mistress of the vatican.pdf - End Time Deception

Mistress of the Vatican
It is hard for us to judge Olimpia’s feelings as her husband lay dying.
It was Pamphilio who had brought her from the backwater of Viterbo
into the excitement of Rome. It was this marriage that had given her
noble rank, social position, and power within the Vatican courts. Any
sadness might have been assuaged by the freedoms of widowhood, however.
A rich widow over forty could administer her own legal and financial
affairs without any interference from a man, and certainly this
would suit Olimpia better than having a husband as titular head of her
household.
As Pamphilio lost consciousness and his breath grew labored, it is
likely that Olimpia’s eyes would have darted from her rosary beads to
her servants. The author of a seventeenth-century book on household
management related how servants of Italian noblemen, taking advantage
of the uproar caused by their master’s death, routinely stole from
the family while the body was still warm in bed. The hall sweepers
pilfered the brooms, and the meat carvers swiped the knives. The
keeper of the wardrobe became the stealer of the wardrobe. The bedchamber
servants purloined the sheets. The wine steward filched the
last wine bottle. And the cooks ran off with all the food, pots, and pans.
Most disturbing, the family chaplain stumbled out of the house groaning
under the weight of the silver Holy Sacrament service. It is likely,
however, that when Pamphilio Pamphili breathed his last, and Gianbattista
and Olimpia’s children dissolved into wretched sobs, Olimpia was
making sure that not a single broom went missing.
Upon Pamphilio’s death, Olimpia, who had never cared much about
clothes, immediately threw on widow’s weeds—a bone-chilling concoction
of flowing black robes and a billowing black hood peaked over the
forehead—which she would wear for the rest of her life. She wore velvet
in winter, silk and satin in summer, over a plain white undergarment
visible at the neck and wrists. These sober robes gave Olimpia the cachet
of dignified virtue and offered the added advantage of saving her a
great deal of money on clothing. In addition, she had put on weight in
middle age, and black was always so slimming.
Olimpia paid for many Masses to be said for the benefit of her husband’s
soul, as each Mass was believed to cut the deceased’s term in
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