Mistress of the Vatican (61 page)

[ 367 ]

Eleanor Herman

Usually the family brought to Saint Peter’s the two traditional caskets of mahogany and bronze, into which the body was reverently placed. The family then had the corpse carried to its final resting place.

It was known that Innocent had wanted to be buried in the Church of Saint Agnes. Though it was still a far cry from finished, he could have been interred in a temporary tomb until the church was completed and a suitable monument sculpted. But the cardinals had not received any word from the Pamphilis as to where the pope was to be taken. Worse, when the funeral broke up, the pope was still lying under the balda-chino on a slab, and no coffins had arrived. The cardinals and other officials stood around the body awkwardly, not knowing what to do with it. Had the pope’s family, in their grief, forgotten the coffins?

Naturally, church officials thought first of Olimpia. The pope had made her a princess, given her several towns, castles, palaces, and art collections, and she had raked in countless millions of gold scudi in pensions and bribes. A delegation was dispatched to the Piazza Navona to call on her. They respectfully asked her when the coffins would arrive at Saint Peter’s and where she wanted to entomb the body.

But now it was payback time. Looking at the expectant faces of the burial committee, Olimpia politely replied that she could not afford to pay for the coffins, being, as she said, only “a poor widow.”
⁵
They should ask her son, Prince Camillo, who was the male head of the Pamphili family and the pope’s heir. She was, after all, just a woman.

Perplexed by this response, the burial committee called on Camillo in his immense palace on the Corso. Having heard their request, Camillo stated that his mother had always received much more money from the pope than he ever had, and even if he was the heir,
she
should pay for the burial. They should go back to his mother and ask her again.

Back they went to Olimpia. Seated in her palatial rooms crammed with valuable furniture, she twittered apologies that she could not afford to bury the pope, and they must once again ask Camillo. Back they went to Camillo, who replied that if his mother was too niggardly to bury the pope, the expenses should be borne by the Vatican treasury, certainly not by
him
.

[ 368 ]

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

Realizing they were getting nowhere, the burial committee next called on Princes Ludovisi and Giustiniani, who had both profited handsomely as papal nephews. These worthy gentlemen declared that if Olimpia and Camillo were too grasping to pay for the coffins, they didn’t see why
they,
being more distant relatives, should have to bear the expense.

The body was, by now, beginning to stink. It couldn’t be left to decompose in the middle of Saint Peter’s Basilica in full view of the faithful. Something had to be done with it.

It was suggested that the body could be stored in a room of Saint Peter’s sacristy, an area adjoining the church where the holy vestments, chalices, prayer books, and other sacred objects were kept. But the sacristans objected to having a dead body, even a papal one, in their place of work. The chief sacristan said the body should be taken to Donna Olimpia, who was, after all, responsible for it. Yet the burial committee was reluctant to cart the blackened corpse on a plank through the streets of Rome and knock on Olimpia’s door. Surely her servants would not allow it to be brought inside, and they couldn’t very well leave it at her doorstep, where people would steal the clothes and leave the pope lying naked in the Piazza Navona.

An anonymous contemporary manuscript reported the dilemma. “They did not give a sepulcher to the majestic cadaver because no one had prepared the coffin to put him in, and finding that no one wanted to pay for it, Monsignor Sacristan, in the presence of all those princes, attested to having many times insisted and warned Donna Olimpia. . . . So it is no marvel that the following day there multiplied the imprecations of avarice against this family, which abhorred the cost of 100 scudi for custody of the bones of that pope who had eviscerated the treasury of the church to enrich each one of them, leaving it with a debt of 8 million.”
⁶

The Basilica of Saint Peter’s required constant maintenance, and the custodians had a workroom in the basement where carpenters kept their saws, hammers, and other tools. It was decided to carry the pope on a plank of wood into this janitor’s closet. There they would leave him until someone in the family called for him.

On January 13, the sixth day after the pope’s death, Marchese Riccardi,

[ 369 ]

Eleanor Herman

ambassador of the grand duke of Tuscany, wrote, “The Pope has not yet been buried, because no one can be found who will pay for it. Don Ca-millo says that he never received anything from His Beatitude and suggests we contact Donna Olimpia, who she says she is not the heir. And so His Beatitude remains there in a corner.”
⁷

Cardinal Pallavicino wrote that the pope’s body was placed “in a vile room subjected to the injuries of humidity and filthy animals because no one wanted to pay for burial. This is a great lesson for popes as to what affection they can expect from their relatives for whom they risk conscience and honor.”
⁸

And indeed, there was a problem with filthy animals. Rats scuttled out of the woodwork to nibble on the pope. The carpenters who used the room were horrified that the papal corpse was becoming a feast for vermin. One of them kept a candle lit at the head of the corpse, while another stood guard with a two-by-four, ready to whack any adventurous rodents.

And this was Olimpia’s ultimate revenge. Innocent had thrown her to the dogs. Now she was throwing him to the rats.

Finally Monsignor Scotti, the pope’s majordomo, couldn’t stand it anymore and bought a cheap wooden coffin with his own money. Monsignor Segni, a former majordomo whom Innocent had unjustly fired, came forward with his savings of five scudi to pay for grave diggers to inter him in an unmarked grave in the basement of the basilica.

On his coronation day, October 4, 1644, Innocent’s master of ceremonies had held out burning flax in front of him to remind him of his mortality, saying, “
Pater sancte, sic transit gloria mundi
.” Holy Father, thus passes the glory of the world.

q

For years Cardinal Maidalchini had been chomping at the bit to show openly his disrespect of his aunt, and now the time had come. As cam-erlengo during the vacant See, Antonio Barberini temporarily held papal power. Maidalchini convinced Antonio to return to Cardinal Astalli all the benefices the pope had unjustly taken away from him, benefices that Olimpia in the meantime had bestowed on her friends.

