Mistress of the Vatican (11 page)

Suddenly, Olimpia was no longer alone. There was another person who respected her, needed her, a man who valued her for her strength instead of hating her for it. Of all people in the world, she could trust Gianbattista Pamphili, who would never look down on her because she was a woman, who would never tell her to betake her unworthy self to a convent. She gave him absolute loyalty. Just as Olimpia would always find a way to revenge herself against those who hurt her, she was indefatigable in her efforts to help those who treated her kindly. And Gian-battista treated her more kindly than anyone else on the planet.

Olimpia and Gianbattista, both afraid of betrayal and terrified of losing dignity in the eyes of the world, had found in each other a soul

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mate. Each one offered the other increased power and prestige and a place of absolute safety with all defenses let down. It was like a marriage made in heaven, except, of course, Gianbattista was a priest and Olim-pia was married to his brother.

Sometimes Gianbattista took her out in his carriage to see the monuments of Rome, tour the vineyards outside the walls, or take the air. The vegetable sellers in the Piazza Navona, the Pasquino gawkers behind the Pamphili house, and those coming to pick up their mail at the post office next door saw Olimpia and her normally somber brother-in-law laughing in their carriage brightly painted with the Pamphili coat of arms—a white dove holding an olive branch in its mouth.

Many Romans recalled the stories of Gianbattista only fifteen years earlier, when, as a young priest with frizzy ringlets, he had chased women, dueling over them in the street. Naturally, word got out that the two were conducting a very public affair right under the nose of Pamphilio Pamphili, the husband of one and brother of the other. And the affair would not only have been adulterous, but according to church law it would have also been incestuous. It was delicious gossip.

Leti sniffed, “This woman went more often in the carriage around town with her brother-in-law than with her husband. They were locked up for hours on end in his cabinet, longer than propriety could approve of, longer than her husband could tolerate. Sometimes he sought his brother and his wife without finding them, which is proof that he found it necessary to look for them together, and that she didn’t take a step without being accompanied by her brother-in-law.”
¹⁰

Commenting harshly on Gianbattista’s appearance, Leti continued, “One thing obliged many people to have a better sentiment of her conduct . . . which was, that they could not understand how a woman with an agreeable body and face could resolve to fall in love with the ugliest and most deformed man that was ever born, for such was her brother-in-law. . . . From this one can judge the grand ambitions that rule women. . . . And she, who wanted only to command, loved him all the more because he allowed her to govern.”
¹¹

We have no record of Pamphilio’s feelings about his brother’s close relationship with his wife. It is possible the rumors did not unduly

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disturb him because he knew for a fact that the relationship was strictly platonic. On the other hand, if he was aware of an affair, perhaps he averted his eyes. Any children would, of course, still be Pam-philis.

Whatever was going on, Pamphilio was not in a position to protest too loudly. For Olimpia made it clear that she was willing to use all of her considerable skill and all of her vast piles of money to have Gian-battista made a cardinal. Why should the Pamphilis not have the best places in church on feast days, the most honorable seats at parties? All the power, prestige, and income had been lost in that tragic moment in 1610 when Cardinal Girolamo’s heart stopped beating, his lungs clogged with whitewash fumes. Why shouldn’t the Pamphili family boast another cardinal, Cardinal Gianbattista?

Most churchmen weren’t made cardinals overnight, unless they were lucky enough to be closely related to a newly elected pope. The first step on the path to the cardinalate was to become a nuncio—papal ambassador—to a foreign court. The most prestigious posting was to Spain, the greatest supporter of the Vatican. Spain controlled large chunks of It-aly—the duchy of Milan in the north, and the kingdom of Naples, which shared the southern border of the Papal States. The second most important posting was to France, Spain’s inveterate enemy and historically a far less supportive ally of Rome. For centuries France had been angling for greater control of naming bishops, owning church properties, and keeping church revenues. France was often bristling with anger toward the Vatican, and its nuncio had to be a man of great diplomatic skill.

Gianbattista couldn’t hope to be made nuncio to Spain or France on his first diplomatic posting, however. But there was Venice, the independent-minded republic in the northeast of Italy, and staunchly loyal Poland, that frontier outpost of Roman Catholicism in Europe. There were the German countries that had remained Catholic after the Reformation, and the Spanish Netherlands. But a more prestigious posting would be to the Holy Roman Emperor in Austria or to the kingdom of Naples.

Olimpia knew that Gianbattista had excellent qualifications for the

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position of nuncio. He had a stellar education and years of church legal experience. His wild youth firmly behind him, he possessed caution, discretion, patience, and a dignified manner. But his lack of sociability was a severe handicap. He was not one for wheeling and dealing, entertaining and glad-handing, for flattering the important and sending tasteful gifts to the powerful. On the contrary, for years he had stayed morosely in the background of the social scene, eyeing Rome’s elite with thinly veiled suspicion.

But it was a handicap Olimpia could easily fix if she played the role of his hostess. She held the right parties and hosted the right people. Cardinals toddled in with their sisters-in-law and nieces, ambassadors with their wives and daughters. Olimpia was ingratiating, helpful, oozing with charm. Her keen memory allowed her to inquire after the illnesses of distant relatives and the harvests of distant vineyards, as if she truly cared. And, as Gregorio Leti remarked, “She went to great trouble to pretend to have the same sentiments as the person she was speaking to.”
¹²

At these events Olimpia could shine, discoursing on her favorite subjects—politics and finance—and drawing Gianbattista out of his hard-baked shell to show his fine grasp of Vatican affairs. Her guests admired her, and they began to see the excellent qualities of Monsignor Gianbattista. It is not known what they thought of Pamphilio, who was, perhaps, sitting glumly at the head of the table, drinking his 2 percent wine. No matter. Because of Olimpia, the Pamphilis were an up-and-coming family.

