Where there is hatred, let me sow love. Where there is injury, pardon.
—Saint Francis of Assisi
THE POPE WAS SEVERELY DEPRESSED by the Mascambruno scandal and its withering effect on the international reputation of the Catholic Church. For the first time since he was elected, the seventy-eight-year-old pontiff seemed old, fragile. He suffered from insomnia and an odd trembling in his right hand that made it difficult for him to celebrate Mass.
Within days of Mascambruno’s execution, the pope razed the Tor di Nona prison, where his subdatary had been held and executed. Innocent had been thinking about building a modern prison for years, but now he felt compelled to begin the project to erase the revolting memories of the papal forger.
Many prisoners incarcerated temporarily for lesser offenses—debts or drunken brawling, for instance—found that instead of a few months in jail, they had, in effect, received a death sentence due to unhealthy prison conditions. After heavy rains, the Tiber could rise at a moment’s notice and drown the first-floor prisoners. Mice, lice, fleas, and human waste turned the cells into sewers raging with infection. One Roman confraternity had the sole purpose of visiting nonviolent prisoners weekly to determine which ones were becoming ill. The confraternity members would then petition the courts for early release, reminding the judges that the penalty imposed had been a few months’ incarceration, and not death. Most of these requests were granted.
As a just monarch, Innocent saw great injustice in the prison system. It was not fair for someone convicted of a misdemeanor to die for the crime. Neither was it fair for a criminal to be let off the hook early without paying fully for his misdeeds. It was clear to Innocent that a new prison must be built that was more conducive to inmate health.
Innocent commissioned his friend Monsignor Virgilio Spada to design the Carceri Nuovi, the New Prison. Spada held the vaunted position of papal almoner, distributing Innocent’s alms to worthy recipients. In addition, he was a trained architect who advised Innocent on all architectural matters. Prison design had not changed since the Middle Ages, and Spada’s plans were trailblazing. Cells had balconies where prisoners, though behind bars, could enjoy fresh air and sunshine. Large courtyards permitted the inmates—who previously had not seen much daylight for the length of their sentences—to exercise regularly. The spacious cells were all well above ground—no more drownings—and would be cleaned regularly to avoid contagion. Convicts could complete their sentences in health, and justice would be served.
Though Mascambruno’s prison had swiftly disappeared, his legacy of crime and punishment continued. On July 27, 1652, two associates of Mascambruno’s were hanged, their bodies burned and the ashes thrown in the Tiber. Two others fled to Geneva, where they were heartily welcomed by the heretics. Another one, hearing the tromping of the guards on his stairs coming to get him, flung himself out of an upper window, committing suicide.
The depressed pope began to think about building his tomb. When he first became pope, he and Olimpia had discussed plans to turn the tiny Chapel of Saint Agnes into a grand church facing the Piazza Navona, a baroque confection worthy of the bones of the Pamphili family and the pope himself. The chapel had originally been built in one of the arches of the Domitian stadium, the site of the supposed saint’s supposed martyrdom.
By the time houses were built in the piazza in the fourteenth century, the Chapel of Saint Agnes was submerged some fifteen feet below ground. A large town house was constructed on top of it, facing the piazza, while a little church and entry to the chapel were built on the Via dell’Anima, behind the piazza. Innocent planned to buy the house, now owned by the Mellini family, tear it down along with the old church behind it, and create his grand new church. Connected to the enlarged Palazzo Pamphili, the church would be an extension of the palace complex and a political statement of the power and grandeur of the Pamphili family. In the belfry he would place the church bells taken from his victory over Castro.
Innocent commissioned the father-and-son architects Girolamo and Carlo Rainaldi to design the edifice. Camillo, who preened himself over his vast architectural expertise, was given the honor of overseeing the project. In a grand ceremony, attended by numerous cardinals, the pope laid the foundation stone on August 15.
Despite his excitement over the new building projects, the pope’s temper became unusually short. In September he finally fired his old friend Cardinal Cecchini from the post of datary, the exact reason for which has never clearly been determined. Giacinto Gigli wrote, “No one knew if it was because he had been complicit in the errors of Mascambruno or for some other reason…. Those waiting in the antechamber for an audience with the pope heard a big argument in which the pope was very angry and the cardinal said that he had always been an honest gentleman and the pope said, If that is so we will see soon. And he told him not to appear in consistory or in church or anywhere else.”1
Querulous and suspicious, on October 2 the pope fired both the majordomo and the head butler of Cardinal Astalli-Pamphili. In November the grouchy pontiff fired his own majordomo and his wardrobe master. He took an inveterate dislike to his friend and architectural advisor Virgilio Spada and to Monsignor Farnese, the governor of Rome.
