\"The Land of the Goths and Vandals. The Visual Presentation of Gothicism at the Swedish Court,...

$: \"The Land of the Goths and Vandals. The Visual Presentation of Gothicism at the Swedish Court, 1550-1700\" Renaissance Studies 27 (2013)$
The land of the Goths and Vandals: the visualpresentation of Gothicism at the Swedish Court,

1550–1700

Kristoffer Neville

Suecia antiqua et hodierna (Ancient and Modern Sweden), a major topographi-cal publication produced in the decades around 1700, includes six views ofDrottningholm palace near Stockholm. The palace was admired across muchof Europe as an outstanding example of modern architecture, and the printspresent it to full advantage in a variety of ways. One shows it behind sprawlingformal gardens (Fig. 1). Both the gardens and the palace are ruled by a nearlyabsolute symmetry, emphasized in the print by the central alley leadingdirectly to the viewer’s vantage point. Another view shows the palace from twooblique angles, giving the composition a dynamic spatial recession whiledownplaying the balance in the architectural design (Fig. 2). In each of thelatter images, a screen of dark, windblown trees covers the left part ofthe scene, fragmenting the composition and hiding a substantial part of thecomplex. The garden is entirely obscured in the lower image, where theforeground is given over to spindly pines with numerous dead branches fromwhich huntsmen emerge.

The dichotomy of the modern, stately architecture with its carefully orderedgardens and the rugged forest landscape surrounding it is emphasized repeat-edly in Suecia antiqua. The country house at Ållonö is likewise presented in twocontrasting ways (Fig. 3). In the upper image the structure is placed centrallyin the composition and viewed directly. Boats glide by in a gentle breeze, anda tuft of trees stands unobtrusively on the left. In the lower image, boats thrashin heavy wind and choppy water. The viewpoint is turned so that we see thebuilding at a sharply receding angle, bringing the trees into the immediateforeground, once again blocking part of the architectural complex. The treesare windblown and ragged, interspersed with jagged stumps and boulders, allhighlighted against the white wall of the house behind. The strength of the

Much of this material was presented at the annual conference of the Society of Architectural Historians inChicago in April 2010, and at a stimulating symposium on early modern origin myths organized by Dr StefanDonecker at the Alfried Krupp Wissenschaftskollege at the University of Greifswald in September 2011. Mythanks to the University of California, Riverside, for supporting the research presented here.

Renaissance Studies Vol. 27 No. 3 DOI: 10.1111/j.1477-4658.2012.00826.x

© 2012 The AuthorRenaissance Studies © 2012 The Society for Renaissance Studies, Blackwell Publishing Ltd

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natural forces at play can hardly be mistaken, for a man leans over against thewind, his coat blown over his head. In these prints, the profile views approxi-mate architectural conventions for the representation of a façade withmaximum clarity. The oblique views add drama to the scene, but also consis-tently privilege the environment surrounding the building.1

A different sort of emphasis on the natural world is found in the view ofFinsta manor, by tradition the birthplace of St Bridget. The country residenceis presented with an enormous fractured boulder in the immediate fore-ground, covering a substantial portion of the image and blocking most of thecourtyard (Fig. 4). There was no real need to include the boulder, and in adifferent publication it might well have been suppressed altogether. Here it isemphasized, however; it, rather than the house, is the scene of much of thehuman activity in the image, as well-dressed ladies and gentlemen climb it fora view. Its inclusion was a compositional choice, and is echoed often enough

1 For the representational strategies involved in Suecia antiqua, see Börje Magnusson, Att illustrera fäderneslan-det. En studie i Erik Dahlbergs verksamhet som tecknare (Uppsala: Uppsala University Press, 1986). For an accessibleintroduction to Suecia antiqua in English, see Börje Magnusson, ‘Sweden Illustrated. Erik Dahlbergh’s “SueciaAntiqua et Hodierna” as a Manifestation of Imperial Ambition’, in Allan Ellenius (ed.), Baroque Dreams. Art andVision in Sweden in the Era of Greatness (Uppsala: Uppsala University Press, 2003), 32–59.

Fig. 2 ‘Drottningholm Palace’, etching, from Erik Dahlbergh, Suecia antiqua et Hodierna, Stockholm, 1715(private collection)

The visual presentation of Gothicism at the Swedish Court 437

in the other prints that it must reflect a broader purpose on the part of theproducers.

We find the beginnings of an explanation for this emphasis on the northernenvironment, which we will also encounter in other contexts, in a platepresenting a gorge in southern Sweden. An inscription explains that thegorge, called the Skurugata, is ‘the vast and admirable hollow . . . in a woodedcliff, not far from Eksjö in Småland, where it is said that the ancient Gothsmade sacred idols’. Such idols are shown in use in pagan Gothic ritualsdepicted on a companion plate to the view of Finsta. Other prints in Sueciaantiqua also present aspects of the kingdom’s presumed Gothic heritage,which was a fundamental part of the kingdom’s identity. This essay argues thatthe emphasis on the natural environment was closely linked to Gothicism, andthat it offered a way for the court to represent this aspect of its ideology whilesimultaneously meeting international standards of royal representation inarchitecture, portraiture, and other more familiar means.

Fig. 3 ‘Ållonö Palace’, etching, from Erik Dahlbergh, Suecia antiqua et Hodierna, Stockholm, 1715 (privatecollection)


KING OF THE SWEDES, GOTHS, AND VANDALS

Much of the history writing in early modern Sweden was bound up in anintensely ideological identification of the kingdom and its people as themodern heirs of the Gothic tribes that conquered Rome.2 These claims, basedon brief descriptions of the Goths by Roman writers such as Tacitus and Plinyand a much longer one by Jordanes, were not of purely academic or antiquar-ian interest.3 Because ancient origins and legitimacy were closely intertwined,they were deeply important for the stature of states and ruling families, andfrequently developed a sharp polemical edge. One of the starting points of theGothic discourse was a dispute at the Council of Basel in 1434 over seatingpriority, which reflected international standing and influence. NicolausRagvaldi, a Swedish bishop and representative of then-united Denmark,Norway and Sweden, promoted a tradition placing the homeland of the Goths

2 See recently Inken Schmidt-Voges, De antiqua claritate et clara antiquitate Gothorum. Gotizismus als Identitäts-modell im frühneuzeitlichen Schweden (Frankfurt: Lang, 2004), with further references.

3 Walter Goffart, The Narrators of Barbarian History (A.D. 550–800): Jordanes, Gregory of Tours, Bede, and Paul theDeacon (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), 3–111; Arne Søby Christensen, Cassiodorus, Jordanes and theHistory of the Goths. Studies in a Migration Myth (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2002).

