However, the economic conditions of the Abdication Agreement were confirmed and Christina retired to her castle in Norrköping, also among the dower lands she retained after the abdication, at the end of 1660.

The continuing problems with the economic administration of Christina's dower lands in Sweden occasioned another lengthy journey north from 1666 to 1668. From 1666, Christina resided at the home of her Hamburg banker Manoel Texeira, in order personally to go through accounts and receive visits from the administrators of her Swedish domains. In 1667, she made a brief and final journey to Sweden. Once it was discovered that Christina was indeed traveling with a Catholic priest, the Regency Government prevented her progress to Stockholm and it was now decreed that she would not be allowed to enter the country at all during the minority of King Karl XI.

Christina was also involved in the political life of the papal court in Rome during these decades. During her sojourn in Hamburg 1666-1668 she played an active role in the plans for the election of a successor to Pope Alexander VII in 1667 through an intense communication with the French court and with Cardinal Azzolino. This led to the election of Giulio Rospigliosi as Pope Clement IX (reigned 1667-1669). The reign of Clement IX inaugurated a short period of triumph for the Squadrone Volante and for Christina herself. When Queen Christina returned to Rome in November of 1668, after an absence of two and a half years, she was welcomed at a festive banquet and for a short time enjoyed the beneficence of that pope, whom she could truly count among her friends. Clement endowed her with an annual pension of 12,000 scudi, and Christina was an honored guest at a number of ceremonial occasions, such as the canonization of Saints Pietro d'Alcantara and Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi (April 28, 1669).

The death of the pontiff following a reign of only two and a half years was a political catastrophe for the Squadrone Volante, which had grown sufficiently powerful during the Rospigliosi reign to arouse the envy of the entire Roman court, and was thus too unpopular to win yet another election. The conclave (papal election) of 1669-1670 was the last battle of the Squadrone Volante as a unified group, and here too, Queen Christina played a significant role.

Christina is thus notable as one of a handful of women who have been directly engaged in the political life of the court of the Roman pontiffs. She achieved such influence partly through her royal status, but also through her innate political talent. One sign of the high status she achieved is a ceremonial instruction, today found in the Vatican Library, which treats the visits of courtesy to be made by a newly appointed cardinal. Here it is established that ". . . the newly appointed cardinal, after having received his biretta, should visit the entire Sacred College and the Queen of Sweden wearing his full vestments." In a later section of this text, Christina is referred to as having created the social norm for contacts between members of the College of Cardinals and European royalty.

"Minerva of the north"

An important aspect of Christina's life in Rome was her activity as a patron of the arts. Works of art confiscated during the siege of Prague (1648) had formed the basis of Christina's art collection, and many of the finer works left Sweden along with the queen. However, her collection was continually increased during the Roman period, and contemporary descriptions of her palace indicate that it housed an incomparable wealth of paintings, sculptures, and tapestries. Her gallery of paintings in Palazzo Riario included thirteen works by Titian, eleven by Veronese, six pieces by Raphael, and several by Correggio. But in addition to these works of 16th century masters, the artists of her own day were well represented - Annibale Carracci and Guido Reni for example. Her patronage of Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini led to a lifelong friendship which made Christina the testamentary beneficiary of Bernini's last sculpture, the marble bust of the "Salvator Mundi."

Christina's activity as a collector was not limited to the realm of the visual arts, however. She possessed a considerable library which included both printed books and manuscripts from the 4th to the 14th centuries. Though Christina's collections of art and printed books were dispersed after her death, her collection of medieval manuscripts remained intact, for it was purchased by Pope Alexander VIII (Pietro Ottoboni, reigned 1689-1691) and eventually donated to the Vatican Library. This collection, known as the Codices Reginenses Graeci et Latini, is one of the major manuscript collections in the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana and today remains a valuable resource for scholars.

In 1674, Christina realized her early ambition of founding a literary academy, the Accademia Reale. Though its activity in her lifetime was limited, it can be considered the progenitor of the Arcadia, of which Goethe was a member, and an ancestor of the present-day Accademia dei Lincei. Queen Christina's interest in music was no less than her dedication to art and literature. In this context, her patronage of the composers Alessandro Scarlatti, Alessandro Stradella, and Arcangelo Corelli can be mentioned. However, her most decisive contribution to Rome's musical culture was her foundation of the "Tor di Nona" theater in 1671. The theater was the first public institution of its kind in Rome, and was financed through subscriptions - according to a model that had been tried successfully in Venice. Christina also had a private theater in Palazzo Riario, and throughout her Roman period supported a staff of professional singers and instrumentalists.

