After the death of John III and the lost political struggle to retain the throne in the Sobieski family, Maria Kazimiera decided to leave Warsaw and seek peace in Rome, under the protection of the Pope. The approaching celebrations of the Jubilee year of 1700 provided a suitable reason for her departure. The Queen, born in the Palais ducal de Nevers in France and raised at the court of Louise Marie in an atmosphere dominated by her native culture, was well versed in the rules of ceremonial and was extremely sensitive in this matter.

The death of John III in 1696 and the election of his successor significantly changed Maria Kazimiera's social status. Controversy arose over how to properly treat the queen's widow - a precedent-setting situation in the 17th century. Since the first free election, only Anna Jagiellonka (1523-1596) had survived Stefan Batory, who died in 1586. As she was proclaimed Queen of Poland in 1575 and married a Transylvanian prince only a year later, she could claim more ceremonial precedence for the last ten years of her life than Maria Kazimiera after Sobieski's death.

The Polish court had not been able to resort to the custom of treating widowed queens since the first election, so Maria Kazimiera's ceremonial entry and reception in the Eternal City was a contentious issue. Pope Innocent XII (Antonio Pignatelli), who served as apostolic nuncio to Poland from 1660 to 1668, intended to show the Polish queen every consideration because of their previous good relations. "When the widowed queen in Poland and the wife of King John was due to arrive in Rome in 1699, Pope Innocent XII decided to show her every recognisable honour to which the queen could claim, particularly because he had experienced much good from her when he was nuncio in Poland, precisely when she married the late King John Sobieski."

Maria Kazimiera's entry to Rome was to follow the same ceremonial rules as those applied to Queen Christina (1626-1689) in 1655. The Swedish monarch, whose conversion from Protestantism to Catholicism was celebrated as a programmatic victory for the papacy, was received after her abdication with all the honours and recognition of due precedence. Because of Jan Sobieski's triumph at Vienna, Maria Kazimiera demanded to be accorded the same social standing. Eyewitnesses to the Polish queen's journey to Rome, including a member of her entourage, Antonio Bassani, confirmed the ceremonial set up on the model of that which had been in place when the Swedish convert arrived in Rome.

Johann Christian Lünig commented similarly in 'Theatrum ceremoniale': "At the point of ceremonial, she [Maria Kazimiera] should be handled precisely as Queen Christina of Sweden, but with the difference that when she meets the cardinal, both carriages will stop at the same moment, which did not happen in Queen Christina's time". Whose carriage should pass first and who would have to give way was indicative of the position of the travellers. In this way, one's rationale for the social hierarchy - the actual one, or more often the one claimed - was externalised before a wide audience.

Apparently Maria Kazimiera did not agree with equating her social status with that of the cardinals, and demanded that she be given precedence appropriate to the position of queen, so numerous conflicts arose over this. Lünig describes it as follows: "If it was told in Rome that the queen would not make any difficulty about this because the Polish kingdom is not a hereditary monarchy, then [Rome] was deceived on this point; because the widowed queen as to the essence of the ceremonial was very sensitive, and did not want to be treated worse than the queen of Sweden in this respect."

The text comes from PASAŻ WIEDZY , where you can find more reliable texts on Old Polish history and culture

Courtesy of the King John III Wilanów Palace Museum