mistress of the vatican.pdf - End Time Deception

Mistress of the Vatican
her bed as the price she had to pay for getting her brother Alessandro
made a cardinal.
Unambitious though she was, Giulia was a target for Vatican favor
seekers. Anyone who wanted something from the pope stopped off at
Giulia’s house to give her presents and heavily larded compliments.
“The majority of those who want to receive favors from the pope pass
through that door,” said one writer, referring to the large doorway of
her palazzo. 24
Her brother Alessandro, an able and diligent churchman, would
forever feel uneasy about the manner in which he had obtained his red
hat. Pasquino called him “the Petticoat Cardinal,” an infuriating name
that caught on with the Roman people. Giulia, who had advanced his
career, was now a stumbling block to it long after Alexander VI’s reign.
She showed her brother great consideration by dying in 1524, a full decade
before the Petticoat Cardinal become Pope Paul III.
The other Vatican woman of Borgia’s reign was his daughter Lucrezia,
who in 1501 at the age of twenty-one was given official power to
run the church and the Papal States when her father toured lands conquered
by her brother. Reports spread by Borgia enemies had Lucrezia
sleeping with both her father and her brother, and slipping poison from
her ring into the wine of enemies, none of which is likely.
Lucrezia was a pawn moved about on the bloodstained chessboard of
her male relatives to advance their own selfish objectives. Highly intelligent,
she survived in a brutal, male-dominated world by playing the
fragile female. Twittering apologies for her headaches and fatigue, Lucrezia
was permitted to remain in her rooms for days at a time, temporarily
removing herself from the sinister machinations of her male
family members.
Washing her ankle-length blond hair was an all-day affair, as it took
hours for her ladies to comb and dry it, in front of the fire in cold
weather, out on the balcony in warm. Periodically the simpering Lucrezia
begged for a retreat to a convent, to get closer to God, she said,
though it was more likely she wanted to escape from Vatican men. Lucrezia
presented herself as weak, meek, and not terribly bright. Yet she
[ 177 ]