Fig. 4 ‘Finsta Manor’, etching, from Erik Dahlbergh, Suecia antiqua et Hodierna, Stockholm, 1715 (Courtesy ofSpecial Collections, Honnold/Mudd Library of The Claremont Colleges)


in Sweden. His land should accordingly be recognized as the most ancient anddignified kingdom represented at the council, and thus the most influential aswell. Ragvaldi’s argument was dismissed, but soon developed into the Swedishstate’s militant claim to a Gothic lineage and the legitimacy that would accom-pany it.4

Ragvaldi’s argument was elaborated in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuriesby the theologians Ericus Olai and the Magnus brothers. The last two Catholicarchbishops of Uppsala, the Magnus brothers were sent into exile in Italy inthe 1520s with the introduction of Lutheranism in Sweden. Olaus Magnuswrote a general history of the northern European peoples, but it was JohannesMagnus’ book on the lineage of Gothic kings that was crucial for the rise ofGothicism as a phenomenon and the form that it would take in the followingtwo centuries. It lays out an unbroken lineage of Gothic rulers from Magog,the grandson of Noah, to the contemporary Swedish king Gustaf Vasa (r.1523–60). In these short biographies, Magnus drew on the authority ofancient writers to transform the Goths from wild barbarians into exempla ofmoral fortitude and restraint, cultivating a more sympathetic view of them andtheir modern heirs.5

Johannes Magnus undertook this project partly in an effort to win supportfor a Counter-Reformation effort in Scandinavia. It was however Gustaf Vasa,who expelled the brothers, who benefitted most from his work. It wascommon to combine multiple distinct lineages, and ‘King of the Goths andVandals’ became one of his most prized titles.6 He exploited its politicalpotential in numerous ways. He added the title to coins and official images,and requested copies of paintings of Theodoric, Totilla and other Gothic‘ancestors’ from the collection of the Duke of Modena.7 For a king of dubiouslegitimacy, the lineage laid out by Johannes Magnus provided an instantancestry no less ancient or worthy than that of the Habsburgs.8

4 Beata Losman, ‘Nikolaus Ragvaldis gotiska tal’, Lychnos (1967–8), 215–21.5 Ericus Olai, Chronica regni Gothorum, 2 vols., ed. Ella Heuman and Jan Öberg (Stockholm: Almqvist &

Wiksell, 1993–5); Johannes Magnus, De omnibus gothorum sveonumque regibus (Rome, 1554); Olaus Magnus,Historia de gentibus septentrionalibus (Rome, 1555). See Kurt Johannesson, The Renaissance of the Goths in Sixteenth-Century Sweden. Johannes and Olaus Magnus as Politicians and Historians, trans. James Larson (Berkeley: Universityof California Press, 1991); Carlo Santini (ed.), I fratelli Giovanni e Olao Magno. Opera e cultura tra due mondi(Rome: il Calamo, 1999).

6 Stefan Donecker and Roland Steinacher, ‘Der König der Schweden, Goten und Vandalen. Königstitulaturund Vandalenrezeption im frühneuzeitlichen Schweden’, in Helmut Reimitz and Bernhard Zeller (eds.),Vergangenheit und Vergegenwärtung. Frühes Mittelalter und europäische Erinnerungskultur (Vienna: ÖsterreichischeAkademie der Wissenschaften, 2009), 169–203.

7 Allan Ellenius, ‘Wiedergeburt, Erneuerung und die nordische Renaissance’, in Georg Kauffmann (ed.), DieRenaissance im Blick der Nationen Europas (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1991), 263–4.

8 For Habsburg claims to a Gothic lineage, see Kristoffer Neville, ‘Gothicism and Early Modern HistoricalEthnography’, Journal of the History of Ideas, 70 (2009), 213–34. For Habsburg use of ancient genealogies, seeMarie Tanner, The Last Descendent of Aeneas. The Habsburgs and the Mythic Power of the Emperor (New Haven: YaleUniversity Press, 1993); Larry Silver, Marketing Maximilian. The Visual Ideology of a Holy Roman Emperor (Princeton:Princeton University Press, 2008).


Gothic ideology became more central to royal image and prestige inSweden as the kingdom rose to international importance in the seventeenthcentury. It culminated at the end of the century in Olaus Rudbeck’s Atlantica,in which he argued that Sweden was the homeland not only of the Gothicpeople, but of western culture generally.9 The basis for this was his identifica-tion of the Scandinavian half-island with the land of the Hyperboreans and thelost island of Atlantis described by Plato in Timaeus. Pushing to an extreme amethod employed by most early modern writers on the subject, he usedphilological arguments and creative etymologies to link, for instance, placesmentioned in ancient texts to local geographical names to posit a hugelyinventive revisionist history that shifted the centre of classical antiquity north.The Pillars of Hercules were not at the Strait of Gibraltar, but at the straitseparating Sweden from Denmark. The golden temple of Poseidon on Atlan-tis was in fact the pagan temple at Old Uppsala, near Stockholm, which was inturn promoted as a model for Roman architecture. He closed the secondvolume with a telling passage:

. . . all philosophy or worldly wisdom, which has been written and found with theEgyptians, Asians and Europeans, comes wholly from our Hyperborean North-erners . . . moreover, the names of all Gods and Goddesses have come from ournorthern fathers, first to the Greeks, and then from them to the Romans.10

IMAGE AND IMAGERY

The association of ancient tribes with modern peoples and places was anessentially textual enterprise in which historians drew on ancient texts tocreate new arguments. It proved more difficult to develop a visual comple-ment to these literary creations in the self-presentation of modern Gothicrulers. For Italians who traced their ancestry to the Romans, an approximationof all’antica imagery suited both contemporary taste and their presumedheritage. The Habsburg Holy Roman Emperors presented themselves in asimilar way not because of geographical continuity with the Romans, butbecause of continuity of imperial rank and (it was argued) dynastic lines.11

Louis XIV claimed descent from the Gauls, but built much of his visualrepresentation around Apollo, with whom he was identified from a young age.

9 Olaus Rudbeck, Atland eller Manheim (Uppsala, 1679–1702; repr. ed. Axel Nelson, Uppsala: LychnosBibliotek, 1937–39). For commentary on the text, see Pierre Vidal-Naquet, ‘Atlantis and the Nations’, CriticalInquiry, 18 (1992), 300–325; Gunnar Eriksson, The Atlantic Vision. Olaus Rudbeck and Baroque Science (Canton,Massachussetts: Science History Publications, 1994).

10 Rudbeck (Nelson ed.), Vol. 2, 692.11 See inter alia Franz Matsche, Die Kunst im Dienst der Staatsidee Kaiser Karls VI. Ikonographie, Ikonologie und

Programmatik des ‘Kaiserstils’, 2 vols. (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1981); Tanner, Last Descendent; Friedrich Polleross,‘Romanitas in der habsburgischen Repräsentation von Karl V. bis Maximilian II.’ in Richard Bösel et al. (eds.),Kaiserhof-Papsthof (16.–18. Jahrhundert) (Vienna: Verlag der österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften,2006), 207–23.


