mistress of the vatican.pdf - End Time Deception

Mistress of the Vatican
she could truly give herself to, a noncompeting female, weak, needing
to be nurtured and guided. Here was a safe place to pour out her love,
to teach a girl the valuable lessons she had learned so painfully. Olimpia
insisted she raise the child in her Piazza Navona palace. The parents
gave her up willingly; after all, they were disappointed their child was
not a boy. It would prove to be the deepest, longest-lasting love of Olimpia’s
life. In Olimpiuccia she would endeavor to create a new Olimpia in
her own image.
Immediately after her granddaughter’s birth, Olimpia called in her
attorney to write a new will, arranging to leave the infant her own
Maidalchini-Nini wealth, thereby disinheriting Camillo, who would
receive only his father’s wealth, which was, alas, not much. In an era
when family assets were invariably hoarded for the son, Camillo must
have greatly resented his mother’s taking money away from him to give
to a girl, and an infant at that. And Olimpia must have had a good
laugh at her son’s anger. Camillo was the cliché of a weak son dominated
by a strong mother, and they bore each other a hearty dislike.
Camillo seemed the exact replica of his father. He had Pamphilio’s
sparkling dark eyes, wavy black hair, and strong, chiseled jaw. But as
attractive as Camillo was, he was a bit of a dolt. There is no record of
Camillo’s having attended one of the excellent boys’ schools in Rome,
and Gregorio Leti reported that Olimpia hired tutors to teach him
Latin, arithmetic, and deportment for as long as they could persuade
him to sit still. With undisguised venom Leti added that Camillo was
“so ignorant that he barely knew how to read at the age of twenty.” 10
The French ambassador described the good luck the mediocre Camillo
had in being born into the right family, sniffing, “Fortune supplied him
with what nature had declined to give.” 11
As a result, Camillo grew up with the varnish of a seventeenth-century
gentleman. He excelled at horsemanship and could cut a pretty
figure on the dance floor. He crafted poetic verses with more enthusiasm
than wit and spent hours at a time designing imaginary gardens on
paper. He admired the great art collections of the cardinals and strolled
imposingly around their galleries, tilting his head this way and that to
examine statues and paintings. Camillo was charming. Camillo was
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