mistress of the vatican.pdf - End Time Deception

Eleanor Herman
Contarini, reported to his senate, “Prince Ludovisi is bursting with private
hatreds and is too inclined towards the Spanish faction.” 7 Spain
rejoiced and France was outraged, demanding that the papal nuncio
explain if this was a sign that the new pope despised their kingdom. Innocent
sent a calming missive to Paris, explaining that most eligible
bachelors in Rome were of the Spanish persuasion, and he was merely
trying to find his niece a suitable husband.
With the girls’ futures arranged, that left Camillo. By the end of the
conclave, Olimpia had already made plans for him to marry Lucrezia
Barberini, sealing the deal she had made to win the Barberini cardinals’
crucial votes for her brother-in-law. But Camillo proved unexpectedly
intransigent. It was his life’s greatest misfortune that he had been born
not to a woman but to a force of nature. Camillo was fed up with his
mother’s domination. Here he was, the pope’s nephew, the number two
man in the country, being treated as if he were a mindless child.
Camillo told his friends that he would not marry Lucrezia Barberini
because that was precisely what his mother wanted him to do. Moreover,
as an art connoisseur he could not have been pleased that the potential
bride’s eyebrows were blacker, thicker, and bristlier than most
men’s mustaches, or that her nose took up an inordinate amount of her
face. Camillo would not marry her. He would become cardinal nephew
and wield more official power than his bossy mother ever could.
Camillo’s stubborn refusal to wed Lucrezia put Olimpia in a terrible
bind, and he must have relished it. The furious Barberini cardinals
would suffer a double loss—Francesco and Antonio would not keep
their powerful positions, which would be taken over by Camillo, nor
would they be immune from prosecution for corruption as members of
the new pope’s extended family.
Olimpia, for her part, wanted to bring the powerful Barberinis into
the family for her own protection. Innocent had reached the age of seventy
in a century when most men died in their fifties. Whenever Innocent
died, the Barberinis would bounce back from ignominy and, using
all their wealth and connections, be in a position to harm Olimpia. In
Roman politics, one hand always washed the other, and because of Camillo’s
stubbornness both of Olimpia’s hands remained hopelessly filthy.
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