mistress of the vatican.pdf - End Time Deception

Eleanor Herman
mands. As a child she was reported to be dominating by nature. She
decided which games to play and always wanted to win.” 3
Unfortunately, Olimpia had little education to back up her bossiness.
She went to school in the medieval Convent of Saint Dominic in Viterbo,
where her aunt was a nun. It was a rudimentary education at best.
Times had changed since the early sixteenth century when women like
the Roman poetess Vittoria Colonna (1490–1547) held salons, encouraged
the arts, and spoke several languages.
Olimpia’s world was shaped by the 1563 Council of Trent—the belated
Vatican response to accusations of Church abuse lobbed by Martin
Luther and his followers forty years earlier—and reforming bishops
decided that wifely virtues were threatened by female education. An
educated female would be less satisfied managing her household and
raising her children; she would want to go gadding about town, meddling
in government and business. Up north, the heretics would laugh
at Catholics who couldn’t even control their women. And so Olimpia
would have learned to read and write Italian, do a bit of math, memorize
the precepts of the Catholic religion, and sew.
Though she knew little or nothing of art, literature, philosophy, and
foreign languages, Olimpia had two skills uncommon in girls. With
regards to financial matters, her mind worked as if it were an abacus,
adding, multiplying, subtracting, and calculating percentages. Within
seconds of examining an economic issue, she could figure out the best
financial advantage, a trait she must have inherited from Sforza. Moreover,
Olimpia had a fantastic memory. She had only to read or hear
something once to remember it forever.
Given her lifelong love of mathematical calculations and business, it
is likely that Olimpia spent some time in her father’s tax office. Perhaps
she sat inconspicuously in the corner, watching Sforza chatting pleasantly
with the landowners about their tax bills. As he added up the
value of land, livestock, and crops, perhaps she did the figures in her
head, coming up with the answers before he did. We can imagine
Olimpia studying her father with her dark eyes, proud of him, wanting
to grow up and be just like him.
While everyone acknowledged Olimpia’s intelligence, there is some
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