It was more difficult for those who built their historical prestige primarily onthe Goths or other tribes unequivocally opposed to Rome. Gothic might in theabstract was impressive, but how was one to represent that heritage visually?

Early publications presenting the Goths frequently contained images, butthese were rarely particularly useful either as archaeological evidence or asmodels for representation.12 As in many early books, these images were oftenso unspecific that they could be used more or less interchangeably. Thispractice was cost-effective, but prevented the images from contributing muchto the argument or providing a viable visual model for rulers who wereincreasingly invested in a Gothic identity. Thus, Johannes Magnus’ bookincludes small woodcuts of many of the kings discussed in the text. Each wasused several times, so that most of the prints represent several rulers. An imageof Svenno, the second Gothic king, is typical (Fig. 5). He sits beneath a canopyin late-medieval plate armour, turned slightly to the picture plane to show hiscrown, sword, and orb. Other images replace the sword or orb with a sceptreor the armour with a cloak, but all emphasize objects easily recognized in anyEuropean context as royal regalia. More specifically, these correspond to thetype of ruler described in the text: the just prince with a raised sword; thewarrior with his helmet; or the tyrant with an executioner in the background.13

These are universal types, however. Nothing except the captions indicates theGothic nature of the figures.

12 For the role of images as historical evidence, see inter alia Arnaldo Momigliano, ‘Ancient History and theAntiquarian’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 13 (1950), 285–315; Francis Haskell, History and itsImages. Art and the Interpretation of the Past (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993). For discussion of thenorthern European material presented here, see Peter Burke, ‘Images as Evidence in Seventeenth-CenturyEurope’, Journal of the History of Ideas, 64 (2003), 273–96.

13 Johannesson, Renaissance of the Goths, 81.

Fig. 5 Svenno, woodcut, from Johannes Magnus, De omnibus gothorum sveonumque regibus, Rome 1554 (This itemis reproduced by permission of The Huntington Library, San Marino, California)


Sebastian Münster’s Cosmographia devotes several pages to the Goths, specu-lating on their origins and discussing their conflicts with Rome.14 It is richlyillustrated with prints of the various peoples described in the text, includingGothic kings, though it, too, employs the same woodcuts repeatedly. Becausethe Cosmographia encompasses a much greater scope – an historical descrip-tion of the world – the problems of representation were more complex, foreach image would now potentially represent a much broader range of sub-jects. Thus, a suitably generic image of a crowned figure in sixteenth-centurydress is used to represent ‘Gotarus, King of the Swedes’, a Bavarian duke, anearly king of England, and as a general illustration accompanying a discussionof the crusades.15

Münster’s work was republished repeatedly from 1544, and though many ofthe same images were used in later editions, they might move from one partof the text to another. Thus, a 1614 edition pairs discussion of the Goths witha much more distinctive woodcut of a king (Fig. 6). Although he still bears acrown, sword, chain, and sceptre – the basic attributes of a ruler – he is visiblydifferent from those in Johannes Magnus’ book. He wears a long moustache,and his rather peculiar crown is integrated into a hat with a broad brim thatsplits into two tails at the back. He holds a curved sword with a broad blade,evidently intended to be foreign while still serving as a marker of kingship.Other aspects of his costume generally reflect Roman models, with a breast-plate and a short, pleated skirt, though the breastplate visibly deviates fromancient types as it culminates in a series of petal-like forms at the bottom.

There was a clear effort to distinguish this figure from the other Europeanrulers shown elsewhere in the work. Nothing about it is specific to the Goths,however, and aspects of it – specifically, the curved sword – seem to point tothe east instead. In earlier editions, this figure was instead used to illustratepassages on Mohammed and on the origins of the Ottomans.16 Certain otherrepresentations of Gothic kings, such as the murals in the De la Gardiefamily’s Läckö castle in western Sweden, essentially follow this approach. Theylargely retain the royal regalia, but wear distinctive headgear and somewhatimprovised costumes.17

GOTHICISM IN THEORY AND VISUAL PRACTICE

There are other early images of Gothic kings, but the examples in the worksof Johannes Magnus and Münster are broadly representative and point to afundamental problem for a living ruler determined to place himself within

14 Sebastian Münster, Cosmographia (Basel, 1550), 381–2. See recently Matthew McLean, The Cosmographiaof Sebastian Münster. Describing the World in the Reformation (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007).

15 Sebastian Münster, Cosmographia (Basel, 1554), 46, 629, 816, 1007.16 Ibid., 957, 1037.17 Barbro Flodin, ‘Läckö slott under Jacob De la Gardies tid’, in Leif Jonsson (ed.), Läckö. Landskapet, borgen,

slottet (Stockholm: Carlsson, 1999), 168–72.


this Gothic lineage. Magnus’ prints do not seem to contain anything specifi-cally Gothic. Münster’s alternately present the figure in standard terms and asvisibly distinct from typical kinds of ruler imagery in the sixteenth century, butin a form that no living sovereign was likely to adopt. Neither offered a viablemodel for actual self-presentation. To frame the problem somewhat differ-ently, visual imagery was in this period increasingly central to the formulationof a public image. Yet, it was simultaneously becoming ever more standardizedacross the continent. How could this paradox be resolved in the artisticproduction of a court deeply invested in a Gothic identity?

Portraiture is a natural place to look for a visual representation of Gothi-cism. Johannes Magnus’ lineage of Gothic kings includes a series of printedlikenesses, though they are not true portraits since many show mythicalfigures. This kind of visual presentation of lineage was a familiar goal ofportraiture, and was already associated with Gothicism when Gustaf Vasa

Fig. 6 Gothic King, woodcut, from Sebastian Münster, Cosmographia, Basel 1614 (Courtesy of Special Collec-tions, Honnold/Mudd Library of The Claremont Colleges)


sought images of Theodoric and other early Gothic kings. More generally,Renaissance portraits frequently included imagery that endowed the basiclikeness of the figure with qualities associated with the sitter, and we mightexpect to find here some representation of a Gothic heritage.

