I have a man’s mind, but a woman’s might.
—Portia, William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar
SIGNOR PAMFILI HER HUSBAND, like most Italian men, conducted his business affairs without asking his wife’s opinion or advice,” reported Gregorio Leti.1 In fact, the normally lethargic Pamphilio was horrified when his vivacious new wife peppered him with questions about his political business and cheerfully suggested she become his advisor. If Pamphilio Pamphili had one firm opinion about how the world should work, it was that women had no place in men’s business affairs. And here, for the first time in her life, Olimpia was truly stymied. Pamphilio was adamant, and there was nothing she could do to change his mind.
But even if she couldn’t get involved in politics, there were many tasks to keep Olimpia busy. There was, for example, charity work. Though Olimpia could be tight as a tick with her money, she would always be known for her generosity to nuns. She had great compassion for women who had not been clever enough to escape their lifelong imprisonment, as she had. In those convents with strict rules of poverty, the nuns sometimes went hungry, the roofs leaked, and there were no fires in winter. Olimpia visited convents often, chatting cheerfully with nuns in the parlor. She brought bedding, linens, firewood, food, and cash for structural repairs. There but for the grace of God go I.
While most women spent an unconscionable amount of time gossiping with one another, Olimpia generally disliked the company of her own gender. “She spoke little when in the ordinary company of women,” Leti noted. “But she spared no words when dealing with men.”2 Olimpia often said that chattering with women was a waste of time. Silly, empty-headed creatures, most of them, twittering about babies, balls, and bows. And yet, Olimpia must have made the requisite social calls on Rome’s powerful noblewomen if only to ensure their assistance in the future, once she had figured out how she could use it.
But getting an entrée into society wouldn’t be easy. Roman nobles inflated their importance based on their lineage. They pointed with pride to the popes and cardinals rotting in the family vault, to their ancestors’ valiant feats of arms five hundred years earlier in the Crusades, to their mildewed palaces glimmering faintly with traces of bygone glories among the leaks and mold. The further these glories receded into the past, the less affably a noble family would welcome a wealthy nouveau riche newcomer. Many members of that closed and hostile society must have treated Olimpia with ice-cold hostility.
Olimpia would have known immediately the esteem in which her hostess held her by how far out of her audience chamber the noblewoman came to meet her. Roman etiquette was cruelly precise. The host or hostess showed the greatest respect by waiting outside for the guest’s carriage to arrive, an honor usually reserved for royalty or the relatives of popes. A fairly well respected visitor was greeted at the bottom of the stairs. A visitor of so-so importance would find the hostess at the top of the stairs, mumbling apologies for not being able to come down.
Those who were genuinely disliked would be ushered all the way into the hostess’s audience chamber by the butler to find the hostess sitting grimly in her chair. The same etiquette was used upon the visitor’s departure. When the visitor rose to leave, and the hostess merely stood and didn’t set foot outside the room, the visitor knew she was despised, or at least looked down upon as greatly inferior.
Olimpia would have found a few of her hostesses—those truly kind women eager to welcome a newcomer—at the top of the stairs. But later events would show that many had snubbed her badly when she first moved to Rome, and we can assume this snub took the form of calcified noblewomen glued to their chairs. A tax collector’s daughter from Viterbo, these grand dames would have grumbled, who married an old man from the minor nobility for his title. Why should they get out of their chairs for her?
Back at her Piazza Navona palace, Olimpia must have suffered greatly from their unkindness. Though she seemed unflappable in public, she would never forget how these snooty women had treated her, and she would never forgive. One day she would wreak her revenge, she vowed, a vow that she would in time fulfill.
As a Roman nobleman’s wife, Olimpia would have employed many more servants than she had as Paolo Nini’s wife in Viterbo. A scalco, or meat carver, was a sign of great prestige. The scalco’s exuberant slicing of fish, beef, poultry, and game rivaled a theatrical performance. He was in charge of all the knives in a household and kept them sharp and sparkling. More important, he guarded the food from the time it was purchased until it reached his master’s table, making quite sure no one had spiced it with a bit of arsenic. The 1668 butler’s guide to a noble household, Il perfetto maestro di casa, declared that the scalco “has his master’s life in his hands.”3
The coppiero, or wine steward, was in charge of all wine and water for the table. He worked with local wine dealers and vintners outside Rome to purchase the finest vintages available for his master’s entertaining. He obtained the cleanest water possible for the waiters to pour from silver ewers over the guests’ hands at the start and end of meals, the water running off into silver bowls. He stocked the family carriage with a traveling bar of crystal goblets and fine wines should his master or mistress require refreshment on a journey. And he kept the wine under lock and key to make sure the other servants did not quaff it down and show up drunk for work, a common occurrence in noble households.
