Christina of Sweden
She relinquished Sweden’s crown, converted to Catholicism and built a new life as a patron of the arts in Rome.
Christina of Sweden was born in Stockholm in 1626. She inherited the crown as a child after her father, Gustav II Adolf, died in battle in 1632. An extensive education prepared her for rule, and her court later attracted scholars including René Descartes.
Christina resisted pressure to marry and secure the succession through children. In 1654 she abdicated at 27. She subsequently made her conversion to Catholicism public and established herself in Rome, where she supported music, theatre, art and scholarship.
Her clothes, conduct and ambitions often departed from expectations of a woman of royal rank. Affectionate letters to her lady-in-waiting Ebba Sparre have prompted discussion of desire between women. Her later closeness to Cardinal Decio Azzolino has also drawn biographical attention.
These relationships invite interpretation, but neither modern sexual categories nor assumptions based on dress can settle the questions raised by the surviving evidence. Christina used the resources and connections of a former sovereign to sustain an unusually independent life. She died in Rome in 1689 and was buried in St Peter’s Basilica, one of very few women accorded that distinction.