Una Regina polacca in Campidoglio. Maria Casimira e la famiglia reale Sobieski a Roma

Paintings, prints, letters, sculptures, epigraphs and even a bust of Hussar armor: at the Capitoline Museums, 60 works, some on display for the first time, recount the story of Queen Marie Casimire Sobieska and her family during their years in Rome. The exhibition is promoted by Roma Capitale, the Department of Culture, and the Capitoline Superintendence of Cultural Heritage, with the patronage of the Polish Embassy, the Polish Institute in Rome, and the Polish Academy of Sciences in Rome, and it is the first event of the exhibition series “Campidoglio crocevia di culture” (Capitoline Hill: Crossroads of Cultures) dedicated to international figures, peoples, and events linked to the Capitoline Hill.

French by birth and widow of King of Poland John III Sobieski, strategist of the crushing victory against the Ottomans in the Battle of Vienna in 1683, Marie Casimire arrived in Rome to celebrate the Jubilee of 1700. She remained in the city for almost 15 years, establishing her small court at Palazzo Zuccari and exerting a profound influence on Roman cultural life. Her niece Maria Clementina also spent most of her short life in Rome, attending parties and mixing with the Roman nobility before accusing her husband James III Stuart (Catholic pretender to the throne of England) of adultery and retiring to the convent of Santa Cecilia, where she died on 18 January 1735. Her splendid cenotaph in St. Peter’s Basilica is just one of the many monumental testimonies linked to the Sobieski family around Rome, such as the funerary monument of Prince Alexander in the Capuchin church in Via Veneto or the small portico erected by Marie Casimire in Piazza Trinità dei Monti, decorated with the insignia of the royal couple.

The core of the exhibition is composed of the numerous Roman testimonies of the Sobieski family preserved in the collections of the Capitoline Superintendency, such as the prints from the Museo di Roma evoking pomp and funeral ceremonies and the precious letters from the Capitoline Historical Archive. Among the loans, coming from Rome and beyond, are two magnificent bronzed plaster busts of Maria Clementina and Pope Clement XII, owned by the Provincia d’Italia Suore Orsoline Unione Romana, the portrait of Maria Clementina in devotional dress from the Dominican College at San Clemente, letters signed by the royals preserved in the Casanatense Library, the precious bust of a hussar’s armor (the Polish cavalry that participated in the Battle of Vienna) granted by the Dom Polski named after John Paul II, and the small but precious drawing depicting the lunch held in honor of Queen Marie Casimire upon her arrival in Rome in 1699, from the State Library of the National Monument of Grottaferrata. Important loans have also been granted by Poland: for example, the Royal Castle in Warsaw has provided the imposing portrait of John III Sobieski on horseback with the city of Vienna in the background and the painting of Maria Clementina (Ciechanowiecki Foundation).

The exhibitions does not only feature documents and works of art: Queen Maria Clementina, patron of numerous operas, is honored with the reproduction of several musical pieces in the room dedicated to her, specially recorded by the baroque ensemble “Giardino di Delizie” conducted by Ewa Anna Augustynowicz, with musical consultation by Aneta Markuszewska. A rich program of side events (conferences, concerts, lectures, guided tours, organized with the support of the Polish Embassy, the Polish Institute in Rome and the Polish Academy of Sciences in Rome) accompanies the exhibition. For more information, visit the Polish Institute website.