L’orbita musicale di Cristina di Svezia e la circolazione di cantanti nella seconda metà del Seicento

Queen Christine of Sweden needs no introduction to scholars. Her figure as a promoter of the arts has attracted significant attention. However, there are aspects of her role as a patron of music that remain largely unexplored. The information we possess about the queen are based on fragmentary and sparse archival documentation. A systematic examination of her private correspondence has not yet been pursued by musicologists.This article aims to give a contribution in this direction by using the letters preserved in Christine’s private carteggio, a good number of which remain unpublished, to shed new light on the musical activity at the court of Christine of Sweden. It focuses, in particular, on the circulation of female singers and castrati within her Italian circle during the second half of the seventeenth century.