It had been almost a year since her private conversion in Brussels. She came dressed in a gown of black silk, a diamond cross her only ornament, and pronounced her abjuration in a ‘clear, loud voice’. A solemn mass followed, with the singing of a Te Deum, a Catholic service to honour a newly Catholic Queen.
From Innsbruck Christina wrote at last to ‘Monsieur my brother’, Karl Gustav, ‘to declare myself openly for what I am’, and she wrote as well, in rather eccentric Italian, to the newly elected Pope. It was the first letter she had ever written in that language, and Father Pallavicino, later publishing it, advised the reader to view it ‘in a spirit of great piety and generosity’. But if Christina’s syntax was erratic, her meaning was clear enough:
Finally, I have arrived where I have so long desired to be, folded in the bosom of our holy mother, the Roman Catholic Church, and I humbly beg you to honour me with your benevolent commands. I have shown the world that, in order to obey Your Holiness, I have been ready to relinquish my throne, placed at it was in the midst of irremissible sin. It is a greater glory to obey Your Holiness than to rule from the highest throne…I who have nothing else to offer than my own self, and my blood, and my life, I offer it all to Your Holiness, asking only to kiss your most holy feet.
Your most obedient daughter, Christina.13
It is a letter of extravagant submission, but Christina’s passion for the limelight slips out between prostrations. Here at last was ‘a greater glory’ than even her father had claimed. There is not much penitence in evidence; the ‘sin’ that she had lived in seems to have belonged to her country rather than to herself. But her conversion was now public, at least. Christina had finally ‘shown the world’ that she could submit as she had ruled, with loud panache.
The bells rang out, the cannon boomed, and the day was spent in public celebration. Though Christina enjoyed the festivities well enough, the sincerity of her conversion was widely doubted. Gossips reported that the Queen had declared a change of religion ‘the most diverting thing in the world’. Within hours of the solemn mass, she turned up at the theatre to watch a far from pious play. ‘How apt that you should give a comedy for me this evening,’ she is supposed to have said, ‘since this morning I gave you a farce myself.’
Whether this is true or not, Christina did not stay for any further performances. A few days after her public conversion, she set off on the last stage of her journey to Rome.
Christina’s retinue had grown considerably since her midnight ride from Sweden in the company of four young men. In the ensuing eighteen months, she had acquired two clerics, three musicians, eight secretaries, an Italian count and a pair of Spanish dignitaries, and scores of servants, most of them still waiting for wages – in all, about two hundred and fifty people. They travelled in a caravan of carriages and horses, and numbered among them two unhappy Swedes, puzzled by the recent turn of events, and anxious to reassure their families that they themselves would not turn papist. Pimentel was one of the dignitaries, and with him was his compatriot Don Antonio della Cueva y Silva, now officially the Queen’s Master of the Household. Montecuccoli was with them, too; Christina had specifically requested his company, and he took advantage of it to keep the Emperor informed as they made their wintry way southward.
The route they took was by no means direct. In fact, on the Pope’s own orders, it was deliberately circuitous, designed to delay the Queen’s arrival in Rome until all the different committees had met and the various preparations had been completed. It could not in any case have been an easy journey, since winter was upon them, and all possible paths lay through very high ground, rocky and now also covered with snow. South they rode 200 miles to Mantova, then, instead of continuing down to Rome, they travelled eastwards along the Po river, the northern frontier of the Papal States. Just before Ferrara, they crossed the river, now in treacherous full flood. A gilded barge had been provided to ferry the Queen to the other side, but, perhaps recalling her mishap in Stockholm’s chilly harbour, she elected to cross instead by the plainer but safer bridge of boats constructed for her retinue.
Ferrara was a major stopping place for a no doubt weary caravan. Here a formal entry was required, and a formal reception, and formal dinners, and formal attendance at religious services. A few such days were more than enough for Christina, and she took to the road again with a will. Now that they were within papal territory, the journey had become easier, at least for the Queen herself. She travelled in a new carriage sent especially for her from Pope Alexander, and for her greater comfort along the way, His Holiness had also sent two sumptuous canopied beds with matching armchairs, an elaborate set of table silver, and even a papal chef – the celebrated Luigi Fedele, man of a thousand spices, including, it is said, oil of musk.
