Mistress of the Vatican (35 page)

With French panache and Gallic charm, the new ambassador set to work on Olimpia regarding the little matter of the red hat for Michel Mazarin. We can presume that he, like his predecessors, eagerly lost money to her at card games. Certainly Olimpia knew a large reward would be forthcoming from France if she could only prevail upon the pope to make Michel a cardinal. Surely, she must have told Innocent, it would be a small gesture to establish goodwill between nations, and heaven knew there were centuries of precedents for popes creating fee-bleminded cardinals for the sake of peace among Christians. But Innocent, hating the thought of creating a feebleminded cardinal himself, procrastinated.

However, Innocent knew that with Camillo married and gone, he would have to create a new cardinal nephew. It was unthinkable
not
to have one. Unfortunately, Camillo was the pope’s only nephew. In such cases a pope could look a bit farther afield in his family, giving the job to a niece’s husband’s single brother. And both the pope’s nieces had married into well-connected families with numerous single males.

Olimpia would have loved to have the job herself. After all, no one in the family was as clever, hardworking, and manipulative as she was. No one looked out for the family interests the way she did. But a female cardinal nephew was, alas, impossible, even if that female were Olimpia. The uproar both in the church and among the heretics would be too great, and this would be one request the pope would never consent to.

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Photographic Insert

A 1653 French print. The text reads:

Donna Olimpia Maidalchini, Princess of San Martino, widow of Don Pamphilio Pamphili, brother of Pope Innocent X, and mother of Don Camillo Pamphili, Prince of Rossano, formerly cardinal, and of the princesses of Bassano and Piombino. Having come to these honors by the good will of the pope.

(From the author’s private collection.)

above: Pope Innocent X by Diego Velasquez, 1650.

(Seat/ALINARI Archives, Florence.)
opposite: Olimpia Maidalchini by Alessandro Algardi, circa 1650.

(© ADP/ALINARI Archives, Florence.)

right: The unimpressive

Casa Pamphili in 1612 when Olimpia moved there.

Her building is the one on the left, separated from

the neighbors by an alley.
(Archivio di Stato di Roma.

Granted by the Culture Ministry of Italy, ASR28/2007.

No reprints permitted without specific permission.)

below: Palazzo Pamphili as it looked when Olimpia completed it in 1648. The church of Saint Agnes is on the right. Olimpia’s palazzo is a statement in stone of her accomplishments.
(Mar-cello Leotta—Artphoto, Embassy of Brazil, Rome.)

Pope Urban VIII, who made Giovan
Battista Pamphili a cardinal in 1630, setting him on the road to the papal throne. Portrait by Gian
Lorenzo Bernini, circa 1625.
(Archivio Fotografico Soprint-endenza
Speciale per il Polo Museale Romano.)

right: Camillo Pamphili, a terracotta bust by Alessandro Algardi, 1647. Olimpia’s handsome but feckless son became a cardinal, left the Sacred College to marry, and then wanted to become a cardinal again.

(The State Hermitage Museum,

St. Petersburg.)
below: Olimpia Aldobran-dini, the Princess of Rossano, the scintillating daughter-in-law Olimpia despised.

(© Arti Doria Pamphilj srl.)