Mistress of the Vatican (66 page)

Every morning in the papal palace, doctors gave reports on the ill and the dead to the pope, the congregation of cardinals, and other ministers. Having worked on the plague commission of Siena in 1630, Mario Chigi was appointed chairman of the antiplague task force and superintendent of the food supply. Going out into the most infected sections of the city to help the sick and poor, the pope, Cardinal Antonio Barberini, and the pope’s brother and nephews were greatly admired for their fearlessness in their fight against the plague. Some cardinals suggested that to avoid the miasmas Alexander should travel in a glass case, a kind of early pope-mobile. But the pope insisted on breathing the same air, and taking the same risks, as his people.

The first activities banned by the authorities were those not considered necessary to sustain life: dances, concerts, games, and parties. Holy water was no longer used in churches, as the dipping of plague-stricken fingers was thought to cause contagion. A sheepskin

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was hung in the confessional between the priest and sinner, quite effectively preventing infected fleas from jumping from one person to the other.

As more Romans came down with the plague, on June 26 law courts and schools were closed, as well as markets and shops. The economy ground to a standstill. Those whose businesses were closed couldn’t earn any money, nor could their employees, who were told to stay home. Yet all but the very poor were expected to give alms to the authorities to pay for the plague hospitals.

Camillo evidently wanted to join the exodus of families from Rome to the healthier areas in the countryside. He felt that Viterbo would be safe and prepared to join his mother there. But his wife balked. She would not go with him, even though she was legally obligated to obey her husband by joining him if he insisted. With a rare surge of testosterone, Camillo insisted.

But it seemed that the princess of Rossano would rather die in Rome than live in Viterbo with Olimpia. Giacinto Gigli noted in his diary entry of June 27 that the princess “with permission of the pope entered into the convent of Tor di’ Specchi to not be constrained by her husband Don Camillo to go to Viterbo where her mother-in-law Donna Olimpia was staying.”
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On June 28, Alexander canceled the annual procession of the
chinea.
The white horse was given privately to the pope at the Quirinal Palace. He did not, however, close the churches, as it was believed that fervent prayer might make an avenging God more merciful.

During the worst weeks in the summer of 1656, all Romans were ordered to stay inside for forty days or face the death penalty. The pope had gallows built in several main squares of the city as a clear warning of the punishment for breaking quarantine. One thirteen-year-old girl, chasing an errant chicken onto the street, was caught by the patrol and hanged as an example to others.

Despite the best efforts of the health commissioners to take the sick to the lazarettos, many still died at home. Cart drivers processed solemnly through the empty streets crying, “Bring out your dead!” Bodies were taken to a graveyard outside the city near Saint Paul’s Basilica.

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There they were buried very deeply to prevent the corpses’ miasmas from seeping up through the ground and contaminating the air.

Jews were always viewed with suspicion whenever an epidemic struck; in late June they were all walled up in their Trastevere ghetto to prevent them from intentionally spreading the plague among good Christians by throwing dead bodies down their wells. But after three weeks the situation in the ghetto was becoming desperate due to lack of food. On July 18 the Roman government deputized fourteen Jews of respectable character to leave the ghetto to bring back food and medicine. In the cramped conditions, plague was rampant; some eight hundred of the ghetto’s four thousand residents would die.

As the number of plague victims grew, the Carceri Nuovi, Innocent’s model prison, which had recently been completed by Pope Alexander, was sequestered as another lazaretto. Though in the heart of the city, it offered spacious cells with balconies and fresh air facing an inner courtyard, from which, it was assumed, the miasmas would not spread to neighboring houses. Cardinal Decio Azzolini was named superintendent of the new lazaretto.

In September 1656 Giacinto Gigli and his family obtained permission to go to a vineyard outside the city gates for fifteen days. “I heard news that 100 or more were dying of the plague every day,” he wrote. “When I returned to Rome with all my family safe and sound, by the grace of God, it was a terrible thing to see. The cadavers were being carried in carts covered with waxed cloth with a cross on top, pulled by horses, and big bells were rung so that the people on the streets knew to stand aside as the carts passed by on the way to Saint Paul’s meadow to bury them. . . . I could relate many other things but I will not because they are disgusting things.”
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As the plague raged into the fall, Camillo found that in addition to worrying about infection, he was suffering serious financial problems. Pope Alexander had forced him personally to pay the costs of building Saint Agnes, and given the structural problems, the amount continued to skyrocket. In October 1656 Camillo wrote his mother that he had sold many properties to pay for the construction, though “the jewels they cannot touch because my wife has taken them away. The

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contagion is getting worse and worse, and more than eighty a day are dying. See now that I merit the sympathy of your Excellency. Here in the house, God be praised, all are well, especially my children, who ask your blessing.”
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On October 7, Costanza Pamphili wrote her mother, “I cannot with my pen describe this evil contagion, but I ask you to make all necessary precautions in San Martino, more precisely, a good doctor and a barber [a medical assistant], to have one come from Rome if necessary, because if your Excellency has not arranged this from Vit-erbo there is now no time to have anyone come.” Referring to her brother’s troubled marriage, she added, “I can give you news of Don Camillo; by the grace of God things go better with his wife and we hope this will continue.”
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On November 11, Camillo wrote Olimpia that he had resorted to selling furniture to pay for Saint Agnes. But a week later, there was something worse to worry about. In his letter of November 20 he informed his mother, “With flourishing contagion Girolamo the wardrobe master was taken to the lazaretto where, we later learned, he died.”
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Others in the house nervously checked their groins and armpits for buboes and felt their foreheads for fever.

