Mistress of the Vatican (53 page)

In addition to the old enemies, there was a new one. Cardinal Chigi, though always polite to Olimpia, was furious about her regained power. Upon her return, Olimpia had immediately tried to win him over, but he remained adamantly impartial, polite but reserved, and never discussed state or church business with her. He returned the expensive gifts she sent him with an apologetic note, and sent her strange presents of soap and capons, not the usual gold, silver, and diamonds she was used to.

Despite his careful courtesy toward Olimpia, Chigi couldn’t bear to see how even the greatest cardinals bowed and scraped before her at public events, and one day he lost his temper with them. “You should

[ 318 ]

M i s t r e s s o f t h e Vat i c a n

know that among these people there are many Germans and French and maybe some heretics,” he roared. “Have therefore greater regard for your own dignity, that you do not show contempt for it.”
⁸
This comment winged its way back to Olimpia within the hour.

One evening Prince Ludovisi, who had been so supportive of Olim-pia’s return, marched up to Cardinal Chigi in the Quirinal and began complaining bitterly about her. He “deposited in his ears an infinity of complaints about his mother-in-law, which stupefied the cardinal, and were such as he could not believe, so the other [Prince Ludovisi] became even more heated in telling details and circumstances and in confirming them with lively assertions.”
⁹

Listening to the ridiculous tirade, Chigi burst out laughing so hard that he was unable to speak. The prince added that the cardinal would be right to reprove him for helping his mother-in-law back into power, when he should have trampled her underfoot. And so the two parted.

Perhaps for reasons of delicacy, Cardinal Pallavicino does not relate the exact nature of Olimpia’s atrocities. It is likely that her wheeling and dealing in offices would not have shocked the cardinal, as he had fully expected this behavior. It is possible that the accusations were of a sexual nature, which truly would have astonished the fifty-four-year-old virgin Chigi.

Those seeking the pope’s favor were still officially supposed to call on the cardinal nephew, Cardinal Astalli-Pamphili. But everyone knew that he had absolutely no influence on Innocent; they stopped calling on him and instead visited Olimpia, who delivered immediate results. The cardinal nephew, who had wholly lost the pope’s favor to Cardinal Chigi, now lost even the pretense of power, and stewed bitterly about it. Innocent was grouchy and impatient with him, criticizing him roundly for his ineptitude.

But the pope reveled in Olimpia’s presence. On one occasion soon after her return it seemed as if she had truly brought him magic. The spring of 1653 saw an invasion of crickets and locusts, who munched their way through the fields outside Rome, prompting fears of yet another devastating famine. The skies turned black when swarms of biblical proportions buzzed overhead. Local farmers, desperate for help,

[ 319 ]

Eleanor Herman

came to Rome and begged Innocent to excommunicate the critters, to curse them and send them to hell.

The pope graciously complied. In an elaborate ceremony he commanded all the bugs to fall into the Tiber River and drown. It is likely that no one was more surprised than the pope when the insects actually obeyed him. “It was a thing marvelous to see,” Giacinto Gigli wrote, “that these animals ran all at once into the Tiber, and they filled it up so that you couldn’t see the water anymore, which was black as ink . . . and remained so for several days.”
¹⁰

The same month, filled with renewed pontifical vigor, Innocent issued a papal decree against Jansenism, a religious movement in France named after its founder, Cornelius Jansen, bishop of Ypres (1585–1638). Jansenism claimed to return to the pure virtues of the fifth-century church father Saint Augustine and turn away from the decadent church that had developed in the following centuries. Though Jansenists maintained that they were strict Catholics, their beliefs smacked oddly of that most right-wing of all heresies, Calvinism. Jesus did not die for all men, the Jansenists declared, as some of them were clearly beyond saving and were predestined to hell. They decried church art and the veneration of saints and relics. They tossed out confession as they believed that only God could forgive sins, not a priest as God’s representative. The church should become stricter, they said, as the path to heaven was narrow. The church, and the Jesuits, who hated the Jansenists believed that the path to God was rather wide, given his compassionate forgiveness of human sin.

The Jansenist movement swiftly became popular in France. The French monarchy, which supported the Jesuits, perceived Jansenism as a political threat and begged the pope to do something about it. In 1651, Innocent assembled a special congregation in Rome comprising five cardinals and fifteen theologians. Based on their findings, on May 31, 1653, after two years of investigation and debate, Innocent issued a bull declaring Jansenism heretical.

With Olimpia back in town, she was once more the scapegoat for the complaints of all and sundry. The Jansenists accused her of accepting a huge bribe from her friends the Jesuits to persuade the pope to

[ 320 ]

M i s t r e s s o f t h e Vat i c a n

condemn the movement. But the commission, which had labored and debated for two years before her return to power, had made up its mind without her, and the pope had merely accepted its recommendation.

If Olimpia had influenced the congregation, she would have pushed for condemnation of Jansenism even if no money had traded hands. Certainly the image of a comfortably wide path to heaven, wide enough for her both physically and spiritually, was more appealing than the Jansenist concept of the narrow path, where her broad rear end and her wide range of sins were destined to become irretrievably stuck. She hated the idea of an angry, unforgiving God pitching sinners helter-skelter into hell; one of them might very well be
her
.

q

After two and a half years of bitter exile, Olimpia enjoyed her position as mistress of the Vatican more than ever before. But this time around, her work was not about enjoyment. It was about revenge and safety.

She would revenge herself on all who had hurt her. The princess of Rossano was, except for family events and social occasions, barred from the pope’s presence. She would no longer be advising him on politics or nominating her friends as cardinals. Officially, the two women had made peace with each other, and the princess had stopped sponsoring poetry contests to see who could pen the nastiest epigram about her mother-in-law. But their frigid courtesy to each other chilled even the warmest reception room. The War of the Olimpias had become a cold war.

