mistress of the vatican.pdf - End Time Deception

Mistress of the Vatican
The palace had its origins as a papal dwelling in 1587 when Pope Sixtus
V bought a luxurious villa with extensive gardens as his summer
residence. It offered the advantage of a good location still in the heart of
Rome but lacked the mosquitoes and miasmas of the sunken Vatican.
Sixtus added long wings around a large internal courtyard, and subsequent
popes left their own marks on the palace and gardens. It was more
comfortable than the ancient, moldy Vatican, and just as beautiful. It
even boasted a replica of the Sistine Chapel with the same dimensions.
When the rest of Rome sweltered, the Quirinal was cooled by refreshing
breezes. Upon moving in, Innocent liked the palace so much he decided
he would stay there year-round and sleep at the Vatican only if he
was required to perform ceremonial functions early the next morning.
He must have been elated when his doctors cried out that this was a terrible
idea, and he must return to the Vatican every winter for the sake of
his health. With a gleam in his eye, he told them he wouldn’t budge.
Detested at home because of the famine, Innocent found himself humiliated
on the international level by the ignominious end of the Thirty
Years’ War. Having started in 1618 as a religious quarrel between Catholic
and Protestant states, over time it had become a multinational freefor-all
to grab territory from neighbors.
The Thirty Years’ War was the bloodiest, widest-ranging war of the
early modern age. Much of Germany was devastated. Hundreds of thousands
of civilians had been killed, thousands of villages burned to the
ground, millions of acres destroyed, and all in the name of God. The lesson
learned by both Catholics and Protestants alike was that war in the
name of religion clearly wasn’t worth it. The costs of defending religious
beliefs were too high. Better to have people worship as they pleased and
wage war only for sensible reasons, like taking a neighbor’s land or stealing
his money.
By 1648 Europe was bled white and ready for a peace that settled
both religious and territorial questions. The Treaty of Westphalia
stipulated that the Lutheran and Calvinist religions were to be officially
tolerated by the Catholic princes of Germany, and ecclesiastical
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