Yet, portraits of Gustaf Vasa and his heirs generally followed a format thatwas fairly consistent across many northern European courts. The Antwerppainter Domenicus ver Wilt worked for the Swedish court from 1556 until hisdeath a decade later, producing cartoons for a series of rich tapestries pre-senting Johannes Magnus’ tales. Only five of these were actually produced, ofwhich only one survives intact. (A second surviving one has been severely cut.)Except for his long, flowing robes covered with arabesque patterns, KingSvenno from this series is presented in rather unremarkable terms.18 A 1561portrait of Erik XIV has also long been attributed to ver Wilt (Fig. 7). The kingstands in rich dress armour against a neutral background. We find again thebasic elements of rulership: sword, ruler’s baton, and a medallion hangingaround his neck. A crown is missing, but his rank is stated clearly in theinscription, Svedorvm, Gotthorvm, Vandalorvmq. REX (King of the Swedes,Goths, and Vandals). Aside from the inscription, there was no evident effort tointroduce any elements that might support the claims of Gothic lineage.Rather, it approximates the idiom of Anthonis Mor, a fellow member of theAntwerp guild of St Luke in the 1540s who produced similar portraits in theNetherlands, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and England. Ver Wilt’s work in Swedenwas typical, for until the later seventeenth century most royal portraits wereproduced by painters called from the Netherlands and Germany. None madeany evident effort to introduce any recognizable Gothic element that mightlink the sitters to the tradition they claimed.19

There was little more effort to develop a visual representation of Gothicismin later portraiture. Rather, the ongoing preoccupation with internationalstandards is perhaps most evident in a project for a major equestrian monu-ment of King Carl XI planned around 1699 but never executed (Fig. 8). Themodel was prepared by the French sculptor Jacques Foucquet, who wasbrought to Stockholm by the architect Nicodemus Tessin the Younger. ThisFrench pedigree was overt and intentional, for it reflects quite closely themonuments of Louis XIV developed by François Girardon in the mid-1680s.Tessin saw Girardon’s model in 1687, and his notes on it describe both theFrench and Swedish statues with nearly equal precision:

The king is shown with a pulled-back peruque looking to the left, and with theright arm extended in the act of commanding. He is presented in Roman

18 Vibeke Woldbye, ‘Flemish Tapestry Weavers in the Service of Nordic Kings’, in Guy Delmarcel (ed.),Flemish Tapestry Weavers Abroad: Emigration and the Founding of Manufactories in Europe (Leuven: Leuven UniversityPress, 2002), 91–111.

19 Karl Erik Steneberg, Vasarenässansens porträttkonst (Stockholm: Wahlströms, 1935); Peter Gillgren,Vasarenässansen. Konst och identitet i 1500-talets Sverige (Stockholm: Signums, 2009), 56–83.


costume, with a royal cloak, which hangs behind the right arm. The horse ispresented en amble. . . .20

The only substantial difference is found in the right arm, which in Foucquet’smodel is not extended, but at rest on a ruler’s baton. Other details correspondas well. The horse, its tail bound, strides forward, its right front and left rearhoofs in motion. Each statue was to stand on a tall base with a bound captiveat each corner. Girardon’s monument in turn drew on a long tradition ofequestrian portraits ultimately derived from the ancient statue of Marcus

20 Merit Laine and Börje Magnusson (eds.), Nicodemus Tessin the Younger. Sources – Works – Collections. TravelNotes 1673–77 and 1687–88 (Stockholm: Nationalmuseum, 2002), 179.

Fig. 7 Dominicus ver Wilt, Erik XIV, 1561, oil on panel, Stockholm, Nationalmuseum (courtesy of National-museum, Stockholm)


Aurelius on the Capitoline in Rome, and soon became the basis for projectsnot only in Stockholm, but also in Berlin, Munich, and elsewhere.21

The representational forms used in these sixteenth- and seventeenth-century portraits reflected the costume and presentation of the king in life, atleast as it was staged in court ceremonial. Here Gothicist arguments took aphysical form, and also showed the contradictions inherent in the court’sapproach. In 1561 Erik XIV was crowned in Uppsala, taking his numeral tosituate himself after the thirteen Gothic kings of the same name described byJohannes Magnus. He then entered Stockholm as a Roman victor, passingthrough an ephemeral triumphal arch.22 Half a century later, in 1617, GustafII Adolf took the Gothic conceit much further, presenting himself at hiscoronation as the Gothic king Berik.

21 Linda Hinners has recently shown that earlier research confused Jacques Foucquet with his son Bernard.See Hinners, De fransöske handtwerkarne vid Stockholms slott 1693–1713. Yrkesroller, organisation, arbetsprocesser(Stockholm: Stockholm University Press, 2012), 18, 63–5. See also Le soleil et l’étoile du nord. La France et la Suèdeau XVIIIe siècle (Paris: Réunion des musées nationaux, 1994), 48–9; Martin Olin, Det karolinska porträttet. Ideologi,ikonografi, identitet (Stockholm: Raster, 2000), 128–32; Michel Martin, Les monuments équestres de Louis XIV. Unegrande entreprise de propogande monarchique (Paris: Picard, 1986).

22 Lena Rangström, ‘Karl XI:s karusell 1672. En manifestation med europeiska rötter och influenser –transformerad till stormaktstidens Sverige’, Livrustkammaren (1994), 84.

Fig. 8 Jacques Foucquet, Carl XI, 1699, bronze, Stockholm, The Royal Collections (© The Royal Court,Sweden: photo Alexis Daflos)


The same issues surrounded the accession ceremonies of Carl XI in 1672.We are particularly well informed about these because they were recordedby the court painter, David Klöcker Ehrenstrahl, who had his drawings anda written description published.23 The participants in the elaborate proces-sion were divided into four groups identified with four different peoples:Goths, led by the young king; Turks; Poles; and ‘other nations and powersin Christendom’. Here the court was forced to choose a representative formfor a Gothic king. Yet, as in the equestrian statue, the king appeared inRoman costume (Fig. 9; the original costume is preserved in the RoyalArmory in Stockholm). Ehrenstrahl’s caption acknowledges the conflatednature of the image, presenting him as the leader of the ‘first host ofRomans or Goths’. The accompanying text goes further, describing the kingrepresenting

23 David Klöcker Ehrenstrahl, Certamen equestre (Nuremberg, c. 1686; repr. ed. Jonas Nordin, Stockholm:Byggförlaget, 2005); Rangström, ‘Karl XI:s karusell 1672’, 4–120; Doris Gerstl, Drucke des höfischen Barock inSchweden. Der Stockholmer Hofmaler David Klöcker von Ehrenstrahl und die Nürnberger Stecher Georg Christoph Eimmartund Jacob von Sandrart (Berlin: Mann, 2000), 115–55; Lena Rangström, ‘Certamen Equestre: The Carousel for theAccession of Karl XI in 1672’, in J. R. Mulryne, Helen Watanabe O’Kelly, Margaret Shewring (eds.), EuropaTriumphans. Court and Civic Festivals in Early Modern Europe, Vol. 2 (Hampshire and Burlington: MHRA inconjunction with Ashgate, 2004), 292–323. For other court ceremonies in Sweden, see Mårten Snickare,Enväldets riter. Kungliga fester och ceremonier i gestaltning av Nicodemus Tessin den yngre (Stockholm: Raster, 1999).