[ 370 ]

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

Olimpia was furious to hear what her nephew had done and decided to get back at him. He had returned to Rome during the pope’s final illness and was living in a palace owned by Olimpia near the Trevi Fountain, which he had filled with his furniture. Olimpia ordered him to leave the palace and take every stick of his furniture with him. The cardinal informed Olimpia that it was a vacant See, and there was no reason, when another pope was created, that she should tell anyone what to do. But vacant See or not, the palace he had been living in was her property. Cardinal Maidalchini had to move. He stored his tables and chairs at the palace of Prince Ludovisi.

Huffing and puffing on his way out, Cardinal Maidalchini “was so mad at his aunt that he said publicly that when there was a new pope the first favor he would ask was this, that she be punished severely.”
⁹

It was a sign of things to come.

[ 371 ]

24

Pope Alexander VII

q

Malice sucks up the greater part
of her own venom, and poisons herself.

—Michel de Montaigne very family of a freshly deceased pope teetered on the brink of ruin at the conclave, and the Pamphilis were no exception. Everything Olimpia had worked for over the previous forty years could be snatched from her in an instant if the wrong cardinal were elected pope.

On January 18, 1655, sixty-six cardinals solemnly entered the Sistine Chapel. In his last creation of 1654, Innocent had filled the college up to its limit of seventy. In the meantime one had died, two elderly cardinals living in Spain didn’t want to budge, and Cardinal Mazarin remained in Paris running the country for the king and sleeping with the queen mother.

In the Sistine Chapel, Cardinal Francesco Barberini, as vice deacon of the Sacred College, started off the proceedings by singing the Mass of the Holy Spirit. The conclave remained open for foreign ambassadors throughout that day and all the next. For several months, the Spanish and French ambassadors had been sitting on instructions from their kings as to which cardinals to exclude in conclave and which to support.

E

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

Now that the conclave was about to begin, their meetings with the cardinals were so urgent, and lasted so long, that the conclave was not officially sealed until after 2 a.m. on January 20, when the Spanish ambassador almost had to be physically ejected.

This conclave was unusual because there was no cardinal nephew of the freshly deceased pope to rally the allies of his uncle into an impressive faction. Cardinal Francesco Barberini, cardinal nephew of the pope-before-last, gathered many of his uncle’s creations around him. Cardinal Carlo de’ Medici was in charge of the Spanish clique, and Rinaldo d’Este, supported by Cardinal Antonio Barberini, was in charge of the French partisans.

But there was a fourth group, consisting of ten “young” cardinals— most in their forties—many of whom had been promoted in Innocent’s last creation the year before. Led by Olimpia’s supporter Decio Azzolini, they formed a faction independent of France or Spain. They called themselves “the Flying Squadron,” or
squadrone volante,
a term for an auxiliary military unit that was deployed with great speed to that spot on the battlefield where its assistance was most urgently needed. The Flying Squadron vowed to elect the best pontiff possible, regardless of French or Spanish interests. Most of its members were close friends of Olimpia’s.

Before the conclave began, Olimpia and Cardinal Azzolini had decided their first choice would be Cardinal Giulio Sacchetti, a mild-mannered and scholarly prelate of exactly the right age—sixty-eight— who would do no harm to the Pamphilis. Sacchetti, who would have won in 1644 had Spain not excluded him, was also the favorite of Cardinal Mazarin and therefore had many of the French votes.

On January 21 the first scrutiny was held. Cardinal Sacchetti received thirty-nine votes, only five fewer than was required to become pope. Several other candidates, including Cardinal Chigi, were proposed but received far less support.

On January 22, the seventy-three-year-old Cardinal Pierluigi Carafa received forty-one votes. Later that day he began to feel ill, along with Cardinals Pallotta, Caffarelli, Rapaccioli, and Ceva. Only two days after the doors were sealed, an epidemic had broken out, which was unusual for a winter conclave.

[ 373 ]

Eleanor Herman

Tensions already ran high. That evening, Giacinto Gigli noted, Cardinals Astalli and Azzolini fell into a violent shouting match and ended up slapping each other. Given the fact that Astalli was Olimpia’s vicious enemy, and Azzolini her staunchest supporter, it is likely that the subject of the argument was Olimpia.

On January 24, the rumor raced across Rome that Cardinal Fran-cesco Barberini would become pope. Olimpia, Maffeo, and Olimpiuc-cia received the news with glad hearts, and the bookies changed their odds to favor him. But it proved untrue. Other
papabili
were proposed and ditched for various reasons. Cardinal Spada was highly regarded but not well liked. Spain supported the election of Cardinal Francesco Rapaccioli, but at forty-six, he would likely have such a long reign that none of the older cardinals would get a chance to be pope.

Cardinal Ulderico Carpegna was pushed by France if Sacchetti fell out of the running. At fifty-nine he was almost of suitable age. But his greatest disadvantage was his young, vivacious sister-in-law, who was best friends with the princess of Rossano and despised Olimpia. The sister-in-law had not only numerous poor relatives but insatiable ambition. The cardinals shuddered to think of another Olimpia storming into the Vatican and telling them all what to do.

Cardinal Cecchini, the former datary, was well respected but suffered from family disadvantages, which also reminded the cardinals of Innocent. “He lets himself be dominated by his sister-in-law more than is usual,” the Venetian ambassador wrote. “His only nephew has very little in the way of a brain, and of the countless other relatives, none is very smart.”
¹

On January 27 the conclave was opened briefly to allow the just-arrived ambassador of the Holy Roman Emperor to meet with cardinals. In the meantime word leaked out that Cardinal Maidalchini was denouncing his aunt Olimpia in dramatic speeches.