The Journey of a Monarch: From Good King to Tyrant

Description

In Venice, in the early summer of 1540, the last Swedish Catholic archbishop Johannes Magnus (1488-1544) finished a major work of history, entitled Historia de omnibus Gothorum Sueonumque regibus, the History of All the Kings of the Goths and the Swedes. In his work, the exiled archbishop depicted over 200 kings, starting with the son of Noah and ending with Gustavus Vasa. Many of the kings ruled Sweden, others the descendants of the Goths who were said to have once left Sweden for the continent.
Most of the kings are portrayed as brave and/or wise, some of them as terrible tyrants. Normally, they are consistent in their behaviour: kings introduced as good kings rule their people wisely and benignly, while kings presented as tyrants are cruel to their subjects and lay waste to their country.
There is, however, another category: that of the good, brave and wise king who eventually becomes a tyrant. A striking case i s that of the Ostrogothic king Theoderic (the Great). The depiction of him begins in his early years at the court at Constantinople, and finishes in Itay, where he was to become king. For a long time, Theoderic is depicted as an excellent and truly heroic monarch, but he changes for the worse, and finishes as a tyrant. This paper discusses Johannes Magnus’ depiction of King Theoderic and studies the journey of his life, from Constantinople to Italy, from good king to fully fledged tyrant.

Period	2014 Nov 5 → 2014 Nov 7
Event title	Nordic Network for Renaissance Studies, 2014: Movement and arrest in early modern culture
Event type	Conference
Conference number	2
Location	Stockholm, SwedenShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International