mistress of the vatican.pdf - End Time Deception

Mistress of the Vatican
But Olimpia had three financial goals to fulfill before the pope died,
and she had to be in the papal palace until his last moment to do so. The
first goal was to sell as many offices as possible. Ambitious office-seekers
knew that now was the time to get a cut-rate deal on prestigious
positions. Leti noted that Olimpia was selling them for 50 percent of the
usual rate.
Such last-minute negotiations were mutually beneficial to buyer and
seller. The buyer knew he might never be able to purchase the position
during the next pontificate; if the new pope turned out to be less corrupt,
it would be impossible, and if he were more corrupt, it would be
unaffordable. The transaction was also beneficial to Olimpia, who pretty
soon would not be in a position to sell a Vatican office ever again. Bribes
reportedly accompanied the cash payments. “On the Vatican stairs one
saw only presents being carried up and never any carried down,” Leti
asserted. 6 Word got out that Olimpia earned a half million scudi the last
ten days of the pope’s life.
Olimpia’s second goal was to remove everything of value in the papal
apartments. Since the ninth century, it had been customary for a pope’s
servants to plunder his rooms as soon as he died, as a kind of final bonus
from their boss. Over time, servants began to strip not only the papal
palace bare but the papal corpse, as well. When Innocent III died in
1216, a visitor found the pope’s corpse in a bare room, nearly naked and
in an advanced state of decomposition. His servants had stripped off the
precious vestments in which he had been dressed for burial.
When Sixtus IV died in 1484, his master of ceremonies, Johann Burchard,
had a terrible time trying to provide the corpse with a shred of
dignity. The pope’s sacristan had stolen the bed and left the pope naked
on the floor. “And indeed, despite my hunting from the sixth to the
tenth hours,” Burchard wrote, “I was unable to find either oil or handkerchief,
or any sort of receptacle, in which to put the wine and water
scented with herbs to wash the corpse; and not even socks or a clean
shirt to dress it.” 7 The tradition had continued down to Urban VIII’s
death in 1644 when his master of ceremonies couldn’t even find a candle
to place beside the body.
Olimpia was not about to let plunderers take any of Innocent’s
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