Christina was no mere consumer and patron of culture, she must also be counted among the creators. As mentioned above, the queen began work on an autobiography during the 1660's, and continued this during the last decade of her life. She also wrote several collections of maxims. French was her preferred literary language and thus, her literary models were also French. One of the most fashionable authors of her day was François, duc de la Rochefoucauld (1613-1680), who was particularly noted for his aphorisms and moral maxims. Christina was among those who - inspired by Rochefoucauld - set out to write maxims of their own. Christina penned two larger collections of maxims: Les Sentiments Héroïques seems to have been intended as a public, or official, collection, and was perhaps meant to be published some day. Ouvrage de Loisir was, as its title indicates, a less formal and more intimate collection. Christina's maxims, which are often far longer than Rochefoucauld's pithy sentences, bear little resemblance to the model that inspired them. Of considerable interest are her theological reflections, for these are truly original and give us some insight into Christina's religious thought; and her reflections on classical history - a much-loved motif both in Christina's art collections and in her literary works.

"Private lives" - Christina and Decio Azzolino

Christina's involvement in ecclesiastical politics through her cooperation with Cardinal Decio Azzolino and her patronage of the Squadrone Volante has been discussed above. However, an account of Christina's life must also say something of the private friendship between the queen and the cardinal, for this was an important aspect of Christina's later years.

Christina's rejection of the traditional feminine role was known to her contemporaries, for in a number of ways she herself let it be known. It was Christina who declared that she would not consider entering into marriage. As noted above, she lived a very active and public life even after the abdication. This was a highly unorthodox choice for an unmarried woman in 17th century Catholic Europe. Undoubtedly, Christina would not have been allowed such a degree of participation in European political affairs had it not been for her status as the former queen of one of Europe's Great Power states. Christina also preferred to dress comfortably, especially when traveling, and thus she not infrequently donned male attire. Here she was not alone, for other women also found it safer to travel in disguise in these unstable times. Among the documents from Christina's Roman period preserved in the Swedish National Archives (the Azzolino collection) is a small note where Christina orders a pair of comfortable men's shoes with squared-off toes.

Thanks to Christina's controversial decision to convert to Catholicism, she became a ready target for pamphlets and lampoons. Suggestions of sexual aberration were a classic tool for authors of libelous tracts well before the 17th century, and thus Christina's deviation from the feminine norm was focused on in many such texts. The discussion of Christina's female typology flourished particularly in the French biographical tradition, and has played a major role in modern discussions of Christina.

There are, however, many circumstances which contest this image of Christina, and the foremost of these is our present knowledge of her romantic friendship with Cardinal Decio Azzolino. Christina's love for Azzolino can be documented through a series of letters she wrote to him while in Hamburg during the years 1666 to 1668, which were identified and published in Sweden by Baron Carl Bildt in 1899. Bildt's publication of these letters should have served to redefine the conception of Christina's feminine identity. As Bildt underlined, they showed that she was a woman capable of great passion and that she too had loved a man deeply. But later authors doubted that Azzolino reciprocated the queen's affection at all - he was, after all, a Roman cardinal in an age when demands for clerical celibacy were quite strictly enforced. However, the accessibility of Azzolino's private archive, donated to the Biblioteca Comunale di Iesi in 1985, has made it possible to trace the cardinal's career in detail. On the basis of the sources available today, Azzolino's love for Christina can hardly be held in doubt.

Christina and Azzolino corresponded not only when one of them was away from Rome, but also when both were resident in the Eternal City. From 1669, Azzolino lived in the so-called Palazzo d'Inghilterra (present-day Giraud-Torlonia), in the section of Rome called the Borgo Nuovo, directly in front of St. Peter's. This was only a short distance from Christina's residence on the Via della Lungara in Trastevere, and many of the letters from Azzolino to Christina preserved today are courier notes. It is evident that the cardinal wrote Christina several times a day - and always upon arising in the morning and before going to bed at night. These courier notes obviously had the function of our modern telephone calls, for often Azzolino wrote to find out when the two might meet or to ask what Christina's plans for the day were.

The major part of the preserved courier letters can be dated to the years 1679-1681, or the beginning of the last decade in Christina's and Azzolino's lives. One of the most evocative letters in the cardinal's hand is a Christmas greeting to Christina. Here Azzolino wrote that he would dedicate a series of masses during the Christmas season as thanksgiving for Christina's well-being and for the fact that she had come to Rome. He also spoke of their long friendship - at this time, it was twenty-five years since they had first met - and maintained that he would seek forgiveness for "all the ways in which we, due to my sin, have been lacking unto God." In spite of these words, there is no real sense of regret in Azzolino's epistle - his first thought, he wrote, both that evening and the following morning, had been and would remain a single one - that of Christina.

