Mistress of the Vatican (56 page)

Cardinal Astalli-Pamphili was, at this point, a rather pathetic enemy.

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He had become a figurehead with very few duties. The ambassadors avoided him. The Pamphilis loathed him. The Barberinis disliked him. Cardinal Chigi, who ran a tight ship, kept the dunderheaded fake nephew at a distance. But Olimpia was not satisfied with sidelining him. She planted spies in his office to keep an eagle eye on his doings.

The cardinal nephew was expected to sell a certain number of benefices, or take the money from vacant benefices, to pay for those business expenses that were not reimbursed by the Vatican. Yet the first time Cardinal Astalli-Pamphili did this, Olimpia complained to the pope. The angry pontiff accused his fake nephew of graft and demanded he hand the money over—to Olimpia.

Olimpia frequently told the pope of Astalli-Pamphili’s uselessness in his office, giving detailed evidence provided by her spies. Innocent “began to mortify the cardinal with injurious words and deeds, and thought about firing him, saying that Cardinal Chigi could do the work without him idly taking up space.”
¹⁴

The pope spoke to Chigi about getting rid of Cardinal Astalli-Pam-phili, who had proved to be the third embarrassing cardinal nephew in a row. The Barberini cardinals, who had run the Vatican on behalf of their uncle for twenty-two years, were proving remarkably efficient; Olimpia was back and more involved than ever, and there seemed no reason to have this phony nephew bumbling around pretending to work.

But Chigi “wanted to do good for all. He was zealous that the palace should not become a theater of new disturbances, and the subject of satirical gazettes, and he did not want to appear a happy spectator at the ruin of others or to be seen as stepping on their bodies to climb up. Therefore, he tried to change the pope’s mind,” Cardinal Pallavicino wrote. Cardinal Chigi told the pope that “firing the cardinal without grave cause would expose the pope to the poor judgment of the world for having, with so many signs of favor, raised an unworthy man, and with such signs of disfavor lowered an innocent one.”
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In the late fall of 1653, Cardinal Astalli-Pamphili noticed something mysterious going on among the pope, Olimpia, and the Bar-berini cardinals. Late-night meetings were held, from which he was

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firmly excluded. As cardinal nephew, he should have signed, or at least seen, most of the pope’s letters, yet now coded letters were being sent out covertly. Astalli-Pamphili smelled a plot. Rifling through papal correspondence in the wee hours by candlelight, finding the ciphers to decode letters, he soon discovered what was afoot. It was a bombshell.

During their French exile, the Barberini cardinals had kicked themselves for not having accumulated principalities during their uncle’s long reign, as many other papal nephews had; while money was useful, they realized, it could easily be dissipated or confiscated. A principality, on the other hand, provided a family with power and marriage alliances to other royal families; it added glory to the family name long after the papal uncle was dead and forgotten.

They had missed many opportunities. Various dukes had died with no heirs, and Urban had incorporated their territories into the Papal States when he could have given them to his relatives. Pressured by his nephews to acquire some principality for the Barberinis before it was too late, in his last year the ailing pope had tried unsuccessfully to conquer Castro.

But the city of Castro had been demolished by Innocent’s forces and now held little appeal to the ambitious Barberinis. Casting around Italy for a weakly defended territory ripe for the picking, their eyes alighted on Naples, a large, fertile, and well-populated kingdom. Naples held the added advantage that it was, technically, owned by the pope, who leased it to Spain for the annual payment of the white horse. What was to prevent the pope from claiming his ancient feudal territory?

Moreover, Spanish hold over Naples remained tenuous. The viceroys were despised; taxes were outrageous, and the people simmered with resentment. Innocent had lost a great opportunity to seize the kingdom in 1647 during the Masaniello revolt. Now, with France on his side, it was not too late to invade Naples. Surely when the people saw papal troops coming to liberate them, they would rise up once more against the Spanish tyrants.

