Christina of Sweden

Biography

Daughter of Gustavus Adolphus, Christina became queen at five and ruled in her own right from 1644. Highly educated, she invited Descartes to Stockholm, where he died in 1650. Refusing to marry, she abdicated in 1654 in favor of her cousin Charles X Gustav, converted to Catholicism, and settled in Rome. There she became a major patron of art, music, and scholarship and was buried in St Peter Basilica.