To the west they went, to Bologna, with beds and silver and chef in tow, then eastward to Pesaro, across the River Rubicone – Caesar’s Rubicon, and Christina’s own – zigzagging across the country while a thousand Roman workers hammered and painted and stitched and sewed against the Queen’s arrival. At Pesaro, she was entertained by dancers and acrobats and circus strongmen, by bits and pieces of opera and ballet and pseudo-learned discourses – ‘rubbish’, in the view of one attendee, but the Queen liked it all well enough. A star turn in every performance had been taken by two local notables whose acquaintance she now made, the brothers Ludovico and Francesco Maria Santinelli. Both possessed the kind of roguish charm that she had enjoyed in so many others of her favourites, and she decided impulsively that both must join her entourage, to enliven their road to Rome. The Santinellis, never slow to recognize their own advantage, agreed at once, and so they progressed, along the bright sea coast, to Ancona.
Nearby lay the little town of Loreto, a place of Catholic pilgrimage since the end of the thirteenth century. Legend has it that the house of the Virgin Mary, scene of the Annunciation, was plucked from its moorings in the Holy Land during a time of Turkish threat, and transported by a band of angels to the Italian coast. A church had now been built around the little house, and over the years, popes and princes had come to lay their gifts of homage at the feet of the statue of the Virgin, the ‘black Madonna’ supposedly carved by the evangelist apostle, Saint Luke. Christina now came to make her own pilgrimage, but if it was genuine, it was half-hearted. Her gift was worthy of any pope or prince: a fabulous jewelled crown and sceptre. But, pleading the excuse of the weather – it had been snowing – she did not approach the shrine itself, but sent Father Güemes to make the offering for her, while she waited in her carriage, in residual Lutheran discomfort at all the talk of statues and miracles.
If she felt more at home in the cold, snow-laden Apennine mountains, further statues awaited on the other side at Assisi, where a tremendous banquet was held for her near the tomb of Saint Francis, il poverello, friend of the hungry. A hundred and fifty miles remained, down the valleys of the great Tiber river, with the cold growing less and the skies bluer, and the landscape more and more the landscape of antiquity. Christina was enchanted, and lost herself in a reverie of Caesar and Virgil. ‘I dare not speak the name of Jesus,’ she said, ‘in case I break the spell!’ It was not broken by the Duca di Bracciano, Paolo Giordano Orsini, the last of her hosts on the long journey and a friend by correspondence for many years. It was to the Duca that she had written when the treasures from Prague had arrived in Stockholm. The two had written then, as they talked now, of history and art and music, and in the Duca’s castle, rearing stone among the olive groves, Christina celebrated her twenty-ninth birthday. Two days later, she would be in Rome.
Rome at Last
Christina’s arrival in Rome was almost as undramatic as her private conversion had been. She arrived in the dark, with no flares or fireworks to light her way, and made a shortcut through the Vatican gardens into the palace itself, where she was led directly to a private audience with the Pope. Whether or not she knelt, as she had wished, to ‘kiss your most holy feet’, is not recorded, but she did make
the ritual three obeisances – the first submissive gesture of her life – before taking her seat beside His Holiness.
The seat itself had posed quite a problem. A proper chair, with arms to lean upon, was permitted only to ruling sovereigns in the Pope’s presence, yet a plain stool had seemed too little recognition of the great sacrifice this former Queen had made. The problem had found its way into the hands of a master, the great Gian Lorenzo Bernini, who had sculpted a perfect compromise: a low-backed chair with rounded arms. Official reports described it as ‘a magnificent royal seat’, but the papal accounts recorded a humbler ‘low stool’ for Her Majesty’s use. Christina sat in it for a quarter of an hour, before being led to the apartments where she was to stay. Many curious eyes watched her go, and one observer recorded an impression of her as she made her way to her suite. She was dressed simply, but in women’s clothes, a gown of plain grey, and a black scarf around her shoulders. Her bright blue eyes earned a special mention, but she looked very small, and her straight blonde hair ‘appeared brown and curly’ – by now she had shaved her head and had taken to wearing a dark wig.