The Barberini cardinals wanted to acquire the duchy of Salerno for themselves. The rest of the kingdom would be given to Maffeo Barberini

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as king, and his wife, Olimpiuccia, as queen. Olimpia was delighted at this suggestion. She would be the grandmother of a
queen
. The Bar-berinis promised to field at their own cost an army of twelve thousand men, and started recruiting. The pope would raise his own army to march south in short order and would outfit the papal galleys to bombard Spanish coastal fortresses.

“The pope, almost beside himself due to his old age, easily gave into all their plans,” Gregorio Leti wrote.
¹⁶
And indeed, the pope’s approval of this harebrained scheme seems proof that he was losing his faculties. Spain would never let Naples go without a fight, and Spanish forces were infinitely more powerful than papal ones. France was too far away to offer timely support if, indeed, she ever sent it. For centuries, ardent French promises of dispatching men and ships to defend the pope or conquer the infidel were followed not by the expected tromp of boots and snap of sails but by a bewildering silence.

As Olimpia and the Barberinis secretly prepared for the invasion, word came from the viceroy of Naples that the king of Spain had been informed of their treachery. Neapolitan fortresses were on full alert; additional soldiers were recruited. City walls and gates were manned by crack soldiers ready to open fire on any suspicious visitors. The Spanish fleet was bobbing along the coast ready to sink any papal or French vessels.

The conspirators were flabbergasted. Now all their plans were undone. How on earth could Spain have found out? They had been so careful with their coded letters and disguised messengers. But Olimpia had a clue as to who had betrayed them. She believed it was Cardinal Astalli-Pamphili, a loyal advocate of Spain, but she needed irrevocable proof to present to the pope. Then she could send the cardinal nephew packing.

Olimpia met secretly with Decio Azzolini and asked him to nose around Cardinal Astalli-Pamphili’s office, using his ability to decode ciphers, and bring her evidence that the cardinal nephew was the traitor. She promised to make him a cardinal in the upcoming creation if his efforts were successful. Azzolini, who had always shown the greatest friendship to Astalli-Pamphili, poked, prodded, bribed, coaxed, and

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decoded. He found the irrevocable proof Olimpia wanted in the form of a dispatch to Spain. She handed it to the pope.

On Saturday, January 31, 1654, Giacinto Gigli wrote in his diary that Cardinal Astalli-Pamphili was fast sliding into disgrace. “The pope severely reprimanded him for the many errors he had committed, calling him ungrateful, saying that he was in a plot with the Spaniards against the will of the pope. Cardinal Astalli, seeing the danger all around him, tried to put things right, but could not.”
¹⁷

But how to punish him? Olimpia pushed for the harshest penalty possible—removal from all offices, honors, titles, and benefices. She would have liked to see him lose the dignity of cardinal, as well, but this would have created uproarious protest in the Sacred College. In the rough-and-tumble centuries of the Dark and Middle Ages, popes had from time to time defrocked enemy cardinals, thrown them into prison, and even murdered them. But once the Protestants had started laughing at them, Catholic prelates tried to muster as much dignity as possible. The dishonor of one cardinal would dishonor them all. By the seventeenth century, even if a cardinal was an imbecile, a libertine, or a traitor, he might lose all his money and power, but he would never be defrocked—unless, of course, he had turned heretic.

Listening to Olimpia’s stern recommendations for justice, the pope was, as usual, hesitant. If he penalized Astalli-Pamphili with the full rigor of his power, would the world laugh at him—again? Yet the traitor deserved nothing less. The pope had raised him from nothing to the highest honors; first he had proved lazy and useless, and now he had betrayed the very man who had so honored him.

