was founded in Sweden by Gustavus I. His
son John married Catherine Jagellonica,
the sister of King Sigismund II of Poland.
John’s brother, then the king of Sweden,
bitterly opposed this marriage and con-
fined the couple to the castle of Gripsh-
olm, where their son Sigismund was born
and was educated by fervently Catholic Je-
suit priests.
In 1587 Sigismund was elected as King
Sigismund III Vasa by the electors of the
commonwealth of Poland. When his fa-
ther King John III died, Sigismund also
became the king of Sweden, but his at-
tempts to return Sweden to the Catholic
Church was opposed by the parliament of
Sweden, which deposed him in 1599. In
Poland, Sigismund led an attack on the
Baltic state of Latvia, intending to annex it
to Poland, in 1600. This provoked war with
Sweden and a series of conflicts between
the two Vasa dynasties that would con-
tinue for more than fifty years.
In Sweden Sigismund was succeeded
by Charles IX, his uncle and a Protestant.
Gustavus II Adolphus succeeded Charles.
An able military commander, Gustavus led
a powerful Swedish force against the
Catholics in Germany and won key victo-
ries during the Thirty Years’ War. On his
death in battle in 1632 his daughter Chris-
tina became the queen of Sweden. Chris-
tina converted to Catholicism and abdi-
cated the throne of Sweden in 1654,
passing the monarchy to her cousin,
Charles X, a member of the Wittelsbach
dynasty of Germany. This event brought
the Swedish Vasa dynasty to an end.
By the Peace of Westphalia, which
ended the Thirty Years’ War in 1648, Swe-
den had gained territory on the southern
shores of the Baltic Sea—land that had
long been claimed by the kings of Poland.
In 1655 two large columns of Swedish
troops invaded Poland, bringing Poland as
well as Lithuania under Swedish control.
The Polish line of the Vasa dynasty had
continued through the reigns of Ladislav
IV, who was succeeded in 1648 by his
brother Jan II Kazimierz. This king escaped
the Swedish assault of 1655 and from his
refuge in Silesia called on the Polish na-
tion to resist the Swedes. The uprising re-
sulted in the Treaty of Oliwa in 1660,
which returned Sweden and Poland to
their original borders.SEEALSO: Sweden; Thirty Years’ WarVasari, Giorgio ................................
(1511–1570)
Painter, architect, and author, whose book
Lives of the Most Celebrated Painters, Sculp-
tors, and Architectsremains an important
source of information on the life and
works of many Renaissance artists. Born
in Arezzo, Tuscany, Vasari studied with
Guglielmo de Marsiglia in his hometown
before leaving for Florence at the age of
sixteen. He apprenticed as a painter in the
workshop of Andrea del Sartro in Flo-
rence; he also traveled to Rome to study
the works of Raphael, and Michelangelo
Buonarroti. While a young man he worked
as a festival manager, in which he designed
decorations and processions for festivals at
the courts of Florence, where he won the
patronage of Cosimo de’ Medici, the Duke
of Florence. A skilled painter, he completed
portraits of the Medici as well as paintings
for the Hall of Cosimo I at the Palazzo
Vecchio in Florence and the Sala Regia in
the Vatican in Rome. He has a stronger
reputation as an architect; Vasari helped to
design the famous Villa Giulia in Rome
for Pope Julius III and palaces in the towns
of Arezzo and Pisa. His major architec-
tural work, however, was the design of theVasari, Giorgio