The dining table was the place where nuncios were chosen, cardinals created, rich pensions bestowed, and marriages negotiated. The quality of the wine and meat, the cut of the crystal, the skill of the servants, all contributed to a family’s success. The table was always to present a cornucopia of abundance, a feast for the eyes, and never be bare for even a moment, which would indicate lack or poverty. Empty dishes were whipped off and full ones set down with military precision. With a grand flourish of knives, Olimpia’s
scalco
sliced the finest meats. Her dapper
coppiero
poured liquid rubies into crystal goblets. Her
creden-ziere
proffered sparkling silver pitchers and platters, glinting in the

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candlelight. And all the servants did their level best to make sure there wasn’t a drop of poison on anything.

Olimpia had, by now, totally immersed herself in the Vatican hierarchy. She knew all the cardinals resident in Rome, and also knew which ones were considered
papabile,
which translates awkwardly as “popeable”—that is, highly qualified to be elected pope. These qualifications included a ripening age, diplomatic experience as nuncio, knowledge of canon law, and a dearth of enemies among the rulers of Europe and in the Sacred College of Cardinals. These men—and their sisters, sisters-in-law, and nieces—she would turn into her best friends.

One of the most
papabile
cardinals was Alessandro Ludovisi. Born in 1554, Ludovisi was a canon lawyer who had worked amicably with Gianbattista for several years in the Rota. He had sterling qualifications in municipal, educational, and legal positions in the church. Pope Paul V made him archbishop in 1612, nuncio four years later, and cardinal in 1616. As Ludovisi slipped into his sixties, Romans whispered that there went the next pope. Olimpia must have courted him assiduously.

In the midst of this flurry of entertainment and plotting, the Pam-phili family was blessed by a most surprising event. After seven years of marriage, Olimpia had a baby, a healthy girl she called Maria. Perhaps this one would live. Roman gossips scrutinized the baby closely not so much to determine her health but to ascertain whether she bore a greater resemblance to her father or her uncle. Meanwhile Gianbattista, feeling somewhat squeezed by the new addition to the family and servants hired to take care of her, rented the Teofili house next to the Pamphili residence.

On January 28, 1621, Pope Paul V finally died after a reign of sixteen years. The conclave that began on February 8 was shockingly short. The following day, the new pope was announced. Alessandro Ludovisi, Gianbattista’s old friend, would take the name Gregory XV.

On March 26, 1621, Olimpia’s nine years of hard work were crowned with success. Gianbattista Pamphili was named the new papal nuncio to the kingdom of Naples. And now
all
the ladies of Rome, no matter how snooty, would have to meet her at the top of the stairs.

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5

The Papal Nuncio

q

Politics have no relation to morals.

—Niccolò Machiavelli

aturally, Olimpia would be going with the new papal nuncio to Naples. Despite her eight years of tutelage, Gian-battista evidently did not feel confident enough to handle his first diplomatic posting without her by his side telling him exactly what to do. And she could hardly accompany the new papal nuncio without dragging her husband and her two-year-old daughter along to give the whole thing an air of respectability.

The Pamphilis would have been accompanied on the journey by their
famiglia,
those tried and trusted servants who would keep an eagle eye on their property in Naples to make sure it didn’t wander off, and on their lives to make sure they weren’t snuffed out. Romans believed that the Neapolitans were the most thieving, murderous wretches in the world.

It wasn’t entirely the Neapolitans’ fault that so many of them were thieving, murderous wretches. For some two thousand years Naples— and the other half of the kingdom, the island of Sicily—had been ruled by a succession of foreign invaders. The Greeks, Romans, Goths, Byz-antines, Normans, Germans, French, and Spanish had governed the

N

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

area, each conqueror squeezing the locals dry by brutal taxation and stomping them down with cruel repression. When the rich stole from and murdered the poor with impunity, this was called justice. When the poor, out of fury and desperation, stole from and murdered the rich, this was called stealing and murder. Over time, it would be called something else—the Mafia.

All male servants, walking or riding, would have been heavily armed with loaded pistols and knives. Bandits on the road between Rome and Naples were notorious, and the convoy of the new papal nuncio with his trunkloads of silver platters would have offered rich booty. As Olimpia and her family neared the city of Naples, they would have traveled under trees adorned with the bodies and body parts of bandits, hung there by the government as a warning to anybody so inclined as to rob travelers.

On April 3, 1621, the Pamphilis arrived in Naples unscathed and took up residence in the palazzo bought by Sixtus V in the 1580s to house the papal nuncio. But Gianbattista disliked the residence. “It is too small for the family of a prelate who will be situated in an indecent place,” he wrote.
¹
He wanted the pope to sell it and buy another palazzo, roomier, with better air. It is not known if the pope did so.

When Olimpia had settled into her new home, she would have had the chance to look around the city. Naples had three times as many inhabitants as Rome—some 300,000—most of them crowded in slum apartment buildings in a rabbit warren of narrow medieval streets climbing the volcanic hills. Laundry was strung across the street from every floor. Rubbish and night soil were flung out the windows onto the pedestrians below. Children, often without a stitch of clothing, scavenged among heaps of ordure, competing for food with dogs, cats, and rats.

Hygiene aside, the natural setting of Naples was infinitely more beautiful than that of Rome. At the city’s feet spread out a sparkling carpet of sapphire blue, the Bay of Naples. Behind the city rose the peaks of Mount Vesuvius, trembling now and then and belching sulfu-ric fumes. In the harbor, connected to land by a narrow causeway, sat the square yellow Egg Castle, the Castel d’Ovo, named such, it was said, because the ancient Roman poet Virgil had hung an egg from the ceiling of a cave deep below the castle. When the egg broke, Naples