But according to Il perfetto maestro di casa, the coppiero had one duty of greater urgency than all others: he “must use great diligence especially in households where there are enemies, and hatred, keeping a watchful eye on the wine cellar and the lesser servants, because if wine, water, or their containers are switched, there can be disastrous consequences.” 4
The credenziere was in charge of all things related to setting the table and buffet—silverware, platters, pitchers, glasses, napkins, and tablecloths. To guard these valuables, which were made of silver, gold, and crystal, he slept in the pantry where they were kept. He had to wipe them clean before each meal to make sure no enemy had secretly entered the house and coated them with hemlock.
Olimpia’s new household was required to follow the painstaking etiquette required for a Roman nobleman. For instance, whenever Pamphilio raised his glass to drink, all his servants standing stiffly in the dining room were required to remove their hats in veneration. And when the Ave Maria bells rang out from Rome’s hundreds of churches at sunset, all the servants were required to fling themselves on their knees and pray while the nobles removed their hats and bowed their heads.
The dignity of a Roman nobleman was measured in the number of his retainers, most of whom rode noisily through the streets following his carriage no matter where he went—to church, to a friend’s house, to his tailor, even to his mistress. When the maestro di casa rang a particular bell, within fifteen minutes all male members of the famiglia were required to be mounted on a horse, ready to fly through the streets of Rome behind their master. Those who were not ready would forfeit a week’s meals. Even the cooks, gardeners, and servant boys would fling on the family livery and race madly through the streets, creating as much din and dust as possible.
The writer Aretino told the story of one Roman nobleman who couldn’t afford to feed his servants. Before ringing the bell, he would hide their bridles, saddles, and stirrups so they weren’t ready to ride in fifteen minutes. But Pamphilio Pamphili no longer had need for such ruses. Armed with Olimpia’s money, he hired more servants and purchased expensive horses, which he had to board a block away as his tiny courtyard was not big enough for them.
After her arrival in Rome, Olimpia must have enjoyed the pageantry of religious and political celebrations in the Eternal City, the likes of which she had never seen in Viterbo. Some three months after her wedding Olimpia experienced her first Roman Carnival—that uproarious celebration right before Ash Wednesday. Carnival was permitted by papal edict for a specific number of days—usually ten—but permission was withheld if the Papal States were suffering from plague, war, or famine. A sorrowful face, liberally bedaubed with ashes, was more likely to win God’s forgiveness than a jester’s hat with jingling bells.
Carnival began with the tolling of a bell on a Saturday and a procession of city officials. Two days later naked Jews were forced to race along the Corso, the main thoroughfare of Rome and the heart of Carnival, to the cheering of thousands of spectators who pelted them with eggs, vegetables, and dead cats. But this was not meant as a special denigration to Jews. On other days there were naked races of old men, cripples, little boys, whores, buffaloes, jackasses, and riderless horses with tacks stuck in their backs to make them run faster, and everyone got pelted. Called palios, the races were considered great fun for all—except, perhaps, for the horses—and the prizes were valuable bolts of cloth. One race was reserved for naked hunchbacks, “very remarkable for the variety of their humps.”5
A popular parade featured the King of the Defecators, hoisted aloft on a toilet chair and farting loudly. Horses, decked out with jingling silver bells and tall feathered headdresses, pulled extravagantly decorated floats through town. Carts rolled through the streets, some with musicians and others with costumed revelers. Jousts were held in large piazzas, including the Piazza Navona, along with mock naval battles as ships drawn on wheels shot firecrackers at one another. At night the entire city was illuminated with lanterns and torches, and fireworks were set off.
Day and night, costumed revelers thronged the Corso and surrounding streets and squares. Some paraded as doctors, lawyers, Jews, animals, and devils. Some men dressed as women, and some women dressed as men. All wore masks, and many were armed with syringes—the seventeenth-century version of a water pistol—which they squirted at one another. They also pelted passersby with oranges and painted eggs filled with scented powder, jam, perfume, or water. One popular prank was to pour honey out of an upper window onto the heads of pedestrians below.