The Holy Father was becoming a holy terror, lashing out in uncontrollable anger at his family members, his staff, his old friends, and even the cardinals. He granted very few favors. Those who sought favors knew the only person the pope listened to was Cardinal Chigi, who refused to intercede on behalf of greedy favor seekers. The unofficial business of the court—the bestowing of pensions, titles, honors, and incomes—came to a grinding halt. Many courtiers began to believe that only if Olimpia came back could things return to normal. Only she could truly calm the fretful pontiff. Olimpia alone could make him laugh and shrug off for a few moments the crushing weight of his office. Only she could convince him to listen to the requests of courtiers—for a commission, of course, the accepted price of doing business.
Cardinal Pallavicino huffed, “The most highly regarded prelates and cardinals of the court, who knew of this abomination of the monstrous power of a woman in the Vatican, and knew of her pomp and greed and how she abused it, being intolerant of Innocent’s hardness, desired the sister-in-law back to help them with favors, as an angel of intercession.”2
For the same reason, the Pamphili family, too—with the exception of the princess of Rossano—wanted Olimpia back. Without her mediation, they had received very few favors from the pope, who lately had been chasing them out of his audience chamber with angry words whenever they requested anything. Only Olimpia could convince the pope to fulfill his duties to his family. Eyeing Cardinal Astalli-Pamphili warily, the family knew that only Olimpia could deal effectively with this arrogant intruder siphoning off the Pamphili patrimony.
And so Camillo, Prince Ludovisi, Prince Giustiniani, and several cardinals, when listening to the pope’s venting about unruly servants or difficult politics, nodded with compassionate understanding. Things had never been the same for the poor pope since Olimpia left, they said. Only Olimpia could muzzle her clamorous family members. Only Olimpia could run his large household with strict efficiency so that he did not have to upset himself over bad help. Only Olimpia could supervise the datary and the other departments, keeping an unblinking eye on all financial transactions, and making sure that corruption did not go beyond the bounds of good taste. Perhaps the pope should consider bringing Olimpia back? Why should he torment himself, at his age, with such irritating details, when his brilliant sister-in-law could do all that for him?
The pope had to agree. He desperately wanted Olimpia back. He had valiantly taken a stand against her to maintain the honor of the Catholic Church, but without her the honor of the church had fallen to new lows. He missed his old comfortable pair of loafers. He missed chuckling and gossiping with her, unveiling his deepest fears, something he couldn’t do with anyone else. Nothing had been right since she left.
But Innocent found himself in a quandary. Back in 1650 when he banished Olimpia from his presence, he had launched into angry monologues against her in front of ambassadors and cardinals. He had criticized her thieving from the papal treasury, her bossiness in running the Vatican, and her selfish cruelty against her son, daughter-in-law, and grandson. The pope had sworn that for six years he had known nothing about her corruption, and now that he knew, he was exiling her from the Vatican. Those who listened to his tirades had applauded his firmness. If he brought her back despite her crimes, they would laugh at his weakness.
The pope knew that he would look ridiculous if he suddenly issued a pardon to Olimpia. He would need to canvas the Sacred College, as advisors to the church, to see whether they would support her return. That way he wouldn’t be making the decision alone. He began timidly asking his cardinals individually what they thought of allowing Olimpia back. Even those who did not particularly like Olimpia believed that she would provide a soothing influence on the pope, rendering him much easier to work with.
Some cardinals thought that the pope’s open contempt for his sister-in-law had been unseemly; he should bring her back to a position of modified favor, giving her the role of friend and first lady of Rome but not of running the government. These cardinals told the pope that Olimpia had learned her lesson; she would henceforth restrain her greed and ambition and restrict herself to a more womanly role—the pope’s hostess and companion.
