mistress of the vatican.pdf - End Time Deception

Mistress of the Vatican
Though supposedly sealed off from communication with those outside,
the conclave leaked like a sieve and would continue to do so until
Pope Pius X enforced absolute secrecy in 1904. Until then journalists
and diplomats wrote daily newsletters with conclave updates, reporting
with uncanny accuracy on who had voted for whom. Cardinal Antonio
Barberini routinely corresponded with the French ambassador, the
marquis de Saint-Chamond, who sent back replies. And Olimpia received
frequent reports from Gianbattista, friendly cardinals, and their
servants, and responded with new instructions.
Messages were often smuggled in and out of conclave in food platters.
Meals were brought in twice daily by the cardinal’s household servants,
who marched in stately procession carrying large silver bowls
swinging from wooden poles. Having arrived at the door assigned for
food deliveries, they handed over the bowls to the guards, who were
supposed to examine all platters and wine bottles for secret messages
going in and out. But the guards often cast a careless glance at the victuals,
even more careless than usual if a handsome tip was offered. Instructions
to the cardinals were hidden among the roasted gizzards in a
duck’s body cavity, or tucked under the crust of a chicken pie. Cardinals
replied by concealing messages in the secret compartment of a silver
salad bowl returned for washing, or in a hollowed-out wine cork.
Cardinals lived in “cells,” hastily constructed rooms ranging from
about fifteen feet to twenty-two feet square. In the late fifteenth and
early sixteenth centuries, when there were fewer than twenty-five conclave
cardinals, the cells had been built in the Sistine Chapel itself,
where votes were cast in front of the main altar. But now that the Sacred
College had been expanded to a maximum of seventy cardinals,
the cells were built in the hall next door. Placed over each cell was a letter
of the alphabet or two; after the letter Z came AA, AB, and so on.
Before the conclave opened, cardinals had to draw letters out of a chalice
to determine which cell would be theirs. This was to prevent squabbling
over the bigger cells.
As soon as Gianbattista learned the location of his cell, his servants
would have hung all the walls with beautiful cloth—purple for cardinals
who had been created by the just-deceased pope, as Gianbattista
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