mistress of the vatican.pdf - End Time Deception

Eleanor Herman
VIII. But Roman wits would say he wanted to pretend he was innocent
of sexual relations with his sister-in-law.
The canopies over the cardinals’ stalls were lowered, and only that of
the new pope remained aloft. He was conducted behind the Sistine
Chapel altar to take off his cardinal’s robes and put on the robes of a
pope. While cardinals usually wore a red robe, the sottana, since the
thirteenth century popes had worn a bright white one, the color of holiness
and resurrection. Like cardinals, the pope wore a magnificent
white shirt of finest linen edged with lace, the rochet, over the sottana.
When Innocent went behind the altar, he found sottanas and rochets in
various sizes laid out for him to choose from.
The cardinals placed a red satin elbow-length capelet, the mozzetta,
over Innocent’s white robe. In winter, the mozzetta would be red velvet,
lined with ermine. A red satin hat, the camauro, was placed on his head.
It was not like the three-peaked biretta of the cardinal but fit tightly at
the hairline and rose straight up for several inches.
Innocent emerged from behind the high altar in full pontifical dignity
and sat on the papal throne. Members of the Sistine Chapel choir,
who had been waiting in the wings for precisely this moment, filed in
as their angelic voices filled the sacred space. One by one the cardinals
knelt before Pope Innocent X to kiss his feet and right hand. He bid
each one to rise and gave the ancient Christian kiss of peace on both
cheeks.
In Saint Peter’s Square, a crowd had been waiting expectantly for
weeks, crammed into a piazza half its current width and ringed by a
jumble of barracks. There were two signs that a pope had been elected—
the bells of Saint Peter’s would ring out in jubilation, and carpenters
would demolish the masonry that blocked the windows of the loggia
overlooking Saint Peter’s Square. The tradition of sending smoke out of
the Sistine Chapel chimney after each scrutiny—black for an unsuccessful
vote, white for a successful one—was not instituted until 1903.
The bells began to ring, followed by the sounds of carpenters tearing
out the boards. It was the task of the senior cardinal deacon to appear
at the loggia of benediction to announce the great news to the
expectant crowd below. But Cardinal Carlo de’ Medici was writhing in
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