As the pope tried to make up his mind, Olimpia came down with an excruciating case of podagra, the gouty inflammation of the big toe. It was a malady common enough in baroque courts heavy on meats, pastries, sauces, and wine. The affected toe was swollen, red, and throbbing, propped up on a pillow as she lay in bed. Usually the least movement could cause the the podagra sufferer paroxysms of bone-shattering pain, and some would have been hard put to stir if the house caught fire. But when, on February 3, Olimpia received a note from Innocent that he had finally decided how to punish Cardinal Astalli-Pamphili, she leaped out

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of her sickbed and had herself carried—gouty toe and all—to the Quir-inal to hear the verdict. The pope had decided to remove Cardinal Ast-alli-Pamphili from all honors, incomes, benefices, and titles except that of cardinal, to take away his permission to use the Pamphili name and coat of arms, to take away his use of Bel Respiro and the Pamphili Palace, and to exile him immediately.

Gigli explained that Olimpia, “with her usual dexterity, placidly told him that His Holiness, having exalted a stranger to such extraordinary greatness, and told him the most intimate secrets of his heart, was faced with treachery . . . and he would do his best in the following conclave to ruin the exalted house of Pamphili.”
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At 11 a.m. the pope sent instructions to Cardinal Astalli-Pamphili to clear out of the papal palace and go into exile at his family castle of Sambuci, thirty miles outside Rome. He would not be permitted to take any furniture with him. When Cardinal Chigi heard the news, he was horrified by the scandal it would bring to the church. Twice he went to implore the pope to reconsider, but Innocent impatiently shooed him away.

At 9 p.m. the former cardinal nephew stepped into his carriage and departed Rome. His servants—except his secretary, who had wisely burned his letters and fled—were imprisoned and questioned under torture. All those in Rome who had proudly posted the cardinal’s arms above their doors had to take them down that very night.

On February 18, Olimpia’s niece Caterina Maidalchini, married to Cardinal Astalli’s brother, tried desperately to see her aunt. Having been sent away once by the butler, Caterina tried again and this time forced her way in, shrieking that Olimpia must help her. Hearing the ruckus, Olimpia rustled to the top of the triumphal staircase leading to the courtyard and looked down at the young woman coldly. “And now finally this cardinal
padrone
is finished!” she cried.
¹⁹
It would be best for the Astallis, she continued, if they left Rome. If they lived in the same bitter exile to which Cardinal Astalli had condemned her. Caterina staggered out crying, and Olimpia swept back to her rooms. Revenge was sweet.

Cardinal Astalli’s bonds in the amount of forty thousand scudi were

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confiscated by order of the pope. To humiliate him even further, Innocent had all the furniture of his palaces dragged out and auctioned off on the streets for whatever price it could bring. All of his carriages went, along with twenty-three horses and four mules, and the prices fetched were rather low. A friend of Astalli’s felt so bad for him that he bought some of the horses, carriages, and furniture and secretly kept them for the cardinal until he could return after the pope’s death.

Innocent had to write a papal brief depriving Astalli of his offices and give his reasons for doing so. Yet the pope could hardly tell the truth—that he had been plotting to invade Naples to make Olimpia’s granddaughter a queen and that Astalli had informed Spain. The pope stated simply that the cardinal was well aware of the reasons for his disgrace.

Vatican jackals circled the fresh meat, friends of Olimpia and Decio Azzolini jockeying for the titles, honors, benefices, and incomes that had belonged to Cardinal Astalli. Innocent wanted to give something to Cardinal Chigi, who, as usual, asked for nothing, and told him he would receive the lucrative post of protector of the Franciscan monasteries. But Chigi politely declined with various excuses, as he “did not want to enjoy the shipwrecks of others. . . . But the pope understood the real reason behind his refusal, and it pleased him to see Chigi’s reverence for those who were in disgrace.”
²⁰

The pope ordered a trial, in which Astalli’s colleagues and servants were questioned about his dealings. Giacinto Gigli recorded that the only results from the rigorous inquest were “youthful indiscretions.” The good cardinal had built a secret ladder in the Quirinal Palace that led from the room of his majordomo to the stables. Called to testify, the carpenter who had constructed the ladder declared candidly, “Yes, it is true that I worked on that ladder, and all the household said that the cardinal intended to use it to receive or go out to visit with the greatest secrecy the pretty ladies.”
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