L’accoglienza di Maria Kazimiera Sobieska a Roma e il precedente di Cristina di Svezia
Francesca De Caprio

Maria Kazimiera Sobieska, Dowager Queen of Poland, left for Rome in the autumn of 1698 and arrived in the city in the spring of the following year. The queen traveled incognito, but aspired to renew the model of ceremonial used by the papal court to welcome Christina of Sweden. Even the Cardinal Congregation to establish the forms of its reception had well in mind the precedent of that ceremonial. However, it did no longer appeared usable, given the new general political context, the different meaning that the two trips assumed for the State of the Church, the different Status from the two Sovereigns, the private character of the Polish Queen’s voyage. The Congregation of Ceremonies, despite having in mind the “precedent” of Christina of Sweden’s journey, put in place a “toned down” ceremonial, compared to that of fifty years earlier, from which it recovered same aspects but set aside important others.