Eleanor Herman - Mistress of the Vatican: The True Story of Olimpia Maidalchini: The Secret Female Pope

Mistress

VATICAN

The True Story of Olimpia Maidalchini: The Secret Female Pope

Eleanor Herman

of the

This book is dedicated to

all women who refuse to

be locked up

Contents

v

Acknowledgments

The Convent

The Wealthy Landowners Wife

The Roman Noblewoman

The Brother-in-Law

The Papal Nuncio

Cardinals

Celebrations

Contents

Women in the Vatican

Vengeance on the Barberinis

The Shoulder of Saint Francesca

The Holy Jubilee Year

Honor and Dishonor

Olimpias Triumphant Return

The Sudden Disgrace of Cardinal Astalli Death of the Dove

Pope Alexander VII

The Two Queens of Rome

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One day in August 2004 I was speaking to Michele Giacalone of the Italian Cultural Institute in Washington, D.C., about setting up a lecture on Italian royal mistresses to promote my first book, Sex with Kings . Michele asked me, Since you enjoy writing about controversial women, why dont you write a book on Olimpia Maidalchini Pamphili?

And I said, Olimpia who ?

Delving into the story of this forgotten woman, I was quickly fascinated and soon obsessed. My heartfelt thanks to Michele Giacalone, who heard Olimpia stories during his childhood in Rome. But for his timely suggestion, I would never have heard of her.

Nor would this book have been possible without the dauntless detective work of my assistant in Rome, Nancy Meiman, an American-born, Italian-spewing Sherlock Holmes of history, who tirelessly dug up places and sources related to Olimpia.

I am very thankful to Alessandra Mercantini and the staff of the Doria Pamphilj Archives in Rome for permitting me to peruse Olim-pias family letters. These letters allow Olimpia and her relatives to speak for themselves, and bring to life their daily vexations, hopes, and fears.

I would like to thank His Excellency Adhemar Gabriel Bahadian, Brazils ambassador to Italy, who generously opened up his embassy and residence on the Piazza Navona, the palace Olimpia built. He gave Nancy and me a fascinating tour and permitted us to wander around

Acknowledgments

for hours to puzzle out the location of ancient stables, kitchens, and servants quarters. Many thanks to Fernando de Mello, the embassys cultural attach, who made this visit possible.

Francesco Colalucci of the Presidential Ceremonial Office was extremely generous with his time and knowledge by giving us a three-hour tour of the Quirinal, the papal palace, where Pope Innocent X spent the last six years of his life, and where he died.

I am especially grateful to Carlo Finazzi and Andrea Donatiello of the Council of Ministers for permitting me access to Bel Respiro, Olim-pias hilltop villa, despite the fact that renovations have resulted in the closing of the site to most visitors.

Don Gianni, rector of Saint Agnes Church, allowed us to enter the normally off-limits crypt, location of the ancient chapel built into an arch of the Domitian Stadium. And many thanks to the friendly custodian, Eraldo Sboro, who unlocked the doors for our voyage down a staircase that descended through time itself.

Vicenzo Ceniti, counsel of the Touring Club of Viterbo, took me to Il Barco, the hunting lodge of Olimpias brother, and pointed out Olim-pias birthplace in Viterbo. My heartfelt thanks go to Alessandro Taddei and his wife, Elena Savini, for allowing me into their beautiful home to gaze at the gold eight-pointed Maidalchini stars still gracing their ceiling.

Mara Bastianelli gave me an in-depth tour of San Martino, including Olimpias palace and church, and answered endless questions. Her husband, Colombo Bastianelli, has provided me with invaluable documents not found in any other sources, and gave generously of his in-depth knowledge of Olimpias extraordinary life. It is Colombo Bastianelli who keeps Olimpia alive in her town of San Martino today.

My gratitude goes to Margherita Carletti Camilli-Mangani for allowing me to visit her beautiful seventeenth-century hunting lodge just outside the walls of Viterbo, which is associated with Olimpias youth.

In touring the castles Olimpia bought in Umbria, I was welcomed and assisted by numerous individuals. Aleandro Tommasi and his wife, Irene Fabi, invited me to coffee in their home, the ancient hilltop for-

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Acknowledgments

tress of Guardea owned by Olimpia. Nazario Sauro Santi, the mayor of Alviano, took me on a tour of Olimpias jewel of a town. Roberta Proi-etti shared with me her thesis on Olimpias feud of Attigliano.

Annalisa Marinetti and Paola Bonifazzi, who live in apartments in Olimpias Viterban palaces, were kind enough to invite me in for coffee and permit me to poke around the gardens, former stables, and nooks and crannies of their beguiling buildings.

A surprising collection of Vatican letters and diplomatic dispatches from the pontificate of Innocent X has landed at the Folger Shake-speare Library in Washington, D.C. My heartfelt thanks go to the staff for their courtesy and assistance. Also stateside, Dr. Ken Gage of the Centers for Disease Controlknown to his friends as Dr. Plague kindly answered my questions about the bubonic plague that swept across Italy in 1656 .

There are six biographies of Olimpia, all in Italian, and I am greatly indebted to their authors. Gregorio Leti wrote the first one in 1666 . Ig-nazio Ciampi, relying heavily on Vatican archives, published his version in 1878 . The twentieth century saw four more biographies, by Gustavo Brigante Colonna, Giuseppe Ciaffei, Donata Chiomenti Vassalli, and Alf io Cavoli. The research of these other biographers has been invaluable for this project.

Closer to home, I am grateful to Joseph John Jablonski, Jr., Esq., of Arlington, Virginia, for his help with certain Latin passages in Teodoro Amaydens 1655 Elogia , a description of Vatican personalities. And I am greatly indebted to Dr. Adi Shmueli, the renowned psychologist from Washington, D.C., for his insights, which helped bring to life a woman who has been dead for years.

Finally, my thanks to my patient husband, Michael Dyment, and my encouraging sister, Christine Merrill, who have listened to my ceaseless Olimpia stories for three years.

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It is an age of exhausted whoredom, groping for its god.

James Joyce, Ulysses

he oldest royal court in Europe , the Vatican is a place of ancient secrets. The voluminous archives, though stuffed to the rafters with theological decrees, official correspondence, and accounting transactions, do not reveal much of the private lives of long-ago popes. Many records indicate only the most tantalizing fragments of murder, megalomania, andheaven forbidanything to do with women. Those stories that scandalized for a time were quickly suppressed or denied and soon forgotten. To paraphrase a modern saying, what happens in the Vatican stays in the Vatican.

One of the most interesting forgotten stories is that of Donna Olimpia Maidalchini (My-dal-keeny) Pamphili donna being the Italian title for lady. The widowed sister-in-law of the indecisive Pope Innocent X (reigned 1644 1655 ), Olimpia was presumed to be the popes mistress. Regardless of whether she was mistress of the pope, she certainly was mistress of the Vatican, appointing cardinals, negotiating with foreign powers, and raking in immense sums from the papal treasury. In a church that firmly excludes women from officiating as priests and even from marrying priests, Olimpias story is clearly a discomfiting one for the Vatican.