It was a singular honour for Christina to be the guest of His Holiness, as women were not generally permitted to sleep within the walls of the Vatican at all. Eight beautiful rooms had been assigned to her, all decorated especially for the occasion by Bernini’s younger brother, Luigi. Every corner was resplendent with brocade and satin, embroideries and lace; vivid frescoes lined every wall. The rooms were at the top of the Torre dei Venti – the Tower of the Winds – and from them, Christina could see out over the whole of the city and beyond. She was late to bed on her first night in Rome, but she slept reassured in sheets of finest cambric, with a great fire blazing in the hearth, and a silver bed-warmer at her feet.
She did not sleep long. Morning found her early in the Cortile del Belvedere, a courtyard within the Vatican where a splendid equipage awaited her, a personal gift from the Pope. Bernini had come to his aid again, and the design of the gift was his: a beautiful carriage with matching litter and sedan chair, all decorated in blue silk and silver mounts. The Pope had included other gifts of more than mortal design: six fast horses to draw the carriage, two mules for the litter, and a small palfrey, nobly draped in blue and silver, too. Whether delighted or insulted by the last gift – it was typically a lady’s horse, after all – Christina mounted it at once and put it through its paces, showing off her skill and drawing many admiring comments. She spoke briefly with Bernini himself, then set off with Lucas Holstenius to investigate the Vatican library.
Christina spent just two days in Rome before departing again, but her journey this time was only a few miles; she had to leave the city in order to enter it again in a formal, triumphal procession. She drove in a papal carriage north to the ancient Ponte Milvio, the oldest bridge in Rome, and there she was welcomed with elaborate ceremony by ranks of nobles and mounted soldiers, headed by Rome’s own Senator. Together they began their slow procession, along the great old Via Flaminia, towards the centre of the town, a vibrant echo of Christina’s coronation five years before, though, perversely, the weather was poor, and Rome was as grey now as Stockholm had then been bright. Along the route, they stopped for refreshments, and Christina thereafter declined the carriage in favour of her lively little palfrey. Thus she could easily be seen by the thousands who thronged the way, hoping to catch a glimpse of her, a small figure dressed quietly in grey and black, with a plume in her hat by way of celebration. Her simplicity contrasted favourably with the gaudy riches of the local ladies, and, if the choice was tactical, it was necessary, too, since she had left most of her jewels with the Antwerp pawnbrokers.
She made her formal entry into the city in the time-honoured way, through the Porta del Popolo – the People’s Gate – and the people were there in force to welcome her. The inside of the great stone arch had been decorated for Alexander by Bernini, his favourite artist, but the Pope had added an inscription of his own to honour the Queen’s arrival. Felice Faustoque Ingressui, it declared, wishing her a ‘happy and propitious’ entrance. Looking through to the ranks of crimson cardinals before her, Christina might have been happier just to dismount and slip into the little church to the side of the gate, packed as it was with Caravaggio and Raphael masterpieces, but the gauntlet was down, and the formal harangue of greeting could not be forgone.
At length they set off down the Corso towards St Peter’s, crowds pushing to see through yet more crowds, and the Castel Sant’ Angelo cannon booming nearby. Progressing across Bernini’s wonderful oval piazza, Christina reached the Basilica’s entrance, and knelt, on a cushion of golden silk, to kiss the crucifix. With chants ringing out around her, she made her way up the great marble aisle, and at the foot of the high altar, with its huge columns of twisted bronze, she knelt again to pray before the holy Eucharist, ‘the true body and blood of Christ’, according to her new faith. No mass was held; Christina returned instead to the Vatican palace, where Alexander and all his cardinals stood waiting to receive her.
The new day dawned, Christmas Eve, but she had little heart for more festivities. The Pope held his traditional banquet for the cardinals, and Christina went along, concealed behind the blue silk of her new sedan chair, to observe the proceedings in peace. She did not attend the midnight vigil, but took herself early to bed in her beautiful sheets, with warm silver at her feet. On Christmas Day she received, from the hand of the Pope himself, the sacrament of confirmation, one of the seven ‘true and holy Sacraments ordained by Jesus Christ for the benefit of all men’. New and old friends were in attendance, including Pimentel, determined to receive the dignities due to the Spanish King’s official representative. Felipe’s ambassador in Rome, the Duque de Terranova, was determined to receive the same, and an argument broke out between them; the diplomatic Pope resolved it by appointing someone else entirely.