Following a lengthy final illness, Queen Christina died on April 19, 1689. Azzolino was named her universal heir. However, the cardinal had only seven weeks left to live and his last acts would be to assume his responsibilities as heir and arrange for Christina's funeral. The very morning of the queen's death, Azzolino wrote to Cardinal Alderano Cibo, the current Secretary of State, informing him of what had happened. "The queen has died", he wrote, "and she has died with the disposition and the feelings of a holy, true, and most faithful daughter of God and of the Catholic Church." Though Christina had requested a simple funeral without pomp and burial in the Rotonda (Pantheon), Azzolino decided to go against the queen's last wish for, as he put it, "neither does it accord with the honor of God, of His Holiness or of the Church, and it would mean witnessing the triumph of the heretics and the scandal and infinite shame of Rome." The only burial site that corresponded to Christina's worth and status, in Azzolino's estimation, was the crypt of St. Peter's. Here she would be the first foreign monarch to rest alongside the Roman pontiffs. A second letter to Cibo written on the same day proposed that the funeral rites take place in the Chiesa Nuova, the Church of S. Filippo Neri and the Oratorians in Rome, and that the funeral cortège then cross the Tiber to the Piazza di S. Pietro. Azzolino's will was carried out, and the funeral took place in the Chiesa Nuova on April 23.

During the first weeks of May, Azzolino had Queen Christina's chancellery documents moved to his own home, and began to go through the letters he and the queen had exchanged during the past thirty-three years. At the beginning of June, Azzolino understood that he too would shortly die, and prepared a will. His third cousin, Pompeo Azzolino, would inherit both his and Queen Christina's estates. In accordance with the queen's wishes, he established three permanent chaplaincies to pray for her soul in St. Peter's. Stretching his hand as far into the future as it would reach, he nominated not only the priests to serve in these chaplaincies but also those who would fill the initial vacancies. He beseeched them to celebrate the masses for Christina's soul with the "greatest devotion and respect."

Thus Christina of Sweden received a final resting place in that city with which she had such a significant association during the latter half of the 17th century, and which even today bears witness to the impact of the Swedish queen on Roman life in the Baroque era. Christina has intrigued generations of scholars in the three centuries that have passed since her death. The breadth of her involvement in 17th century artistic and political culture can partly explain this interest; her complex personality and the radical choices she made are yet another factor which have contributed to our fascination with her extraordinary life. If Christina still today stands forth as one of the most interesting personages of her era, it might be because of her capacity to transcend the traditional boundaries of 17th century society. Through her conversion, she transcended the harshly drawn confessional boundary between Catholicism and Protestantism; through her abdication, she created lines of communication between Northern and Southern Europe, not only for herself, but for many of the individuals engaged in her very international court; through her lifestyle, she adopted a social role which only in the 20th century has been accepted as a possible model for women's lives. Christina's destiny thus holds more than an historical interest, for many of the questions she posed are as relevant today as in that era which Romans have called "il seicento di Cristina" (Christina's seventeenth century).

Selected Bibliography

Bjurström, Per, Feast and Theatre in Queen Christina's Rome. Stockholm, 1966.

Garstein, Oskar, Rome and the Counter-reformation in Scandinavia. The Age of Gustavus Adolphus and Queen Christina of Sweden 1622-1656. Leiden, 1992.

Platen, Magnus von, ed., Christina of Sweden. Documents and Studies. Stockholm, 1966.

Rodén, Marie-Louise, Cardinal Decio Azzolino, Queen Christina of Sweden and the Squadrone Volante. Political and Administrative Developments at the Roman Curia, 1644-1692. Doctoral thesis, Princeton University. Ann Arbor, 1992.

Rodén, Marie-Louise, ed., Politics and Culture in the Age of Christina. Stockholm, 1997.

Stolpe, Sven, Christina of Sweden. London, 1966.

Weibull, Curt, Christina of Sweden. Stockholm, 1966.

 

By: Marie-Louise Rodén

Marie-Louise Rodén, born 1953, received a Ph.D. in history at Princeton University in 1992. From 1989 to 1999 she was a lecturer and research scholar at  the Department of History, Stockholm University. She is currently Associate Professor of History at Kristianstad University. Her research has focused on the Roman period of Queen Christina of Sweden, and particularly on Cardinal Decio Azzolino, the queen's political associate and close friend. She is currently studying the role of Vatican diplomacy in the negotiations for the Westphalian Peace (1644-1648).

The author alone is responsible for the views expressed in this publication.