Mistress of the Vatican (21 page)

On the evening of August 8, 1644, singing hymns and saying prayers, fifty-five cardinals processed into the Vatican. Due to recent deaths, the Sacred College numbered only sixty-two, with seven cardinals living abroad; one of these, the nuncio to Madrid, was racing back to Rome and would join the conclave three days later. Other than the three Spaniards, two Frenchmen, and one German taking part in the conclave, the rest were Italians.

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The very first evening, Urban VIII’s brother, the cardinal of Saint Onofrio, was involved in a message-smuggling scandal. The good cardinal had evidently bribed a mason to make a hole in the outer wall of his cell through which he could pass messages too long and detailed to be hidden inside the tiny secret compartment of a food platter. While many cardinals smuggled messages, they all denied doing so and eagerly pointed fingers when their enemies were proven to be leaking news. And it was always the laborers, never the cardinals, who got arrested for the security breach. Giacinto Gigli reported, “There was discovered in his room a hole that gave onto the court of the Belvedere and therefore the cardinals of the opposing faction made a great noise about it and the hole was walled up, and they say that a mason was put in prison.”
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Having settled into their cells, the cardinals met with various ambassadors for negotiations the next day. The French ambassador visited the cardinals individually or in small groups, advocating the favored candidates of Cardinal Jules Mazarin, prime minister of France. The impoverished Italian-born Giulio Mazzarino had worked his way up the church hierarchy in France by climbing into the widowed queen mother’s bed. Since her husband’s death in 1643, the dim-witted Anne of Austria supposedly ruled for her young son Louis XIV; but it was the luxurious Mazarin—mercurial, brilliant, and crafty—who held the power.

Five months before Pope Urban died, Mazarin heard of his steep decline and sent precise instructions to his ambassador regarding papal candidates. Mazarin’s first choice was the sixty-five-year-old Cardinal Guido Bentivoglio, who for many years had been nuncio to France. His second choice was Cardinal Giulio Sacchetti, who at fifty-eight suffered the drawback of youth but was very friendly toward France. There was one other candidate Mazarin named. “As for Cardinal Pamphili,” he thundered, “His Majesty cannot in any way consent that his ministers concur to his exaltation and orders them to oppose him by all means possible, first in secret, but overtly if necessary. He is a man who has given all his affections to Spain, and who has lost no occasion to give proofs that he has an aversion to France.”
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Mazarin was incorrect in accusing Gianbattista Pamphili of blindly supporting Spain. Gianbattista was careful and just in all his proceedings and never rashly jumped to the side of Spain as did so many cardinals, even when he was nuncio to Madrid. Yet Mazarin could not forget that Gianbattista had been popular with the archenemies of France during his time in Spain. Additionally, those at the French court who remembered the cardinal during his 1625 mission to Paris recalled that his personality—awkward, severe, and cautious—greatly reminded them of their enemies the Spaniards.

Mazarin also sent instructions to Antonio Barberini, the cardinal protector of France. If Pamphili were to obtain a significant block of votes in conclave, Antonio was to announce that France had officially excluded him. An exclusion was not legally binding, and the cardinals could technically decide to ignore it. But if they did so, they would doubtless incur the anger of a major Catholic power against themselves personally—meaning the loss of the cardinals’ revenues from that nation. Worse, the church herself might be penalized. The offended nation could withhold church revenues from Rome, or wage war, or, worst of all, pull a Henry VIII and cut ties with the Vatican altogether. Exclusions continued through the 1903 conclave, when Emperor Franz Josef of Austria derailed the election of the popular Cardinal Rampolla del Tindaro.

But then, as now, money spoke louder than threats. Mazarin sent sacks of gold to two friendly cardinals to distribute to fellow electors who seemed to be vacillating. Cardinal Alessandro Bichi reportedly received sixteen thousand scudi to hand out as bribes. The cardinal of Lyons received six thousand scudi and letters that he was to pass out in conclave, dictated by Mazarin but signed by the six-year-old king of France, discreetly offering more.

“My cousin,” the letters read, “I have been so particularly informed of the affection that you hold for the advantage of this crown that I cannot prevent myself from showing my sentiments. If you have some good desires, you could explain them in all liberty and confidence to the marquis de Saint-Chamond.”
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Not to be outdone by the French, the new Spanish ambassador, the

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count of Sirvela, arrived in Rome just as the conclave was about to begin. Teodoro Amayden accompanied Sirvela as he strode into the Sistine Chapel blazing in diamonds and fortified with rich Spanish bishoprics to bestow on cooperative cardinals, lovely princesses with huge dowries to give away to their nephews, and fine estates in the kingdom of Naples. And Spain’s favorite candidate? Gianbattista Pamphili, who had left a good impression behind him after his embassy to Madrid fourteen years earlier. His stiff and sober dignity, which grated on Italians and French-men alike, was most pleasing to Spaniards.

Swords were drawn along the usual French and Spanish lines before the conclave even began. Leti didn’t mince words about the self-interested politics involved in choosing the Vicar of Christ. “Neither did the cardinals examine the virtues or vices of the competitors,” he fumed. “Spain would exalt anyone, were he the wickedest man in the world or even the devil himself, as long as he was the enemy of France. The French would not worry about worshipping a demon, as long as he was the enemy of Spain. The nephews of the dead pope, guarding their own interests, would not bat an eye to advance a cardinal to the pontificate if he were the most detestable of all men, or even the Anti-Christ himself, as long as he was their friend.”
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By midnight on August 9, the camerlengo, Antonio Barberini, cried,
“Omnes extra!”
at the top of his lungs, and all the wheeling, dealing ambassadors were forced to leave. The conclave had officially begun.