On Ash Wednesday the boisterous extravagance of Carnival disappeared, replaced by the funereal atmosphere of Lent, which commemorated Jesus’ forty days in the desert. During this time, Romans wore black, ate no meat, attended no festivities, and meditated on the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. One Turkish ambassador visiting Rome was absolutely perplexed by the riotous Carnival followed by the sudden solemnity of Ash Wednesday. He wrote the sultan in Constantinople that Carnival was a ten-day mania that afflicted the Christians annually and was only cured by the application of ashes to the face.
Communion, which had been taken frequently in the early centuries of Christianity, had almost stopped completely by the sixteenth century. Catholic theologians argued loudly that the consecrated bread really was the body of Christ; this terrified people who thought it a desecration to have something so holy slide down their gullets, rumble into their stomachs, and come shooting out the other end.
Given the widespread fear of the Eucharist, the Council of Trent mandated that Catholics must confess and receive communion at least once a year. According to custom, most Catholics, having abstained from sex for three days, did this on the Thursday before Easter. The faithful received only bread as their communion, as the wine was reserved for priests. Laypeople with their clumsy hands could drop the chalice, thereby literally spilling the blood of Christ all over again.
In 1614 Olimpia would have noticed a novelty in her Easter confession, a grille between her and the priest. Pope Paul V had issued an edict mandating that all confessionals be outfitted with grilles because of the many complaints he had received from women who, when they confessed their sexual sins in graphic detail, suddenly found themselves pawed and groped by hormonally overwrought priests who could no longer contain themselves.
Olimpia would have seen many festivities taking place right in front of her house. The Piazza Navona was the heart of Rome’s powerful Spanish community. Here the Spanish ambassador lived, and right across from Olimpia’s home was the Church of Saint James, the Spanish national church. Every June 28 the Spanish ambassador started out from his home with a cavalcade of some three hundred carriages headed for the Vatican. There he presented the pope with a beautiful white horse, the chinea, the nominal rent that Spain paid for the kingdom of Naples, which was, technically, the territory of the pope. It is likely that the ambassador’s neighbors Pamphilio and Olimpia hitched up their carriage and joined in the procession.
Every August 7, Rome’s Spaniards and their friends celebrated the Feast of Our Lady in the Piazza Navona by giving dowries to young women of Spanish descent who otherwise would not be able to marry. In 1613, twenty-seven women processed through the piazza and entered the Church of Saint James to receive dowries raised by the confraternity. Olimpia, if she watched from her drawing room window, must have been pleased.
Olimpia and Pamphilio were not the only Pamphili family members living in the Piazza Navona house. Pamphilio’s younger brother Gianbattista also lived there. Gianbattista had been blindsided by his brother’s sudden decision to marry. The writer of an anonymous document in the Pamphili family archives asked Gianbattista if he had been consulted about the marriage. The monsignor replied that he had been completely left out of the decision. But, he added, he had always known that if and when Pamphilio married, it would be a “most noble wife,” that he approved of the bride wholeheartedly and wanted his brother to be happy.6
As head of the family, Pamphilio had a higher rank than Gianbattista. Pamphilio and Olimpia took the more important suite of rooms facing the Piazza Navona and wrapping around the side of the house. Gianbattista lived in the less honorable but more spacious suite of rooms in the rear.
It is amusing that the relationship of Olimpia and her brother-in-law, which would ultimately scandalize all Europe, got off on the wrong foot. When Olimpia first arrived at the Piazza Navona after her wedding, she swept through the rooms and joyfully exclaimed that all the lovely furniture was hers, including the room where Gianbattista had stacked his furniture to get it out of the bride’s way. He had bought some fine pieces with his salary as a canon lawyer or had received them as gifts from Uncle Girolamo.
Evidently, in a moment of weakness Gianbattista, reluctant to anger his brother and frightened by his imperious new sister-in-law, told her she could have it. But he soon regretted it and put his position in writing. He had not given Olimpia the furnishings, he explained to Pamphilio, “but I placed them in the last room of the Piazza Navona house before Signora Olimpia came to Rome, along with my other things, to empty the rooms for the occasion, and if Signora Olimpia says that I gave them to her, I imagine that I only could have said so out of fear or persuasion of Signor Pamphilio. But I insist that it be returned to me at all costs.”7 It is not known exactly how the issue was resolved, but events proved it was patched up with no hard feelings.