Fig. 9 ‘Carl XI on horseback’, etching, from David Klöcker Ehrenstrahl, Certamen Equestre, Nuremberg, c. 1686(Courtesy The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (88-B7784))


in Roman costume the virility and gentility of the ancient Goths; and inasmuchas it is said of this race, immortal in memory, in hard stone and steel no less thanin feeble paper, that they possessed virtue and fortune, in alliance and union, toassist and aid themselves, and then always to enrobe virtue with honor andglory.24

The Roman visual content of the images is striking, given the degree towhich Gothic mythology was built around opposition to Rome. Not only didthe king’s retinue wear Roman costume, the printed image itself reflects thetradition of equestrian monuments derived from the ancient statue of MarcusAurelius. Except for the ruler’s baton, all essential details ultimately derivefrom the ancient statue, and would soon be reprised in Girardon’s statue forLouis XIV and Foucquet’s variant for Stockholm. Even the accession ceremo-nies and the publication formed part of an international formula: both werederived from a similar work published in 1670 documenting the ceremoniescelebrating the birth of the Dauphin of France eight years earlier.25

We might assume that the lack of visual specificity shown in JohannesMagnus’ and Münster’s earlier books accounts for the king’s Romancostume. Certainly, in many early publications it was enough to present aroyal figure and label it a Goth. Yet, Carl XI’s presentation stands in clearcontrast to the Poles, whose clothing incorporates aspects of the traditionalcostume of their presumed ancient Sarmatian heritage: some have tallplumes in their hats and lead horses bearing wings that would appear toadorn the riders themselves.26 Rather, the perceived need to meet interna-tional standards trumped even Gothicist prerogatives. This extended to rep-resentations of the ancient Gothic kings presumed to have toppled Rome. Aseries of busts made around the same time by Nicolaes Millich for Drott-ningholm presented many in all’antica dress.27

The publication of these ceremonies reflects the court’s keen awarenessthat its new status as a great power must be matched by its public image. Tothis end, the crown and nobility took on numerous building projects,

24 Quoted in Ehrenstrahl, Certamen equestre, ed. Nordin, 194. At the wedding of Carl X Gustaf in 1654, FieldMarshal Carl Gustaf Wrangel represented a Gothic king in Roman costume. See Rangström, ‘Karl XI:s karusell1672’, 88.

25 Charles Perrault, Courses de testes et de bague (Paris, 1670). See Gerstl, Drucke des höfischen Barock, 144–9. Thecopy of Certamen equestre in the Getty Research Institute, owned by the Stockholm court painter Guillaume-Thomas Taraval from 1739, includes a group of prints taken from Perrault’s Courses de testes et de bague.

26 Maria Bogucka, The Lost World of the ‘Sarmatians’. Custom as the Regulator of Polish Social Life in Early ModernTimes (Warsaw: Polish Academy of Sciences, 1996); Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, ‘Definition and Self-Definitionin Polish Art and Culture 1572–1764’, in Jan K. Ostrowski (ed.), Land of the Winged Horsemen. Art in Poland1572–1764 (Alexandria, VA: Art Services International, 1999), 15–25.

27 Bertil Waldén, Nicolaes Millich och hans krets (Stockholm: Saxon & Lindströms, 1942), 100–02. The deco-ration of Drottningholm was conceived in dynastic terms, bringing together imagery of the ancient Goths andthe modern kings. See Allan Ellenius, Karolinksa bildidéer (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1966); Lisa Skogh,‘Dynastic Representation: A Book Collection of Queen Hedwig Eleonora (1636–1715) and her Role as a Patronof the Arts’, Konsthistorisk tidskrift, 80 (2011), 108–123.


including an enormous new royal palace begun in 1692 in the centre ofStockholm and churches and private residences throughout the kingdom.Here there was another opportunity to introduce a ‘Gothic’ aspect, for thelater medieval architecture characterized by pointed arches, rib vaults, andlarge tracery windows was already associated with that term by Giorgio Vasari,who wrote in 1550 that the medieval manner of building was invented by theGoths.28 Aspects of Gothic (that is, medieval) design reappeared in variousforms elsewhere in northern Europe in the course of the seventeenth century,even though it was generally associated with an older form of architecture.29

The Swedish court steadfastly refused to embrace Gothic architecture invirtually any form, however. By his own account, Tessin drew largely onRoman types for the structure of the palace, and planned around the sametime to rework in Baroque form the medieval cathedral directly adjacent. Thechurch’s Gothic form was disguised in a fundamental external transformationto different plans a generation later.30

In these essential forms of visual representation, Tessin and the Swedishcourt evidently made no effort to complement the ongoing – but essentiallytextual – argument that the kingdom was the homeland of the Goths. Rather,it made every effort to match a set of international norms, demonstrating itscosmopolitan awareness but doing little to advance its Gothic claims.

GEOGRAPHY AND IDEOLOGY – THE REPRESENTATION OF GOTHICISM

Johannes Magnus presented a dynastic Gothic narrative – a sequence of kings.This encouraged its exploitation in this form by the Swedish monarchy sinceit provided an ancient heritage for a family that had none. We have seen thatthe illustrations in Magnus’ book and others were not particularly useful forthe visual presentation of kings claiming a Gothic lineage, however. Theseworks frequently include a different sort of graphic content as well: maps,which are important reminders of the fundamental place of geography in thisdiscourse. An alternative Gothic narrative focuses less on lineage than on the

28 E. S. de Beer, ‘Gothic: Origin and Diffusion of the Term; the Idea of Style in Architecture’, Journal of theWarburg and Courtauld Institutes, 11 (1948), 143–62; Paul Frankl, The Gothic. Literary Sources and Interpretationsthrough Eight Centuries (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1960); Sonia Brough, The Goths and the Concept ofGothic in Germany from 1500 to 1750 (Frankfurt: Lang, 1985), 103–31.

29 Jan Blažej Santini-Aichl in Bohemia particularly shows this tendency. See Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann,‘“Gothico more nondum visa”: The “Modern Gothic” Architecture of Jan Blažej Santini-Aichl’, in AndrzejRottermund (ed.), Artes atque humaniora. Studia Stanislao Mossakowski sexagenario dicata (Warsaw: Instytut SztukiPolskiej Akademii Nauk, 1998), 317–31; Pavel Kalina, ‘In opere gotico unicus: The Hybrid Architecture of JanBlažej Santini-Aichl and Patterns of Memory in Post-Reformation Bohemia’, Umení, 58 (2010), 42–56, both withfurther references. More generally, see Rudolf Wittkower, Gothic vs. Classic. Architectural Projects in Seventeenth-Century Italy (New York: Braziller, 1974).

