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# A cannonball in the Villa Medici fountain and two legends about Christina of Sweden
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/u-vkhoda-v-glavnoe-zdanie-villy-medichi-gde-segodnia-raspolagaetsia-frantsuzskaia-akademiia-iskusstv-stoit-vnushitelnogo-razmera-fontan/
- Published: 2019-05-22T17:09:13.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-02T18:53:11.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Architecture, Monarchies, Mores, Rome, Humour

[​​](https://telegra.ph/file/5c45d9d3f42b4ec79929c.jpg?ref=theparnassian.com)At the entrance to the main building of the Villa Medici, which today houses the French Academy in Rome, stands a fountain of imposing size. The round basin was acquired by Cardinal Ferdinando de' Medici, who bought it in 1587 for 200 scudi from the monastery of San Salvatore in Lauro. The attention is caught by the design of the fountain itself: the water gushes from a sphere that looks like a cannonball. It is, in fact, a cannonball. There are several legends about how an artillery shell came to rest at the door of an aristocratic house, each less credible than the last. Both, however, are linked to the name of the eccentric Queen Christina of Sweden. The year was 1655.

The first legend is the thrilling one. Christina of Sweden sets off to wander across Europe on foot in men's clothes, abruptly passes from Protestantism to Catholicism, abdicates the crown and settles in Rome. This remarkable woman at once becomes a figure of considerable weight in Roman life, and not only in its spiritual but also in its political sphere. And then one day she orders three shots to be fired from Castel Sant'Angelo at the Villa Medici, in order to wake the steward who was due to accompany her on a hunt. And indeed, three marks on the massive doors would seem to confirm this version. One of the balls was then set up as the centrepiece of that very fountain.

The second legend is the naive one. Christina of Sweden promised the painter Charles Errard to knock at his door every day at a fixed hour, and once, when she could not reach the painter's threshold from Castel Sant'Angelo in time, she had to fire a cannon so as not to break this rather peculiar vow. Against this version there is one small misunderstanding. The French Academy was founded only in 1666, and was housed in an entirely different place, at Sant'Onofrio; it moved to the Villa Medici only in 1803.

However murky the origin of this cannonball, the very possibility of a shot fired from a cannon at the Villa Medici from the other end of the city surprises hardly anyone, all the more so when the story involves so alternatively popular a personage as Christina of Sweden, who is known for murdering courtiers, for attempts to seize Pomerania, and for suddenly appointing herself Queen of Poland.