Cardinal Pallavicino scoffed at this opinion. “And this is wondrous in sage men, all assuming that she could return to a state in between, in which she would have helped with the petitions of others but would not have regained her former power or sold the palace positions as best she could.”3
While most cardinals told the pope that pardoning Olimpia was an excellent idea, the one assent he truly wanted was that of Cardinal Chigi, the man he respected most. If the incorruptible Chigi supported Olimpia’s return for the good of the pope and the church, few would question it. Cardinal Pallavicino reported, “One day, finding himself alone with Cardinal Chigi, he asked his opinion if it were opportune to rehabilitate her for the peace and quiet of the family, and to relieve him of these tedious matters.”4
Cardinal Chigi found himself in a bind. “He knew that the pope having Olimpia by his side the second time around would be much more dishonorable than the first, when one could presume he was ignorant of the indecent occurrences.”5 But Chigi also knew that even if he were adamantly opposed to Olimpia’s pardon, the pope would call her back anyway. Restored to power, Olimpia, realizing Chigi was an enemy, would sideline or fire him, and he would not be in a position to mitigate the scandal she would cause for the church. And yet the honest cardinal could not lie to the pope.
Sighing, Chigi said he feared that Olimpia’s return would result in an immediate public brawl with the princess of Rossano, who would not be likely to graciously yield her position as first lady of Rome to her mother-in-law. He would not wish to see His Holiness brought low by further family squabbles.
The pope, who had wanted an enthusiastic affirmation of his proposal, was dissatisfied with this cool response. He hesitated. And his family remained on tenterhooks. Realizing that Cardinal Chigi was responsible for the pope’s hesitation, Prince Ludovisi called on him one day to convince him that Olimpia’s return was for the good of the Catholic Church and the Papal States.
“Cardinal Chigi,” his biographer wrote, “knew well that the evil of her return was inevitable, but did not want to be seen as a participant in it.” When Prince Ludovisi pressed Chigi for his opinion, he replied “that this business had nothing to do with him, that he had never been opposed to her return with a single word, and that the pope and his sister-in-law should try with all sincerity to live tranquilly.”6 And that was all they were going to get out of Cardinal Chigi.
It was enough for the pope to move forward. Seventeenth-century protocol required that Olimpia be rehabilitated in a ceremonial way, having made peace with her former enemies before she was pardoned by the pope. Her first step was to win over Sister Agatha, who had never forgiven her for stealing Saint Francesca’s shoulder bone. Olimpia explained her pilfering of the holy relic as an excess of religious zeal. She, too, loved and venerated the saint and wanted the relic to restore the luster to a neglected church in San Martino. What she had done might have been wrong, indeed, but her motives had been pure—it was all for the glory of God.
This was an explanation likely to win the nun’s approval. Olimpia asked her forgiveness for the theft, which the pious, peacemaking nun readily granted. Olimpia confessed the pain and humiliation of her exile—we can imagine Sister Agatha in tears at this point—and her wish to be reinstated in the bosom of her family. And the kindhearted nun promised to help.
On March 11, 1653, Romans were flabbergasted by the sight of Olimpia making a courtesy call on the princess of Rossano at her palace on the Corso. Camillo was absent from Rome, but there, in front of the palazzo, the heavily pregnant princess, eighty-three-year-old Sister Agatha, and four-year-old Gianbattista Pamphili were lined up to welcome Olimpia as if she were a queen. It must have been difficult for Olimpia to extend her hand to her daughter-in-law, and even more difficult for the princess to take that hand.
Cardinal Astalli-Pamphili then visited Olimpia at the Piazza Navona palace for a public, if superficial, reconciliation. But the most important ceremony occurred when Sister Agatha led Olimpia by the arm into the Quirinal Palace for a private meeting with the pope. She remained there until after midnight, the avvisi stated, which indicates that the journalists had stationed themselves outside the palace to see what time she reentered her carriage.
One of Olimpia’s first acts delighted her family. She convinced the pope to give Prince Ludovisi 100,000 scudi from the papal treasury, the dowry he should have received back in 1644 for marrying Costanza Pamphili. For decades the going rate for a papal niece had been 100,000 scudi, and he had only received 20,000. Now the fat prince could no longer berate his wife for her lack of dowry or tromp around Rome complaining of his bad bargain, which must have gladdened Costanza more than the cash itself. He used this money to buy a palace and began to incorporate the houses next door into it.