Gianbattista had been the favorite of the late Cardinal Girolamo, who had recognized his diligence and intelligence while he was still a child. Girolamo encouraged him to study canon law at the finest school in Rome, the Jesuit Collegio Romano. At the age of twenty, Gianbattista received his doctorate in law. Though he took holy orders in 1597, he did not seem to have an inclination for the ecclesiastical life. Like most young noblemen of his time—lay or religious—he excelled in dueling, drinking, and womanizing, which earned him the nickname “Monsieur Pastime.” The ambassador of Venice reported, “He had little capacity for such [scholarly] tasks and applied himself slowly to studies, passing his youth more in the pastimes of a cavalier than in learning the law. Despite his uncle’s assiduous efforts, he could not make him forget his nocturnal pleasures.”8
Uncle Girolamo was particularly concerned about Gianbattista’s gaudy Spanish hairstyle—long frizzed ringlets—and his refusal to wear church robes. He implored his Vatican friends to persuade his nephew to adopt a more serious look, suitable for a priest and lawyer. Their persuasions had an effect; one summer when Girolamo was vacationing outside Rome his nephew appeared wearing the long dark robes of a canon lawyer, and had lost the curls and frizz. After that, his days and nights of debauchery were over, and a new, sober Gianbattista won the immediate approval of his uncle and his church colleagues.
The new look boosted his career immediately. In 1601 Pope Clement VIII, Uncle Girolamo’s good friend, appointed Gianbattista a consistorial lawyer. Three years later, when Girolamo was named cardinal, the pope arranged for Gianbattista to take his uncle’s position as an auditor of the Rota, the Vatican court that heard civil cases relating to matrimony, financial issues, and other matters.
When Olimpia first met Gianbattista, he was thirty-eight years old, tall and well built, but not handsome like his brother. He had a wide forehead, often puckered into a scowl, and small hazel eyes. Even in youth his beard, that benchmark of seventeenth-century male beauty, had never been thick and silky but rather was straggly and sparse.
Gianbattista was learned, courteous, and by now, sober. He was also indecisive to the point of paralysis, deeply suspicious of others, and subject to gloomy silent depressions. Over time, he had developed a highly effective defense to prevent others from seeing the doubts that lurked inside him—a wall of inscrutable dignity. Cloaked in ugly majesty, he never showed his weaknesses to other men, whom he regarded as back-stabbing competitors.
Throughout his long life, Gianbattista was more prepared to trust women than men, as women could not compete with him in a man’s world. But it is likely that he was also searching for a surrogate mother, having lost his own in 1580, when he was six. Gianbattista could confide in women, let down his guard, and openly discuss his fears. He was extremely close to an older sister, Agatha, a nun in Rome’s Tor de’ Specchi Convent, and visited her frequently for long talks in the convent parlor.
Suddenly, this new sister-in-law bolted into his life like a ray of sunshine. Olimpia was charming, amusing, and highly intelligent. We can imagine that one day over lunch, when Pamphilio was in his office in the Campidoglio, Gianbattista first spoke to Olimpia of the lawsuits before him. Most women would have been bored to tears by such a topic, but Olimpia’s dark eyes would have sparkled with interest. Perhaps Gianbattista laid out the case, and the several possible decisions he could make, and the problems associated with each one. Perhaps he confided his horror of making the wrong choice. Olimpia’s sharp mind would have cut through the cobwebs of Gianbattista’s indecision, pointing out to him exactly the right choice to make.
Greatly relieved at the sudden clarity, Gianbattista would report to his office and do exactly as Olimpia had instructed him, and she was almost always right. He increasingly grew to rely on her and began spending several hours every day with her discussing his business. And it became clear to Olimpia how she would get political power. Not in Rome’s civil government through Pamphilio, but in the Catholic Church, through Gianbattista. Moreover, the church was far more powerful than civil authorities because the church ran the civil authorities.
Olimpia was absolutely thrilled that her guidance was being employed in the Vatican courts. And Gianbattista was thrilled to have such an excellent counselor. Here, finally, was a person he could trust, a person who had only his best interests at heart. According to Gregorio Leti, Gianbattista “never undertook anything without consulting her beforehand as if she were the world’s greatest oracle, and followed all her advice and her instructions.”9 In addition to helping Gianbattista’s career, Olimpia was the only person who could pluck the taciturn monsignor out of his depression and, with her wit and cheerfulness, make him laugh.
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 Gianbattista 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 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 Olimpia 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 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 Pamphilis.
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 Gianbattista 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 Italy—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 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 credenziere proffered sparkling silver pitchers and platters, glinting in the 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 Pamphili 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.