Download or read book Queen Christina of Sweden and her Circle written by Susanna Åkerman and published by BRILL. This book was released on 1991-07-01 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The life and works of Queen Christina of Sweden (1626-1689) have often been obscured behind a haze of Iurid myths and legends. This book looks again at her notorious abdication of 1654, seeing it against the background of her reputation as a "libertine", a heterodox religious thinker. Her subsequent conversion to Catholicism is therefore understood as a consequence of messianic and millenarian expectations during those turbulent years, and her bizarre attempt in 1657 to become the ruler of Naples is revealed to be the political wing of a comprehensive religious and intellectual philosophy.