Once more, Olimpia’s carriage rumbled up to the Quirinal, where she emerged carrying a stack of petitions for the pope to sign. Once again the Piazza Navona was crammed with the carriages of cardinals and ambassadors whom she received like an empress, surrounded by a bevy of noblewomen waiting on her. The ambassador of the Venetian republic traveled to the Piazza Navona in great pomp to beg Olimpia’s assistance in convincing the pope to help Venice fight the Turks.
She received everyone graciously except Monsignor Melzi, the nuncio to Vienna who had helped topple her in 1650 by telling Innocent of the emperor’s comment, that the shame of Christendom was a pope who “has placed his government in the hands of a woman about whom all the heretics are laughing.”7 As a peace offering, Nuncio Melzi sent Olimpia two beautiful scent bottles filled with rare perfume. To no avail. He was her enemy and would never be forgiven. But she kept the perfume.
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 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 Olimpia’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, 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 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.
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 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 Barberinis.
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.
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 Barberini. 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 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.
At first Olimpiuccia’s father, Prince Andrea, refused to return her to Olimpia. His mother-in-law’s interference with his daughter had always irritated him. But finally he realized that the future of the Pamphili family depended on the marriage. If the Pamphilis had any hope of obtaining a friendly pope in the next conclave, Olimpiuccia must be sacrificed. And so he reluctantly drove her back to the Piazza Navona but told everyone who would listen that his daughter’s unhappy fate was caused by his nasty, meddling mother-in-law, who had originally planned to marry her to that imbecile Francesco Maidalchini, who had, thank God, gone into the church.
In May 1653 the haughty Cardinal Antonio Barberini set out from Paris with a great entourage to return to Rome, where he would be welcomed with triumphal arches and numerous festivities. And on May 30, the dowry documents, written in the florid style of the time, were signed.
The Most Excellent Signora Donna Olimpia Maidalchini Pamphili, Princess of San Martino, promises the Most Excellent Signor Don Maffeo Barberini, son of the Most Excellent Signor Don Taddeo Barberini of Most Happy Memory, and of the Most Excellent Donna Anna Colonna, to give him as his legitimate wife the Most Excellent Signorina Donna Olimpia Giustiniani her granddaughter and daughter of the Most Excellent Signor Andrea Giustiniani, and of the Most Excellent Signora Maria Pamphili, niece of His Holiness, which granddaughter the Signora Princess of San Martino has educated since the first months after her birth, and loved as if she were her own daughter…”13
The dowry was 100,000 scudi given by the bride’s father, but the avvisi noted that Olimpia had provided 70,000 of it herself.
On June 15, the sobbing child bride and the morose groom were married by the pope himself in an elaborate ceremony in the Sistine Chapel, attended by the entire Sacred College. Immediately after the ceremony, the marriage feast was held at the Pamphili Palace. The bride’s grandmother was absolutely delighted, the groom’s mother less so. Anna Colonna, who had avoided for nearly a decade marrying a blue-blooded child of hers to a parvenu Pamphili, looked on the marriage as a degradation and a necessary evil. Having Olimpia in her family would be a daily martyrdom for the haughty princess. We can imagine her sour-faced and purse-lipped, picking at her food with a silver fork—not tin anymore—while a beaming Olimpia dug into her meal with hearty gusto.
After the feast, the groom was supposed to take his bride to her new home, the exquisite Palace of the Four Fountains. But Olimpiuccia raced up to her old bedroom and locked the door. The wedding guests could hear her loud sobs echoing through the walls. Then she threw open the window and cried at the top of her lungs that she wanted to become a nun, that she wanted to die a virgin and poor, and that she had never agreed to marry for money. She shrieked that she knew what her husband expected of her that night because a waiting woman had told her, and she wanted no part of it.
The people milling around the Piazza Navona admiring the carriages of the wedding guests stopped talking and listened intently. The bride then swore that she would not unlock her door until Maffeo Barberini went home without her. Olimpia had never imagined that her moment of greatest triumph—the union of the Pamphilis and Barberinis that she had planned for nine years—would be spoiled by the stubbornness of a twelve-year-old.
The humiliated groom hung around disconsolately, not knowing what to do. Finally, Olimpia persuaded him to go home. She had raised Olimpiuccia from birth and knew her better than anyone; she would talk to her and bring her to his palace the following day. But now Olimpiuccia proved herself to be Olimpia’s granddaughter and vowed to use church law against the fate concocted for her. Since in the eyes of the church a marriage was no marriage until consummation, she knew that she was, technically, not married. If she held out long enough, embarrassed the Barberinis long enough, perhaps they would annul the contract and she could get out of the whole thing.
