The Queen Who Took the Art

Christina became Queen of Sweden at six years old, after her father died leading a cavalry charge in the Thirty Years' War. By her twenties she had turned Stockholm into a center of European learning, corresponding with Descartes, funding scholars, and assembling one of the finest art collections on the continent.

Then she quit.

In 1654, at twenty-seven, she abdicated the throne. She refused to marry, refused to produce an heir, and refused to remain Lutheran — any one of which would have been a scandal. She chose all three. She converted to Catholicism, which was illegal for a Swedish monarch, put on men's clothing, and rode out of the country.

She did not, however, leave empty-handed.

In 1648, Swedish troops had sacked Prague Castle and shipped home Emperor Rudolf II's legendary art collection — Titians, Raphaels, Dürers, entire rooms of treasures hauled north as spoils of war. Christina had those same masterpieces loaded onto wagons and carried south to Rome as her personal luggage. A significant portion of Central European imperial art crossed the continent twice in six years, both times at her direction.

In Rome she lived exactly as she pleased, patronizing composers, hosting academies, and making two separate attempts to claim other people's thrones. When she died in 1689, Pope Alexander VIII had her buried in St. Peter's Basilica.

She was one of three women ever given that honor.