GUALDO, Galeazzo.

A very good copy of (probably) the first edition of this celebratory biography of Queen Christina of Sweden by the historian Galeazzo Gualdo (1606–78). It was first published two years after her conversion to Catholicism  and abdication; in 1657, Gualdo entered her service, after spending several years employed at major European courts, as a military officer and historian. Christina (1626-89) because Queen of Sweden in 1632, when still very young, after the death of her father, Gustavus Adolphus. Until 1654, when she abdicated after refusing to marry, converted to Catholicism, and moved to Rome, she contributed to the cultural splendor of the Swedish Court and corresponded with the likes of Pierre Gassendi, Blaise Pascal, and Descartes. She was considered one of the most erudite women of her time, having been educated to the standards of her male counterparts, and even in Arabic and Hebrew. Her arrival in Rome was the occasion for extravagant Baroque festivals, though by that time her overall behaviour, including her extreme masculinity, had begun to raise eyebrows. Gualdo’s ‘Historia’ celebrated her as a ‘sum of all virtues’ and recounted her life from childhood. The various chapters provide accounts of her education, accession, and decision to convert, and the peregrination subsequent to her abdication: into Flanders, where she secretly made her profession of the Catholic faith, Germany, Innsbruck, with week-long festivities, then Trento, Romagna, Umbria, and finally Rome, where she arrived incognito, met Bernini (who also gave her a tour of the papal collections), was greeted by Pope Alexander VII, and later entertained at several colleges with musical and dramatic pieces. The work includes copies of Christina’s letters to her brother and friends, and detailed descriptions of entertainments she attended.  

Three eds were published in the same year in Venice, Modena, and Rome (likely the first, funded by the Pope).