To a great extent Olimpiuccia’s behavior was the fault of her grandmother, who had raised her to be brash and strong in a world that endeavored to crush weak females. Teodoro Amayden informed his readers that Olimpia had told the child again and again, “Olimpiuccia, never let anyone underestimate you! You must be the boss of everything.”14 Little had Olimpia considered that this lesson would be used against herself.
Days turned into weeks, then months. Messengers galloped back and forth between the Piazza Navona and the Barberini Palace. Maffeo visited periodically, hoping that his bride would get used to him. Olimpia convinced her granddaughter to permit Maffeo to hold her hand and give her a little kiss, but that was all she could get out of her.
Surely it helped Maffeo’s marital humiliation to be treated as a reigning prince; ambassadors called on the new “nephew,” bowing and offering him rich gifts. Whenever he visited a noble palazzo, the bells pealed in celebration. Yet his hold on the title of papal lay nephew was tenuous because the marriage had not yet been consummated.
Olimpia tried to cajole Olimpiuccia to join her husband and, mistakenly thinking she was speaking to a younger version of herself, raved about the social prestige she would enjoy, and the lavish entertainments she would give in salons far larger and more beautiful than those in the Palazzo Pamphili. For Olimpiuccia would live in the magnificent Palazzo Barberini, the palace Olimpia had always had her eye on, with its triumphal staircase, forty-foot ceilings, and splendid fragrant gardens. But here Olimpiuccia differed from her grandmother. She did not care for such things, she said, and preferred the deprivations of the convent to the luxuries of the Palazzo Barberini. She wanted to die a virgin, and poor.
Olimpia called in her daughter Maria, Olimpiuccia’s mother, who had never been very involved in the girl’s upbringing, to do what she could. Maria begged her daughter to obey for the sake of the family. Many young girls, she pointed out cheerfully, were forced to marry ugly, sick old men. Maffeo Barberini was only twenty and not bad-looking. But Olimpiuccia—old enough to understand sex but young enough to despise the idea of it—repeated that she wanted to remain a virgin for life.
All Rome gossiped about this unconsummated marriage, and the pope grew troubled. Easily angered, he fired his maestro di camera, Monsignor Centofiorini, and other household employees for poor performance. He ordered his doctor, Gabriele Fonseca, not to come into his presence unless summoned. Giacinto Gigli noted, “And he has become so grouchy that all his servants fear being fired.”15
On June 29, after celebrating the feast of Saints Peter and Paul, the cranky pope stopped by the Piazza Navona to see how work was coming along on the Church of Saint Agnes. He noticed that ungainly stairs had just been built, which jutted out into the piazza, ruining its oval symmetry. They were so ugly, in fact, that people had begun saying the Four Rivers Fountain figure of the Nile had draped its head so it wouldn’t have to look at them.
Seeing the pope, the masons ran up to him and complained that Camillo had not paid them. Innocent was furious. He ordered that the stairs be demolished. He fired Camillo as overseer of the project and the Rainaldis as architects. To finish the job he brought in Francesco Borromini, who had the challenge of making major modifications to a building already half constructed. It would be a long process, and the pope despaired of ever seeing the church finished. Where would his bones rest when he died? He became depressed, and as usual, his health suffered.
Worried about the pope’s health, Olimpia decided he needed an invigorating visit to Viterbo and San Martino. The pope, who usually disliked travel, was actually looking forward to the diversion. When Dr. Fonseca forced his way into the pope’s room to warn him of the dangers of the journey, the pope fired him. Cardinal Chigi, too, advised him not to go. He was concerned not only with the pope’s health but with the glorification of Olimpia, which seemed to him the sole purpose of the journey she had arranged. The pope, of course, didn’t listen. On Sunday, October 12, at 8 A.M., the entourage left Rome.
Innocent was so eager to see San Martino that he bypassed Viterbo entirely, leaving the welcoming committee twiddling their thumbs. He was carried up the double-snail staircase of Olimpia’s palace and settled into the bedroom she had built specially for him, with an interior door connecting to hers. When the dignitaries of Viterbo, hearing of the pontiff’s sudden change in plans, raced to see him, he received them on the papal throne of the audience chamber Olimpia had designed for him. Above him was the gilded ceiling that could be raised or lowered; on three sides were long windows looking out over the green hills. For several hours Innocent graciously granted audiences to local churchmen, officials, and nobles.
