LA REGINA DELLA CULTURA: CRISTINA DI SVEZIA A ROMA
exhibition from 13 November 2026 to 14 February 2027
Cristina of Sweden (Stockholm 1626 – Rome 1689) is regarded in the European imagination (and beyond) as one of the most fascinating and controversial figures, owing to her personality and culture, her thirst for knowledge, and the fact that she was the protagonist of one of the most sensational conversions in European religious history.
To celebrate the 400th anniversary of the queen’s birth, the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, under the High Patronage of the President of the Republic and with the support of the Ministry of Culture, in collaboration with the Barberini Corsini National Galleries, the Vatican Apostolic Library and the Central Institute for Graphic Arts, presents an exhibition that aims to highlight the many facets of the queen’s life, with particular focus on her time in Rome, during which, following her abdication from the Swedish throne and her conversion to Catholicism, she took up residence for some thirty years at Palazzo Riario – now known as Palazzo Corsini – the headquarters of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei.
The exhibition (open from 13 November 2026 to 14 February 2027 at Palazzo Corsini), curated by Roberto Antonelli, Mino Gabriele, Marco Guardo, Maria Luisa Meneghetti and Raffaella Morselli, is divided into six sections, preceded, in the first-floor atrium of the Palazzo, by a holographic reconstruction of the famous Hall of the Muses, which once housed eight ancient statues of the Muses, now in the Museo Nacional del Prado. The exhibition, designed by Studio Susanna Nobili Architetti, features exceptional loans from major national and international institutions, including the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm, the Château de Fontainebleau, the Kungliga Biblioteket in Stockholm and the Leiden University Library in Leiden.