30 Johnny Roosval, S. Nikolai eller Storkyrkan i Stockholm [Sveriges kyrkor], Vol. 2 (Stockholm: Tisells, 1924),251–9; Ragnar Josephson, Tessins slottsomgivning [1925] (Stockholm: Rekolid, 2002), 109–13.


land that produced such figures, debating where their homeland was to befound as well as their character, which was itself frequently attributed to thecharacter of the land.31

The ancient texts that formed the basis for the Gothic discourse – Jordanes,Tacitus, Pliny, and others – are both geographical and ethnographical. Theydescribe places and the peoples living in them. We can emphasize the geo-graphical or the ethnographical, but they are fundamentally linked. This wasalso true of the early modern literature. Much of Münster’s cosmographydescribes people, but it is organized by continent and region. The partisanhistory writers associated with the Swedish court likewise took full advantage ofgeographical (and related etymological) arguments to advance their thesisthat Sweden was the homeland of the Goths. The title page of Rudbeck’sAtlantica shows the author, aided by Father Time, as a geographical anatomistdemonstrating his arguments by peeling away the modern surface of Scandi-navia to reveal a land inscribed ‘deorum insula’ (the Island of the Gods; thatis, Atlantis) to Plato, Aristotle, Tacitus, Ptolemy, and other ancients standingbefore him (Fig. 10).32

The land plays a central role in many of these works more broadly. JohannesMagnus opens his text with a map and a description of Scandinavia, and pointsto the richness of the land as evidence that the Goths left because of theirmartial spirit rather than poverty. He frequently frames human characteristicswithin the land that produced them, writing for instance that ‘the land of theSvears and Goths contains men born more for the use of arms than softeloquence.’33 Rudbeck relies still more heavily on the natural environment tosupport his thesis that Sweden was the birthplace of western civilization. Theprevalence of hardy fir, evergreen, birch, and oak trees in Scandinavia andelsewhere becomes evidence that this region was the first to be populated byNoah’s descendants after the flood, while vines and such found elsewherecame later. In this way, the flora bear witness to the greatest antiquity of theGothic kingdom established by Noah’s grandson Magog. He then links thisnatural bounty to the hardiness of the people living in the north, explainingin this way their exploits elsewhere, and specifically in Italy:

[Here] they eat two and three times as much as those in the southern lands, andheartier food. There they eat all sorts of fruit, such as chestnuts, apples, walnuts,carrots, all sorts of lettuce, and rarely meat and fish. Here one eats all manner ofgame, beef, mutton, pork, and countless fish. Indeed, if all Swedes should go oneday to Italy, their food would be but a breakfast for them.34

31 Neville, ‘Gothicism and Early Modern Historical Ethnography’.32 Allan Ellenius, ‘Olaus Rudbecks atlantiska anatomi’, Lychnos (1959), 40–54.33 Quoted in Johannesson, Renaissance of the Goths, 114.34 Rudbeck (Nelson ed.), Vol. 1, 34, 58.


Rudbeck’s interest in the natural world spilled over into the work of a natu-ralist, as he undertook a book on flora. His son likewise prepared a book ofScandinavian birds, with life-size images of each species.35

Suecia antiqua, which we encountered in the introduction, explores thekingdom’s history in a very different way. It was undertaken in 1661 by ErikDahlbergh, a young fortifications engineer. When it was finished in 1715, it

35 Olaus Rudbeck, Campus elysius (Uppsala, 1701) (only a fragment was published); Björn Löwendahl (ed.),Olof Rudbeck’s Book of Birds, 2 vols., (Stockholm: Björck & Börjesson, 1986). See also Allan Ellenius, ‘OlofRudbeck and the Pictorial Tradition in Natural History’ in Björn Löwendahl (ed.), Olof Rudbeck’s Book of Birds,Vol. 1, (Stockholm: Björk & Börjesson, 1986), 45–65; idem, ‘Ulisse Aldrovandi as a Source of Olof Rudbeck’sBook of Birds’ in Marco Beretta and Tore Frängsmyr (eds.), Siderius Nuncius & Stella Polaris: The ScientificRelations between Italy and Sweden in Early Modern History (Canton, MA: Science History Publications, 1997), 47–56.Rudbeck the Younger’s book of birds was not published until 1985, but it was well known in the eighteenthcentury, and in a rather different context formed the basis for Linnaeus’ ornithological studies.

Fig. 10 ‘Olaus Rudbeck’, title page, etching, atlas volume of Atlantica, Uppsala 1698?


presented the architecture and antiquities of the kingdom in 353 impressiveprints. In 1664, the court agreed to finance the work, and it became increas-ingly intertwined with state prerogatives and Gothic ideology. After somedelay, responsibility for composing an accompanying text fell to the StateBoard of Antiquities, which was very much involved in promoting a Gothicheritage for the kingdom. Several authors prepared drafts, all of which incor-porated the Gothic argument in some way. None was completed, however,and the volume was eventually published without it.36

Although similar to other topographical works, Suecia antiqua is unusual inseveral fundamental respects. It goes well beyond the scope of otherwisecomparable works and includes a variety of antiquarian materials – fromarchaeological artifacts to ancient Gothic and Runic alphabets, which arepresented together with the Latin one.37 None of the surviving text draftspushes the Gothic argument as far as Rudbeck did, but there was room foroverlap with Atlantica within the historical scheme of the work, and severalobjects, such as the petroglyphs in the Grönan valley and the ancient burialmounds at Old Uppsala, are represented in both. In Rudbeck’s text, thesebecame evidence to support his thesis. In Suecia antiqua, particularly as itappeared without its text, these come across less polemically as a presentationof the kingdom’s heritage. Nonetheless, the perceived importance of theseplates is evident in the careful review of each by the State Board of Antiquities.In the one case for which we have records, the Board critiqued the represen-tation of the mounds at Old Uppsala – a topographical feature (albeit man-made), rather than an architectural one – worrying that a visitor might findthem unimpressive in comparison with the printed image.38

Old Uppsala was central to Rudbeck’s tale, for the temple there was iden-tified as the Temple of Poseidon on Atlantis. Suecia antiqua made no suchclaim, but the temple nonetheless features prominently in paired views. Theupper image shows a series of ancient Gothic rituals around the structure(Fig. 11). Pagan priests stand in the foreground, while groups of faithful

36 The various drafts of the text for Suecia antiqua are preserved in the Royal Library in Stockholm. Althoughall bring Gothicism into the discussion of the land, it is much more tempered than Rudbeck’s account. ErikVennberg, ‘Verkets historia’, in Erik Vennberg (ed.), Suecia antiqua et hodierna (Stockholm: Wahlström &Widstrand, 1924; repr. 1983), 1–144; Samuel Bring, ‘Sueciaverket och dess text’, Lychnos (1937), 1–67. For theBoard of Antiquities, see Henrik Schück, Kgl. Vitterhets historie och antikvitets akademien: dess förhistoria och historia,8 vols. (Stockholm: Wahlström & Widstrand, 1932–44).

37 The Gothic alphabet was emphasized in part because of the presence in Sweden of the so-called SilverBible, a manuscript in the Gothic language probably produced in Ravenna at the beginning of the sixth century.Wulfila, the Gothic bishop who translated the work, provided an alternative to the traditional Catholic textualgenealogy through St Jerome, supporting the more general alternative Gothic narrative outlined here. It waspublished twice in the seventeenth century: by Franciscus Junius in 1665 and by Georg Stiernhielm in 1671, thelatter edition produced by the Board of Antiquities. See Simon McKeown, ‘Recovering the Codex Argenteus:Magnus Gabriel de la Gardie, David Klöcker Ehrenstrahl and Wulfila’s Gothic Bible’, Lychnos (2005), 9–28. Forthe Bible more generally, see Lars Munkhammar, The Silver Bible: Origins and History of the Codex Argenteus(Uppsala: Selenas, 2011).