Cardinal Chigi, who had been dragged along unwillingly, was shocked to see an inscription on the gate outside Olimpia’s palace that stated that Pope Innocent X had given her the principality. He pointed out to the pope that Rome-bound travelers rumbling by on the main road—Catholic and heretic alike—would see the inscription and, knowing all the scurrilous stories about the pope and his sister-in-law, would laugh at it. Innocent reluctantly agreed that it had to be removed and told Olimpia, who now held another grudge against Chigi.
The following day, the entourage rode the three miles to Viterbo, where the pope was received in the cathedral by none other than Cardinal Francesco Maidalchini. The little cardinal had been assigned the benefice with the sole purpose of getting him out of Rome so that the pope wouldn’t have to look at him anymore. Compared to the intrigues of Rome, the peace and quiet of Viterbo had suited Cardinal Maidalchini, who was still only twenty-three. Perhaps he was nervous as the pope was carried in his litter up to the altar—Innocent had been known to yell at him in front of the most important visitors. But when Innocent emerged, he was in high spirits and showed unusual kindness to Olimpia’s nephew.
The pope next visited Olimpia’s younger sisters in the Convent of Saint Dominic. Having left the convent, the papal carriages rolled to Olimpia’s Nini palace for a reception. Here was where her worldly success had begun. Here she had known wealth of her own for the first time. Here she had discovered sex. Here she had borne two children; and here she had lost two children. Here she had become a widow when twenty-three-year-old Nino breathed his last. Here she had plotted her further advance in the world and had gone looking for Pamphilio Pamphili, nobleman of Rome. It must have meant a great deal for Olimpia, bringing the pope into her past, in full sight of the citizens of Viterbo. If there were any still alive who had treated her badly when she was young, she must have doubly relished her victory.
On the road back to San Martino, the cavalcade stopped for refreshments at the hunting lodge called Il Barco, built by Olimpia’s half-brother, Andrea, who had died four years earlier. It was a frescoed jewel of a house, with a floor-length wall fountain in the entry-level hall and bedrooms leading out onto charming balconies with outside staircases. A little church stood behind it, and orchards all around it.
The self-important Andrea had always hated it when people pointed to his younger half-sister as the source of his power and wealth. She alone, they said, had given him the wherewithal to build his hunting lodge. But they were wrong. As tax collector of Viterbo, Andrea had stolen the money all by himself. Still, the insults rankled. He had inserted a marble slab into the outside wall where carriages drove up, stating that he had built the residence in 1625, “before his sister Olimpia went as wife to the brother of Pope Innocent X.” Yet his sister Olimpia had gone as wife to the brother of Pope Innocent X in 1612.
At Il Barco, Olimpia played a joke on the pope. In and around Viterbo, October was the time of the famous chestnut harvest. Olimpia had secretly arranged for roasted chestnuts to be tied on the trees. She then instructed the Swiss Guard to gather them for the pope, and he laughed heartily when he tasted them, proclaiming it a miracle. When Monsignor Acquapendente, the governor of Viterbo, paid his respects, Innocent was so jolly that he promised to make him a cardinal in the next creation, a promise that he kept.
The entire visit was a great success. Innocent enjoyed it immensely, and away from the cares of Rome he felt younger and healthier than he had in years. He didn’t even let the usual family disturbances unduly worry him. On the road home, a group of laborers blocked the papal carriage and informed the pontiff that Prince Giustiniani had hired them to fill potholes for the pope’s visit but now that the work was done wouldn’t pay them. As punishment, the pope refused to honor the prince’s castle with the expected visit. Camillo had come along on the trip, leaving the princess of Rossano in Rome, and told the pope that his marriage was unbearable. The princess never stopped nagging him, and he wished he could be cardinal nephew again.
Glowing with good health and high spirits, when the pope arrived in Rome he went first to Saint Peter’s, then to the Palazzo Pamphili, and then to the Quirinal, insisting at each stop that he get out of his chair and go up the stairs on foot. People marveled at his firm step, bright eyes, and easy smile.
While all were agreed on the pope’s miraculous regeneration, not everyone believed this was a good thing. One avvisi writer told of the general disappointment that the voyage had probably given the pontiff another ten years of life.