QUEEN CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN

SOLDANI-BENZI, Massimiliano: Sweden, ca.1680, Bronze (cast), 61 mm
Obv: Bust of Christina (r)    REGINA CHRISTINA
Rev: Soldier seated with war materials    POSSIS.NIHIL.VRBE ROMA.VISERE.MAIVS (May the Sun Never See a City Greater than Rome).
Ref: Hildebrand, I, 302/88;303/88b; Vannel and Toderi, 22

Queen Christina of Sweden (1626-1689) was the daughter of Gustavus Adolphus II and Marie-Eleonore of Brandenburg. Her father was killed at Lutzen (1632) when she was only six years old. (see Dadler Medals). She became queen at the age of 18 but reigned only until 1854. Intellectually sharp and skilled in politics, one of her greatest achievements was in the agreement of the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, which ended the Thirty Years' War. Her reign was cut short because of the increasing discontent with her arbitrary and wasteful ways and by her desire to become a Catholic; she was forced to abdicate after only ten years, because Catholicism was banned in her own country. Pope Alexander VIII invited her to Rome, where Christina arrived to great fanfare in December 1655. She still behaved as a queen, involving herself in attempts to gain a new kingdom.
Christina was a very colorful personality in seventeenth-century Rome, as a patron of the arts (she encouraged the sculptor Bernini and the composer Alessandro Scarlatti) and player on the political stage. Christina had a large collection of ancient coins and gems and commissioned a remarkable thirty-seven medals of herself in her lifetime. She intended the Florentine medal maker Massimiliano Soldani (1656-1740) to make over one hundred medals for her, as a 'medallic history' of her life. Despite being scarred by smallpox and her possession of a deformed shoulder, Soldani shows her as a classical beauty, crowned with laurel, like a muse. The reverse of this medal celebrates the great love Christina had for the city of Rome. (from British Museum)

LINK to painting Christina, Queen of Sweden by David Beck (from Finnish National Gallery)

LINK to Biography of Queen Christina (from Tracy Marks)

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