38 Magnusson, Att illustrera fäderneslandet, 14.


worship idols, make sacrifices, and immolate their bodies by hanging in trees.Staffage in printed works was often something of an afterthought, left to thefantasy of the printmaker. Although this is true of many of the plates in Sueciaantiqua, in this case the activities of the figures are explained by Latin inscrip-tions, and relate closely to the ideological prerogatives of the Board of Antiq-uities, whose particular interest in the prints of Old Uppsala we have alreadyencountered. The temple itself has towers inscribed ‘Thor’, ‘Odin’, and‘Frigga’, while the primary inscription identifies the building as the mostancient temple of the Goths, fully conflating Norse and Gothic mythology. Itdates the building to circa 246 after the biblical flood, which formed thestarting point of all discussions of Gothic history through the traditionalidentification of Magog as the first Gothic king. The lower view shows the samesite in Christian use, its exorcism made clear by the numerous crosses on thebuilding and in the graveyard.

Norse and Gothic myth were conflated elsewhere as well, and broughttogether with antiquarian evidence. A plate presenting spears, keys, and other

Fig. 11 ‘Temple and Church at Old Uppsala’, etching, from Erik Dahlbergh, Suecia antiqua et Hodierna,Stockholm, 1715 (Courtesy Special Collections, Honnold/Mudd Library of The Claremont Colleges)


items excavated from the Bråvalla heath are presented as coming from anancient burial site that, ‘according to an ancient and generally acceptedtradition is Odin’s burial place’. The plate follows and supports a combinedmap of the site and battle scene, ‘where Svears and Goths fought . . . theirbattles with Huns, Cimbrians, Danes, Jutes, Frisians and other powerfulpeoples, with many still-visible tombs and memorials for the fallen’. Theseremains are shown in a series of views with the same kinds of distinctivelandscapes seen elsewhere in the work.

Although possible only in a few cases, this direct pairing of ancient andmodern sites was fundamental to the project. It was emphasized in the title’sclaim to present ancient and modern Sweden, and showed the continuityfrom the ancient Gothic land to the modern state. In other cases, this waspossible only through ruins – such as those at Sigtuna, identified as a Gothicroyal seat – or purely natural phenomena. We have already encountered theSkurugata gorge, where the Goths were said to have made their idols. Like-wise, a relatively nondescript spring at Svingarn is identified as a place whereboth ancient Goths and more modern Papists laid offerings in hopes of betterhealth, again presenting the land as a witness to the Gothic past while simul-taneously comparing heathen and Catholic practices.

The spring at Svingarn has the same sort of dark, barren evergreen treesthat we encountered at Drottningholm and Ållonö palaces. Although weshould not draw too close a tie to Atlantica, we have seen that these sorts oftrees were used by Rudbeck as evidence that Scandinavia was the first regionto be populated by the heirs of Noah. Nowhere in the development of Sueciaantiqua do we find the sorts of extremely tendentious arguments developed byRudbeck – indeed, there seems to have been an internal debate among theproducers about how closely to parallel his ideas39 – but we find everywhere anemphasis on a distinctly northern natural environment. Although Sueciaantiqua is in many respects comparable to contemporary publications such asColen Campbell’s Vitruvius Britannicus and the Merian Press’s topographies ofGermany and France, this emphasis on the natural world is remarkable; onlythe Merian publications approach the attention given to the natural environ-ment. Moreover, it is prevalent in the preparatory drawings, frequently even inearly sketches. It was a fundamental part of the image from the beginning, andwas clearly not left to the discretion of the engraver, as was common.40 In theplates of the Skurugata gorge and Svingarn, both of which are essentiallylandscapes, this is explicitly related to the kingdom’s Gothic past.

39 This issue was discussed by the Uppsala professor Andreas Spole in a 1691 letter to Dahlbergh. See JohanBjörnstierna, ‘Berättelse Om Arbetet med det så kallade Sveciæ-Verket, Eller det i Koppar stuckna Verket Sveciaantiqua & hodierna’ in Kong. Vitterhets historie och antiquitets academiens handlingar, Vol. 8 (Stockholm, 1808),44–51. See also Stina Hansson, ‘The Lament of the Swedish Language: Sweden’s Gothic Renaissance’, Renais-sance Studies, 23 (2009), 151–60.

40 The drawings for Suecia antiqua are published in Sigurd Wallin (ed.), Teckningarna till Svecia antiqua ethodierna, 4 vols. (Stockholm, 1963–70).


Interest in the northern landscape went well beyond Rudbeck and Sueciaantiqua. The court painter in the later seventeenth century, David KlöckerEhrenstrahl, wrote with pride that he was among a small group of elitepainters. Very likely he meant that he held a position equivalent to that ofCharles Le Brun, first painter to Louis XIV, and a few others.41 Ehrenstrahlproduced many works typical of someone in this position, including largenumbers of portraits and allegories, but he also produced many less standardworks as well. Among these were landscapes and animal paintings, includingmany images of specifically northern wildlife such as reindeer (Fig. 12).42

These, too, were generally for the larger circle of the court, if not always forthe crown itself.

Ehrenstrahl’s paintings of animals have been compared to hunting scenesby Rubens and others, and some of his paintings correspond closely to thistradition.43 Others are much harder to explain in this context. A journal keptby Duchess Christine von Hessen-Eschwege during her travels in Denmarkand Sweden in 1697–8 offers some insight into the role of these images. She

41 Allan Ellenius, ‘David Klöcker Ehrenstrahl – svensk och europé’, in Bengt Dahlbäck (ed.), David KlöckerEhrenstrahl (Stockholm: Nationalmuseum, 1976), 14.

42 Allan Ellenius, ‘Exploring the Country. Visual Imagery as a Patriotic Resource’, in Allan Ellenius (ed.),Baroque Dreams. Art and Vision in Sweden in the Era of Greatness (Uppsala: Uppsala University Press, 2003), 9–31.