With the advent of the first frost, the epidemic slowed. In the bitter cold, fleas died or hibernated. Was the sickness over? Or would it sprout again in the spring with the return of the fleas? Most plague epidemics lasted two warm seasons.

On December 20, 1656, Olimpiuccia wrote her grandmother, “With the Christmas season I did not want to neglect giving Your Excellency my best wishes. . . . To tell you how I am there is no longer any doubt because I am five months pregnant with a creature that I feel very much. My mother says that I am certainly pregnant.”
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Olimpiuccia would safely deliver another daughter, Camilla, on April 28.

The princess of Rossano, meanwhile, agitated for more money for her monthly maintenance from Camillo. Her dowry documents had stated that she would receive 500 scudi a month, but ever since their 1647 marriage she had only received 250 a month. She wanted not only the higher amount starting immediately but also the money in arrears.

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Given his burdensome financial commitments, Camillo refused, the princess shrieked, and the pope intervened.

In his 1656 Christmas letter, Camillo informed Olimpia, “His Holiness ordered me by a decree of Monsignor the vice regent to give to the princess my wife 6,000 scudi and 300 a month, and that I give her three carriages each with two horses. I know how little sympathy Your Excellency will have,” he added bitterly. He was right. He had gotten himself into the pickle by marrying the one woman Olimpia had expressly forbidden him to marry, and now she had very little sympathy for him indeed.

“I hope that it is worthwhile to reflect on my state,” he continued, “and I ask your blessing, as do my children.”
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Since June 1656, Roman officials had given every available hour to fighting the plague. All law courts had closed. All criminal investigations had come to a grinding halt. The sick needed to be quarantined; the healthy needed to be fed; the dead needed to be buried. Plague-stricken doctors and grave diggers—usually those who refused to wear their anti-miasma suits—had to be replaced at exorbitant rates. With commerce stagnating, the regular taxes were not available to pay for the costly measures, and the pope had to find the money somewhere, even if it meant taking out high-interest loans.

Given Rome’s rising death toll and empty treasury, the pope and his commission temporarily dropped the investigation against Olimpia. Her embezzlement, as shocking as it had been, had suddenly become a minor matter when Death stalked all the streets of Rome, mercilessly wielding his sickle.

Death was aided and abetted by the Romans themselves, many of whom did not follow the rules. Boredom caused many to break their quarantine. At night, some of the more adventurous climbed down the ropes dangling from the second floor, used to haul up food. They visited bored-to-tears friends for rousing wine-soaked card parties where fleas silently jumped from one player to the next.

Grave diggers presented their own problems. They were a surly, muscle-bound lot at the very bottom of the social ladder. Some of them grew tired of hauling the nonstop cartloads of dead bodies far out of

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town and burying them eight feet under; it was easier to bury them closer to town. Sometimes as a joke they would dump the bodies into shallow graves next to the homes of people they didn’t like. Additionally, grave diggers were supposed to burn the contagious clothing and bedding of the deceased, but they often sold them, along with the bubonic fleas they harbored.

The valuable lazaretto doctors were supposed to limit their contact with plague victims, standing in plague suits several feet away to oversee their less esteemed assistants—the barbers—administer medicine and provide the patients with cleanliness, nourishment, and comfort. But some doctors, bored stiff, removed their sweaty plague suits and engaged the patients in card games, sitting by their bedsides for hours at a time. Others brought prostitutes in for sex and sent them back out to carry on their trade and, quite possibly, spread the disease. Some physicians, displeased with the wine delivered to the lazarettos, made runs out to liquor stores.

And so plague spread throughout much of Italy returning with virulence in the spring. Naples lost 50 percent of its population, some 150,000 out of 300,000. Genoa lost 60 percent, or 120,000 out of 200,000. Rome lost comparatively few, an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 dead out of a population of 120,000, a death rate of only 12 to 16 percent. And then, as mysteriously as the plague started, it began to abate.

On August 15, 1657, Costanza wrote her mother with two pieces of good news. “Finally, by the grace of God, the princess of Rossano has returned to the house of her husband and I hope that all the gossiping will be over. I did not want to neglect to inform Your Excellency of this, knowing how it will please you to hear it. . . . It was she who went to find him and they talked so that these arguments will not occur again.” Even more important than the tempestuous marriage of Camillo and the princess was the news that the plague was ending in Rome. “Soon they will open the lazarettos here and put the holy water back in the churches.”
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But the plague, releasing its grasp on Rome, marched on to Viterbo. In her letter of September 2, Olimpiuccia begged her grandmother to leave the city. San Martino, she added, was too close. She should visit a healthier place farther away. But Olimpia did not listen. She rattled the

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three miles to her lovely palace and there ensconced herself to wait out the epidemic.

On September 3, 1657, Olimpia’s nine-year-old grandson, Gianbat-tista Pamphili, sent her a remarkably well-expressed letter written in loopy schoolboy cursive.

The contagion in Viterbo is worrying everyone in the house, and me particularly for the great love I have for Your Excellency because I would want to see you far removed from such a grave danger. Or I would willingly want to serve you, in person, and I think I could do so profitably being now very practical regarding matters of contagion, from which we have known how to resolutely guard ourselves here. But since this is not permitted me, believe me that prayers are not lacking, being made continually by my sisters, for your health. May it please God to grant them, and Your Excellency to bless us all.
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