mistress of the vatican.pdf - End Time Deception

Eleanor Herman
decoded. He found the irrevocable proof Olimpia wanted in the form of
a dispatch to Spain. She handed it to the pope.
On Saturday, January 31, 1654, Giacinto Gigli wrote in his diary that
Cardinal Astalli-Pamphili was fast sliding into disgrace. “The pope severely
reprimanded him for the many errors he had committed, calling
him ungrateful, saying that he was in a plot with the Spaniards against
the will of the pope. Cardinal Astalli, seeing the danger all around him,
tried to put things right, but could not.” 17
But how to punish him? Olimpia pushed for the harshest penalty
possible—removal from all offices, honors, titles, and benefices. She
would have liked to see him lose the dignity of cardinal, as well, but this
would have created uproarious protest in the Sacred College. In the
rough-and-tumble centuries of the Dark and Middle Ages, popes had
from time to time defrocked enemy cardinals, thrown them into prison,
and even murdered them. But once the Protestants had started laughing
at them, Catholic prelates tried to muster as much dignity as possible.
The dishonor of one cardinal would dishonor them all. By the
seventeenth century, even if a cardinal was an imbecile, a libertine, or a
traitor, he might lose all his money and power, but he would never be
defrocked—unless, of course, he had turned heretic.
Listening to Olimpia’s stern recommendations for justice, the pope
was, as usual, hesitant. If he penalized Astalli-Pamphili with the full
rigor of his power, would the world laugh at him—again? Yet the traitor
deserved nothing less. The pope had raised him from nothing to the
highest honors; first he had proved lazy and useless, and now he had
betrayed the very man who had so honored him.
As the pope tried to make up his mind, Olimpia came down with an
excruciating case of podagra, the gouty inflammation of the big toe. It
was a malady common enough in baroque courts heavy on meats, pastries,
sauces, and wine. The affected toe was swollen, red, and throbbing,
propped up on a pillow as she lay in bed. Usually the least movement
could cause the the podagra sufferer paroxysms of bone-shattering pain,
and some would have been hard put to stir if the house caught fire. But
when, on February 3, Olimpia received a note from Innocent that he had
finally decided how to punish Cardinal Astalli-Pamphili, she leaped out
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