Madrid Court diarist Jerónimo Barrionuevo reported on 11 November 1654 (44v):

Su Magestad envía a la reina de Suecia 24 caballos, cosa valiente, y un grandísimo número y copia de todos los libros jocosos y de buen gusto, así en prosa como en verso, que hay en España, encuadernados y dorados lisa y curiosamente, que ella lo es mucho, y se dice que los preciará más que si fueran joyas de diamantes, según lo estudiosa y leída que es.

[His Majesty [Philip IV] is sending the Queen of Sweden 24 horses, a remarkable thing, and a very great number and quantity of all the humorous books and in good taste, both in prose and verse, that there are in Spain, bound with gold foredges in smooth and artistic bindings, as she is very much of an enquiring mind, and it is said that she will appreciate them more than if they were diamond jewels, so studious and well read is she.]

Christina of Sweden was born in 1626 and came to the throne in 1650, but abdicated on 5 June 1654, arrived in Rome on 20 December and converted to Catholicism on 24 December 1654; she died there in 1689. She was, as Barrionuevo appreciated, formidably well educated.  She spoke German, French, Italian, Spanish and Swedish, and read Latin.

Queen Christina of Sweden, by David Beck (1621-1656). Image from Wikimedia Commons

We can easily appreciate that Queen Christina might have feel the need for the consolation of laughter, but what funny books (the Spanish ‘jocosos’ is unambiguous) could Philip have meant?  Although he enjoyed theatre-going, he also launched a campaign of moral rearmament, promulgating sumptuary laws and banning the printing of novels and plays from 1625 to 1635.  We might note that like many of the orthodox, he approved of fun provided it was in good taste.  And we might recall that Don Quixote (1605-15) was first consumed as a funny book.  Sexual humour was less tolerated by this time: the Index of Prohibited Books, which in its early years had raised no objection to smut provided it respected churchmen, in the edition of 1640 now also took offence at all sexual humour.  One suspects that many of these funny books could have been chapbooks.  Section XL of Philip’s own library catalogue of 1637, ‘Libros varios de diversas lenguas’ has 245 entries, including such works as La Celestina and Lazarillo de Tormes (Bouza, pp. 139-44, 467-96)

Christina’s manuscripts were bought for the Vatican library by Alexander VIII in 1690 but not the printed books.

Barry Taylor, Curator Hispanic Studies

References:

Barrionuevo, Avisos del Madrid de las Austrias, ed. J. M. Díez Borque (Madrid, 1996) p. 66;

Fernando Bouza, El libro y el cetro: la biblioteca de Felipe IV en la Torre Alta del Alcázar de Madrid (Salamanca, 2005).