Mistress of the Vatican (13 page)

Urban had a square beard, hard, round eyes, and a snub nose that gave him the look of an alert schnauzer. The Venetian envoy Zeno was more flattering in his description. “His Holiness is tall, dark, with regular features and black hair turning grey. He is exceptionally elegant and refined in all details of his dress; has a graceful and aristocratic bearing and exquisite taste. He is an excellent speaker and debater, writes verses and patronizes poets and men of letters.”
¹⁰

The Barberini family coat of arms featured three gold honeybees on

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a blue shield, and indeed, it was whispered that two days before Urban’s election a swarm of bees had hovered over his cell in conclave, forming themselves into the shape of a papal crown, surely an omen from the Holy Spirit. The family coat of arms had previously been three horseflies, but the rising family had had the good sense to change it. Bees, it was known, were attracted to honey, the nectar of the gods. Horseflies were attracted to manure, the nectar of horseflies.

At Naples, the Pamphilis waited for news of the conclave. Would the new pope recall Gianbattista from his nunciature, replacing him with a friend or relative as most popes did? The answer came quickly. Pope Urban VIII was pleased with his nuncio’s work in Naples. Gianbat-tista—and Olimpia—should continue.

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After four years as nuncio to the kingdom of Naples, Gianbattista was finally recalled to Rome in March 1625. Olimpia packed up her household and made the dangerous trip back, unloading at the old house in the Piazza Navona. It must have been a relief to be back in the relative safety of Rome. Even better, Gianbattista’s recall involved not disgrace but honor. The pope had chosen him for a special mission.

Urban VIII had three beloved nephews. The eldest, Francesco, he made a cardinal in 1623 at the age of twenty-six, giving him the regal position of cardinal nephew, a kind of secretary of state who was accorded the honors of a sovereign. The second, Taddeo, would be the lay head of the family and marry. The third, Antonio, would be made a cardinal in 1627 at the age of twenty.

Cardinal Francesco Barberini was impatient to make his mark on politics and diplomacy. He prodded his uncle to send him on a difficult embassy to Paris. A dispute had arisen between France and Spain over a small area known as the Valtellina in northern Italy. France had ousted the neutral papal troops and replaced them with French troops, with Spain howling in protest. The pope wanted his diplomats to convince Louis XIII and his powerful prime minister, Cardinal Richelieu, to remove the French troops.

But the pope realized that his nephew was still inexperienced for

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such a delicate task. Though Francesco would technically head the mission and receive all the honor, Gianbattista, as special assistant to the cardinal nephew, would be the brains behind it. Olimpia would not be able to join her brother-in-law, as it was a temporary mission. And perhaps for the first time, Gianbattista felt confident enough to do without her.

Many at the French court, knowing the urgency of Gianbattista’s mission, asked him for money, pensions, and honors from the Papal States in return for pushing his agenda forward. He routinely replied, “It can’t be done,” earning him the nickname “Monsignor It-Can’t-Be-Done.”
¹¹
There was, unfortunately, a personality conflict between the suave silkiness of the French courtier and the prickly suspicion of Gianbattista Pamphili.

The mission to France failed utterly, but Urban realized this was due to French stubbornness rather than the ineptness of his envoys. After all, Cardinal Richelieu was known to dislike the pope’s involvement in political matters, saying, “We must kiss his feet and bind his hands.”
¹²
Urban immediately packed his diplomats off to the court of Madrid to convince Philip IV to force the French troops to leave Valtellina and allow the papal troops to return. But after the long voyage, when the two arrived in Madrid they learned that France and Spain had already made a secret peace. The Protestant enclave known as Grisons would control the Valtellina, quite a slap in the face of the Catholic Church.

Once again, Urban realized his envoys were not at fault. He recalled his nephew Francesco to Rome but instructed Gianbattista to remain in Madrid as the new papal nuncio to Spain. Gianbattista Pamphili, whose career had been stalled when Olimpia first met him, now held the single most important diplomatic position of the Papal States.

Olimpia was not inactive during her brother-in-law’s absence. She continued to work on Gianbattista’s behalf in Rome and was seen walking in and out of the French and Spanish embassies. Not slowed down a bit by the birth of her daughter Costanza in 1627, she invited the wives and daughters of ambassadors to dine with her, listen to music, attend card parties, and go hunting on the rolling hills around Viterbo. She had won over Urban’s sister-in-law, Costanza Magalotti, the mother of

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the pope’s three nephews. And, when Taddeo married Anna Colonna in 1627, Olimpia went to work on her, too.

An anonymous eighteenth-century pamphlet explained, “With great agility she insinuated herself into the graces of the Barberini brothers and particularly with Cardinal Antonio, through Signora Costanza Magalotti, sister-in-law of the pope and mother of the same Barberinis, and of Signora Anna Colonna, wife of Don Taddeo the prefect of Rome, procuring with her gentle manners the exaltation of the above-mentioned Monsignor Pamfilio to the nunciature.”
¹³

Despite the great honor of Gianbattista’s new position, it was a difficult job, and Gianbattista didn’t have Olimpia to advise him. Spain was bristling with rage at the pope, who was thought to be pro-French. But Gianbattista’s caution came to his aid. In contrast to many diplomats of the time, puffed up with self-importance and surrounded by haughty servants brandishing weapons, Nuncio Pamphili was thoughtful, calm, and slow to take offense. He listened carefully to Spanish complaints and propositions and much later gave them a well-considered reply.

Perhaps this long delay had less to do with Gianbattista’s careful deliberation than it did with the papal postal service, which took a full month to get a letter from Madrid to Rome and another month to bring back the reply. Gianbattista and Olimpia kept up an active correspondence during his time in Madrid, and it is certain that he asked her advice and she readily gave it.