According to Catholic practice, Christina had chosen a new name, a ‘confirmation name’ to be added to the name given her at baptism. She took the name Alexandra, an elegant courtesy to the reigning Pope, and perhaps, too, a reminder of the great young general of ancient times whom she had so long admired, and whom, as yet, she still imagined she could equal. At the Pope’s urging, she added the name Maria, to signal her awakened devotion to the Virgin, a devotion central to Catholic practice. Christina did not want the name, and she was never to use it. Catholic chroniclers would assign it to her, but she herself would sign only Christina Alexandra.
The Rome that Christina now encountered was a city just past a peak of greatness, the highest peak it had known since the days of the empire. For almost a century, successive popes had poured money into it, developing the central areas, erecting public buildings, patronizing the arts. The repair of a huge aqueduct, still standing from ancient times, had ensured a good supply of water for an expanding population, and the citizens now numbered some hundred thousand souls, more than ten times the people of Stockholm. In years of pilgrimage, half a million visitors would arrive to swell their numbers and their coffers – even the beggars were said to be able to plead in half a dozen languages. And every year, the best of Italy’s artists flocked in to take advantage of the Church’s endless commissions.
The rebuilding of Rome was an important Catholic stratagem in the years of the Counter-Reformation. The Church had to be seen as strong and progressive, a force for enlightenment against the bleak rigidity of Protestantism. The flourishing Jesuit schools and missions, of which Christina had been a beneficiary, had armed the Church intellectually. Rome was to be its artistic as well as spiritual home, purged of the pagan leavings of empire, Christianized from paving stone to rooftop. By the middle of the century, a great sea change had taken place: Roma antiqua, a small town, peopled by the native-born, a remnant of the days of Caesar and Augustus, had become Roma moderna, a cosmopolitan city of beautiful modern buildings and new-paved streets, bristling and bustling with wealth and energy, the thumping heart of the vibrant new culture of the
Baroque. So Christina had learned of it from her agents and her diplomats, from Bourdelot, who had lived there, from her books, and above all, from her willing imagination. The picture was not inaccurate, but, by the time of her own arrival, it had already begun to fade. The vast building projects, decades-long, had sapped papal finances, and armed feuds within the Papal States had depleted the coffers to their bare wooden bones. The popes had paid their huge bills by a method well known to Christina – by borrowing, and they borrowed for the long term, relying on their successors to assume the responsibility of repayment. By now, the debts were overwhelming – Christina herself had felt the weight of them, denied as she had been any ‘temporal’ assistance on her journey to the city. Rome’s impoverishment had led to a decline in its diplomatic standing and, gradually, in its artistic prestige, too; after a hundred dazzling years, its star was finally waning. Christina had plunged her own little daggers into the giant’s body: in the heady days of the Westphalian peace treaties, she had lent a wilful support, against Sweden’s interests, to the rising power of France, undermining Rome’s authority even in its own Catholic world. From now on, the sparkling stream of Italian genius would wend its way further afield, to Paris.
But if the great epoch was already passing, it had left behind it a most wonderful wake. There was the Vatican itself, much of it new, with St Peter’s Basilica, only 50 years old, consecrated in the very year of Christina’s birth. There were more than a hundred other churches besides, all of them of interest, some of them magnificent. There were countless paintings and sculptures, great monuments, new and old, people to visit, music to hear – including one opera that was being composed especially for her. Scholarly groups acclaimed her with harangues in a dozen tongues, and at the Jesuits’ Collegio Romano, she met Father Athanasius Kircher, polymath extraordinaire, Egyptologist, inventor, scientist. In his famed animal museum, designed, in the Renaissance manner, to display every beast and bird known to man, Christina saw for the first time the creatures of the New World. He revealed to her the ingredients of secret medicines, and presented her with a sample of the least inefficacious of them.
Christina Queen of Sweden: The Restless Life of a European Eccentric Page 25