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The first centuries of Christianity remain so shrouded in mystery that no one is certain how the earliest popes were elected. Saint Peter, later acknowledged as the first pope, had no throne, no incense-laden ceremonies, no great basilicas, and little Catholic dogma. Going house to house in a rough linen robe and sandals, Peter spread the word about his friend Jesus who had been crucified years before. Highly respected for his personal knowledge of Jesus, Peter was perhaps called an elder—a term that was later translated into
bishop
—or perhaps an apostle or a disciple. He was certainly not called pope, a term that was not used until some time in the second century when all bishops received the honorary title

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of
papa,
or father. Pope Siricius (reigned 384–399) was the first pontiff to claim that title for himself alone, though bishops in the Eastern Empire kept it until 1059.

According to tradition, Peter, knowing he would be martyred, appointed his successor, Linus, to tend his little flock of ragtag Christians in Rome. It is possible that dozens of popes after Peter also named their successors. When Christianity was legalized in the fourth century, the Roman senate, the clergy, and the people of Rome participated in the bishop’s election, though we are at a loss to understand exactly how voting was done by such an unruly crowd.

In the first millennium of Christianity, any churchman, even a simple monk or priest, could be elected pope. But after Pope Nicholas II decreed in 1059 that only cardinals could elect the pontiff, they usually elected one of themselves, and since 1389 they have always done so.

Just as the papal election process changed over the centuries, so did the qualities required to be pontiff. In Christianity’s first centuries the perfect pope was a man of deep faith who would willingly suffer martyrdom at the hands of pagan Roman emperors in their periodic persecutions. Given the likelihood of being thrown to the lions, there were fewer candidates for the position. Once Constantine legalized Christi-anity, the church became big business and more men vied for the job. Now the pope was a CEO; he must possess top administrative skills to spread the faith, appoint church leaders, build churches, manage money, and develop dogma.

When the last Roman emperor abdicated in a.d. 476, the remaining emperor was in far-off Constantinople. Sometimes he sent troops to help Rome, but more often he did nothing, having enough problems to deal with closer to home. As a result, the Roman people looked to the only authority figure in town—the pope—to perform the duties of a secular official. Instead of focusing on religion, the pope was now expected to feed the hungry, police the unruly, provide laws, and fend off invading barbarian hordes. Over the course of the next millennium, several popes strapped on armor and rode into battle against enemies.

By the Renaissance, the ideal pope was supposed to encourage the arts and letters. Nicholas V (reigned 1447–1455) founded the Vatican

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Library, collecting moldering Greek manuscripts from across Europe and preserving a significant portion of the ancient literature we have today from being lost forever. The world’s greatest artistic masterpieces—those by Raphael, Michelangelo, Bernini, and countless others—were commissioned by popes to glorify God and themselves. By the seventeenth century most pontiffs had legal training and diplomatic experience, abilities required to remain aloft in the shifting sands of baroque European politics.

The ideal candidate was rather advanced in years. Though John XI was eighteen or twenty when elected in 931, and Benedict IX was a teenager when chosen in 1032, by the Renaissance older cardinals were preferred for their wisdom and experience in church affairs. But the real reason for electing an elderly pope was the ambitions of the cardinals. If the new pope died sooner rather than later, the cardinals who elected him would have another chance to become pope themselves. It was a terrifying prospect for one man to hog the papal power for decades, depriving other worthy men of their chance, and the seventeenth century had already witnessed two such debacles. Paul V had had the bad taste to reign from 1605 to 1621, dashing the hopes of many meritorious sons of the church, and Urban VIII selfishly lived for twenty-one years after his election.

What was the perfect age for a new pope? By Olimpia’s time, sixty was viewed as a venerable age, and cardinals under sixty were generally considered too young for the job. Younger cardinals, however, could be elected if their health was poor. In 1513 Cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici became Pope Leo X at the age of thirty-seven, a teenager in terms of papal candidates. The young cardinal brought into the conclave his surgeon, who glumly informed the other cardinals that the candidate had few years to live, and he was immediately elected. In 1585 Cardinal Fe-lice Peretti won the election by pretending to be weak and ill, coughing and hobbling around painfully with the aid of a cane, hoping to win the votes of the cardinals who wanted a short pontificate. Once he was elected, Sixtus V cast away the stick and rose before the astonished cardinals glowing with healthy vigor.

Even an elderly candidate would be considered unsuitable if he had

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several brothers itching for huge salaries and government positions, a dozen unmarried nephews hoping to be created cardinals and run the church, and a flock of sisters salivating over social status, palaces, and large dowries for their single daughters to marry into the highest echelon of Roman nobility. Such a pope would, within a few years, wrest most of the power, and all of the money, out of the hands of the cardinals and into the pockets of his own family. A cardinal with a throng of grasping relatives was highly unlikely to be elected pope, even if he possessed the most sterling qualifications to run the church.

At seventy, Cardinal Pamphili was considered healthy enough to live the requisite six or seven years and old enough to die shortly thereafter. He offered the great advantage of having three dead brothers and two sisters safely locked up in convents and sworn to poverty. He had only two nieces by Olimpia, one of whom was already married, and one nephew, who, though not terribly bright, was not known for greed, ambition, licentiousness, or free spending. And Gianbattista’s dignity was a great point in his favor. Ambassador Contarini of Venice reported, “Many thought he was worthy of the pontificate because his words were few and weighty, which made people believe he was really wise.”
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Despite these advantages, some cardinals heatedly expressed their dislike of both Gianbattista’s appearance and personality. Cardinal An-tonio Barberini described Gianbattista’s character as “rigid and bitter.” Another Venetian diplomat, Giustiniani, noted, “Some were offended by his dismal and saturnine aspect, the reflection of a contumacious and restless soul, and in him one could see customs poorly suited to the placidity that the person carrying the name of the universal father should have.”
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