mistress of the vatican.pdf - End Time Deception

Eleanor Herman
miraculous wonders the pilgrims saw in Rome that jubilee year of 1650,
Olimpia Maidalchini was the most amazing.
Those curious pilgrims who were not worthy of being invited to her
festivities at the Piazza Navona palace camped outside, much as modern-day
fans might do outside a hotel where their favorite movie star is
staying. They studied the countless windows across the broad façade,
hoping for a glimpse of her. Whenever the high doors of her courtyard
swung open and a carriage clattered out, Olimpia fans thronged it. We
can hear them crying, “There she is!” as they rushed her carriage. Had
it been the fashion, they surely would have thrust autograph books into
her carriage windows.
Pilgrims stationed in front of Olimpia’s house were often treated to
the sight of the pope coming by to have lunch with her. But the pope
was, after all, just another old man with a beard and funny hat. Popes
were pretty much interchangeable—paper-doll figures who all wore
the same paper-doll clothes. Olimpia, by virtue of her unique position,
truly fascinated them. In 1650 she was a kind of baroque rock star, ruling
over the most important event in the world, in the most important
city in the world, as if she were a queen.
As the year went by, the pope became uncomfortably aware of Olimpia’s
popularity with the pilgrims. As Saint Peter’s successor and the
Vicar of Christ, he should have been the center of attention during the
jubilee year, and Olimpia was stealing his thunder. One day Innocent’s
secretary showed him a letter from a Neapolitan who wrote that most
of the pilgrims who left Naples for Rome had done so not for the indulgence
of sins or to see the pope but out of curiosity to see his sister-inlaw.
The Olimpia fans were almost all women, fascinated that another
woman had climbed so high against all social restrictions and church
regulations.
One day when the pope walked to the loggia of Saint Peter’s to bless
the crowds gathered below, a cardinal wondered aloud that there were
so many women; usually women were left at home on long, dangerous
journeys. The pope replied bitterly that since the pilgrims came to see
Olimpia, there were naturally more women among them than men, as
curiosity was a strictly female trait.
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