Then there was Cardinal Astalli-Pamphili to deal with. In sweeping into the Vatican, he had swept Olimpia out and taken a good chunk of her possessions for himself. In an effort to get rid of her for good, he had shown the pope the gold medal featuring her wearing the papal tiara and Innocent wearing curls. Though the cardinal had been sidelined from power and was disliked by the pope, this was not enough for Olimpia. She would cook something up to make sure his ruin was entire and very public.

And then, last but not least, there was the pope. Though he had spurned her in anger, now he welcomed her back with joy and forgiveness, letting

[ 321 ]

Eleanor Herman

bygones be bygones. But there was no forgiveness in Olimpia’s heart, and she didn’t know the meaning of the word
bygones.
Once an enemy, always an enemy. And the pope, more than the princess of Rossano, more than Cardinals Astalli-Pamphili and Chigi, more than Nuncio Melzi, was her enemy. The extent of her revenge would be equal to the depth of her former love, her betrayed trust, and her agonizing pain.

She had loved Gianbattista Pamphili for thirty-eight years, devoted her life to him, made him rich, and made him pope. As a reward, he had thrown her to the dogs, stripped her of prestige and power, humiliated her internationally, and caressed her enemies. But no one else was smart enough to run the Vatican in her absence, and she had laughed when everything fell to pieces. Now he called her back. Well, she returned, chirping apologies, dripping syrupy smiles, and Innocent was naïve enough to think she was sincere. She was not sincere. She would make him pay for what he had done every single day until he died, and even then she would not be through with him. Sitting in San Martino, she had had a great deal of time to plot her revenge, a great deal of time indeed.

Olimpia’s second urgent need was safety. She knew that she had numerous enemies in the Sacred College. If one of them were elected the next pope, she would find herself exiled, as she had exiled the Bar-berinis.

Even worse, she might be imprisoned, with all her property confiscated to repay the papal treasury for her depradations. Everything she had worked for hinged on which cardinal would be elected the next pope. And, casting a sidelong glance at Innocent, his right hand shaking violently, she knew the next conclave would not be too far in the future. She must work fast.

One cardinal often mentioned as the future pontiff was none other than Antonio Barberini, still fuming in self-imposed exile in Paris. Olimpia had to get Cardinal Antonio firmly on her side. Even if he were not elected pope, he would control a large block of votes, which he could swing against Olimpia as his revenge for what she had done to him. Or he could swing his votes for Olimpia, electing a cardinal known to be a friend of hers.

[ 322 ]

M i s t r e s s o f t h e Vat i c a n

The idea of a marriage between the Pamphili and Barberini families, protecting each family from the other, had always appealed to them both. Camillo had, of course, botched everything by first becoming a cardinal and then marrying the princess of Rossano. But now there was a new generation of Pamphilis and Barberinis of marriageable age. Another alliance could be formed. And Olimpia decided it would be her beloved granddaughter, Olimpiuccia Giustiniani, who would finally join the two great papal houses.

Olimpiuccia had turned twelve, the minimum age required by the church for a girl to marry. Olimpia decided her granddaughter would marry the second son of Anna Colonna and the deceased Taddeo Bar-berini. Twenty-year-old Prince Maffeo was better-looking and less scholarly than his twenty-two-year-old brother, Carlo, who would be ordered by his cardinal uncles to give up his birthright and become a cardinal himself. Innocent should have named a Barberini cardinal in his first creation after becoming pope, as a sign of gratitude to the family that had made him a cardinal and led him on the road to the papal throne. But better late than never.

Olimpia had cooked up the marriage while still in exile and made it known to her family in Rome that their future was bleak indeed if the match did not go through. The Pamphilis, Giustinianis, and Ludovisis could lose everything if the next pope was unfriendly, she pointed out, and her relatives agreed. The historian Ludovico Muratori wrote in his annals of 1652, “Now Donna Olimpia, sister-in-law of the pope, and others of the Pamphili family, seeing the decline of the decrepit pope, decided to end the enmity of the Barberinis and cement friendship with a house so powerful for its riches and protection.”
¹¹

Gregorio Leti explained, “So in order to prevent the peril which threatened her with entire ruin, she resolved, despite everything, to strike a blow so strange that many people had difficulty believing it after it was done. She negotiated a close alliance with the Barberinis to oblige them with the union of blood, not only to pardon her all the past, but also to defend her when the time came against all her enemies.”
¹²

No sooner was Olimpia back in Rome than she met with Francesco Barberini about the proposed marriage and sent an offer to Cardinal

[ 323 ]

Eleanor Herman

Antonio in Paris. But now, given Innocent’s slide into decrepitude, the Barberinis were in the driver’s seat. They demanded the standard enormous dowry of a papal niece, which Olimpia readily agreed to provide. They wanted the remainder of their confiscated property returned. Olimpia consented.

With great excitement, Olimpia informed her granddaughter of the glorious marriage she had arranged for her. Olimpiuccia would be a princess in her own right, with a conspicuous dowry, living in her own palace, allied to the most important family in Rome. But upon hearing the news, she informed her grandmother that she had no intention of marrying Maffeo Barberini. She wanted to become a nun.

Olimpia waved away this response as childish nonsense. Who in their right mind would want to become a nun? She took Olimpiuccia for a few days to meet the groom at the Barberini estate of Palestrina outside Rome. But the little girl did not like the groom. And the groom did not like the bride, who at twelve had a chest as flat as a board and a figure as curvaceous as a pencil. He wearily assented to the marriage for the good of his family. And there was always the hope that she would, in time, fill out. But the bride was not as resigned to her fate. When she and Olimpia returned to the Piazza Navona, Olimpiuccia ran away to her parents’ house, the Villa Giustiniani.