Gregorio Leti claimed to have seen a letter written by Gianbattista to Olimpia during this time in which he asked her to respond to political questions outlined by his secretary. Leti recorded it as follows, “My dear Sister, my business does not succeed as well in Spain as it did in Rome because I am deprived of your advice. Far from you I am like a ship without a rudder, abandoned to the inconstancy of the sea with no hope of its own happiness. I feel obliged to let you know this because I would not know how better to show my affection. I ask you to have the goodness to respond at length to that which is attached by my secretary, and believe me always to be, Your Very Affectionate Servant and Brother-in-Law, Pamfili.”

Leti harrumphed loudly about the letter: “It would have been almost

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impossible, if I had not read this letter, that a public official would have written in this way to a woman without considering his reputation, and without reflecting that letters easily go astray, as happened with this one. But although he had given himself over entirely to this woman, he didn’t need to make it so public by confirming his love for her with his own signature. This letter was a great proof of the love between these two people and an entire confirmation of the rumors of the people, who amused themselves with speculations, that Donna Olimpia gave secret instructions to the Nuncio when he departed to go to the princes where he was destined.”
¹⁴

Considering that Gregorio Leti’s works were the
National Enquirer
of his time—a mixture of exaggeration, innuendo, and God’s honest truth—we must sift through his stories carefully. Yet later events, confirmed by cardinals and other reputable witnesses, confirm that the sentiments expressed in the letter, at least, were true.

Gianbattista Pamphili had good reason to write gushing letters to his sister-in-law in Rome. In late September he received the news that on August 30, 1627, Urban VIII had named him cardinal
in pectore
.
In pectore
meant literally “in the chest,” and referred to the pope’s holding this news secretly, in his heart, and not publicizing it. What it really meant was that Gianbattista would receive his red hat and officially become a cardinal when the next group of candidates was promoted sometime in the future.

Olimpia had triumphed. She had done it. Fifteen years of her hard work and brilliant intrigues had raised a mediocre prelate to papal nuncio and now cardinal. She had single-handedly lifted the fortunes of the Pamphili family as its men could never have done. She had rewarded Gianbattista for his love and loyalty. And every cardinal, of course, had the chance of becoming pope. Olimpia dreamed big.

Olimpia and her family, as relatives of a cardinal, would sit in the front row at festivities, and near the head of the table at banquets; they would ride in the front of church and diplomatic cavalcades. As the sister-in-law of a cardinal, she would be accorded great honors throughout Rome, as if she were a princess. But best of all, now the noblewomen of Rome would have to wait at the foot of the stairs when she deigned to visit them.

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Cardinals

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Whosoever will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.

—Mark 8:34 ianbattista was finally reaping the financial profit of Olimpia’s investment. Traditionally, the king of Spain gave the pope’s envoy splendid gifts and annual revenues. Moreover, the pope expected his nuncio to Spain to sell honors and offices and pocket the money himself, thereby saving the Vatican great expense.

Gianbattista was doing so well financially that he not only paid all his extravagant expenses in Madrid but sent money back to Olimpia. There seems to be only one letter written by Olimpia to Gianbattista that has survived, and she penned it six weeks after hearing the news that Urban VIII had named him cardinal
in pectore.
She thanked Gianbattista for offering to send money to Pamphilio to pay for the gambling losses of Gualtieri, one of the sons of her uncle Paolo Gualt-ieri and Gianbattista’s sister Antonia Pamphili. It seems that Gualtieri was troublesome, ungrateful, and ran off at the mouth.

Olimpia used numbers for names in case unfriendly eyes should read her letter. The entire tone is enigmatic, which we can assume was quite intentional.

G

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

Most Illustrious and Powerful Signor Brother-in-law;

I was resolved not to want to bother Your Illustrious Holiness with my letters, knowing how busy you are. But then I changed my mind, finding myself obliged to thank you for the offer that you made in a letter to Signor Pamphilio of money for gambling. But I do not want Your Holiness to be obliged with so much. It will not take a little to compensate for the whims of Gualtieri. And he will know well how to find the means so that Your Holiness will not be able to say no.

And what displeases me most is that he does it with the advice of 288 and 260 who have spoken a great deal with little regard of 110 112 and who will make him betray his own. And then it will be explained, here with me, that he never said these things. Instead, he has received from me all the courtesies that he could have desired and 288 thanked me for this, and I think I am the only one to do this.

In one mysterious sentence that evidently broached an extremely sensitive issue, Olimpia substituted numbers for letters of the alphabet. Gianbattista apparently wrote the letters above the numbers, though some vowels were assumed to have an
n
attached to them. He did not, however, decode the number 95.

I l ? c e a(n) c i a z i t o, m a

V.S. e prudente 15 41 nostro 95 18 40 14 18 15 14 12 15 54 55 46 14

n o(n) s i a m o f o r a di s p e r a(n) za.
50 55 11 55 14 46 55 uu 55 12 14 di 11 19 40 12 14 14

Your Holiness is prudent. There is silent anxiety about our 95, but we are not without hope.

We can only imagine what “95” stood for. Intrigue? Plot? Love affair?

I will continue to serve your Holiness as much as I can. And I assure you I know of few actions that have not been for your benefit. I only regret that I do not have enough strength to do what I am obliged to do.

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I hear that you have a beautiful place over there. However, I would not want you to forget your relatives in Rome. I will not bother you by writing any more. I will just remind you to stay cheerful and keep in good health, and I kiss your hand with great affection. Rome, October 11, 1627.