43 Bertil Rapp, Djur och stilleben i karolinskt måleri (Stockholm: Nordisk rotogravyr, 1951).

Fig. 12 David Klöcker Ehrenstrahl, Reindeer with Sled, 1670s, oil on canvas, Strömsholm Palace (CourtesyNationalmuseum, Stockholm)


was evidently familiar with the arts in Stockholm. She was very pleased to meet‘the famous painter Ehrenstrahl’, and saw a number of his paintings, includ-ing those of animals. She described a painting of a reindeer, noting that theFrench ambassador had liked it so much that Carl XI had sent a copy of thepainting to him. (The painting was evidently hung where both an ambassadorand a duchess would encounter it.) Not long thereafter, the king sent himliving reindeer and Sami, both indigenous to northern Scandinavia, as gifts,though not all survived. This may have been a standard practice, for she notedfifteen further reindeer ordered by the king.44 A quarter-century earlier, in1674, a visiting Italian dignitary requested two pairs of reindeer and a Sami totake back to Florence.45

It is in the duchess’s notes that we find a link between paintings of reindeerand northern flora and fauna and a larger set of images more or less at theservice of the state. Indeed, many of these images evidently could take on atleast quasi-diplomatic functions. They also complement a broader set ofimages with roots in the court that feature a distinctive natural environmentvery prominently, including Suecia antiqua, which was initially available only asa diplomatic gift presented to foreign courts by the crown’s ambassadors.

The emphatic representation of the land and the natural environment innumerous contexts demonstrates that this was central to the visual presenta-tion of the kingdom, and should not be discounted. In Suecia antiqua and thenature paintings undertaken by Ehrenstrahl, the land becomes a kind ofprotagonist, the formative cradle of the Gothic people. It was here, ratherthan in portraiture, architecture, or other more familiar kinds of visual rep-resentation that the court found a distinctive means to represent its Gothicclaims without running afoul of international standards and expectations. Theland – eternal, unchanging, and the fundamental point of continuity betweenthe ancient Goths and the modern Swedes – is at the heart of the ancient andmodern literature on Gothicism, and it provided a way to represent thoseGothic claims in a wide variety of visual formats to visitors, ambassadors andforeign courts.

CONCLUSION: GOTHIC LAND AND GOTHIC HOMELAND

If geography was the key to the very effective argument that the homeland ofthe Goths was to be found in Sweden, description of the land in prints andpaintings provided a way to represent the Gothic heritage and character of thekingdom in visual terms without turning the monarchs into caricatures orsacrificing the expected international standards of representation. Althoughperhaps unintended, this also had the effect of emphasizing both the rugged-ness of the Gothic land and the refinement of the arts produced there.

44 Niedersächsisches Staatsarchiv, Wolfenbüttel (hereafter NSW), 1 Alt 20, Nr. 92, fol. 33v, fol. 52v.45 Lorenzo Magalotti, Sverige under år 1674, ed. Carl Magnus Stenbock (Stockholm: Norstedt, 1912), 122.


Certainly this contrast is evident everywhere in Suecia antiqua. This seems tohave reflected broader experience as well. Visitors from abroad frequentlyadmired the architecture in Stockholm and elsewhere, and marvelled that itcould be built in such an unforgiving land. Aubry de la Motraye, who visitedthe kingdom in 1715, found it ‘hardly imaginable that Sweden, which naturegave so little [usable] land and so much rock and forest . . . has so manypalaces and gardens so beautiful and so sumptuous’.46 Half a century earlier,before the building boom in the later seventeenth century, Guy Miège con-trasted the civility of the court and the capital with the landscape around it.‘But that which is most considerable in Stockholm is, that in so cragged andunpleasant a place, the people should be so courteous, and friendly, and thatamongst so many rocks and uninhabited islands . . . we should find a court socivil and benign.’47

Neither de la Motraye nor Miège was particularly concerned with the litera-ture discussed here or the Gothicism debate. Other visitors read the Magnusbrothers’ books or court-sponsored descriptions of the kingdom beforearrival, and readily saw the land in terms set out by these texts. Augustin vonMörsberg’s journal descriptions from 1592 and those of Francesco Negri fromthe 1660s are clearly framed by Olaus Magnus’ history.48 Likewise, Christinevon Hessen-Eschwege’s journal discussed above is heavily shaped by JohannesSchefferus’ Lapponia, which she read in Germany.49 Other descriptions madethe relation between the Gothic land and the Gothic people explicit. Alreadyin the 1560s, an English presentation of the kingdom for a popular audiencebased largely on Münster and Johannes Magnus shifts effortlessly from topog-raphy to the Goths, so that a passage on ‘the description of the most florishyngCountrye of Gothia’ moves in a breath from geographical description topraise ‘the glorye of the Gothes wyth their mighty and bloudy battels’.50 In the1650s, Bulstrode Whitelocke, the English ambassador to Sweden, entwinedobservations of the physical geography and the political and social milieu inhis journal. He, too, moves seamlessly from description of the land to theGothic people that were to have sprung from it:

A great part of this land is a good and fertile country, considering the climate;and although the inhabitants of it at present are not numerous, yet in formertimes it was so fruitful of people that vast numbers of them left their country as

46 Aubry de la Motraye, Voyages du Sr. A. de la Motraye en Europe, en Asie et en Afrique, Vol. 2 (The Hague, 1727),263–4.

47 Guy Miège, A Relation of Three Embassies from his Sacred Majestie Charles II to the Great Duke of Muscovie, the Kingof Sweden, and the King of Denmark (London, 1669), 352.

48 Carl Heinrich Seebach (ed.), Reise durch die nordischen Länder im Jahr 1592: Bericht des Augustin Freiherrn zuMörsberg u. Beffort (Neumünster, Wachholtz, 1980); Gillgren, Vasarenässansen, 186. Francesco Negri, ViaggioSettentrionale (Padua, 1700); Giuseppe Olmi, ‘Sweden in the Travel Journals of Lorenzo Magalotti and FrancescoNegri’, in Marco Beretta and Tore Frängsmyr (eds.), Sidereus Nuncius & Stella Polaris: The Scientific Relationsbetween Italy and Sweden in Early Modern History (Canton, MA: Science History Publications, 1997), 57–78.

49 NSW, 1 Alt 20, Nr. 92; Johannes Schefferus, Lapponia (Frankfurt, 1673).50 Sebastian Münster, The Description of Swedland, Gotland, and Finland (London, 1561), unpaginated.


overstocked, and planted themselves in the best and most countries of Europe;of whom it is said, that ‘the Goths, a cruel people, anciently subdued Italy byarms’, and laid Rome herself even with the ground.51

Whitelocke proceeds to reject this dark view of the Goths, arguing that theywere no less civilized than the Romans whom they conquered, but werecalumnied by Roman historians. Like others, he accepted the court’s argu-ment that the Goths were sympathetic people rather than crude barbarians.And like the sixteenth century passage above, he directly associated the landwith the Gothic arguments, underlining both the natural bond of the two incourt productions over the next half century and the plausibility of observersnoting the association in these works. Suecia antiqua and other projects wouldsoon highlight this linkage, providing a means for the crown to demonstratea very modern image and simultaneously emphasize the Gothic nature of thekingdom and its rulers.

University of California, Riverside

51 Bulstrode Whitelocke, A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol. 1 (London: Longman,Brown, Green and Longmans, 1855), 208–09.


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