mistress of the vatican.pdf - End Time Deception

Eleanor Herman
Lutheran battalions vandalized papal tombs, using one pope’s skull as a
football, and massacred five hundred citizens who had gathered for
protection around the altar of Saint Peter’s. After the foreign soldiers
left Rome, staggering under the weight of their plunder, the city was
attacked by typhoid, famine, and flood. Anyone who could afford to
leave the city—including the artists, architects, merchants, and bankers—
fled, and Rome was once again moribund.
It took a decade for the city to get over the shock of the Sack and its
aftermath. But Rome had, by now, some experience in cleaning up a
moldering ruin. Rubble was carted away. The sounds of hammering
and the sight of ropes and pulleys were everywhere as new buildings
went up. The Roman pontiffs laid out wide roads to ease street congestion
because the newfangled invention, the carriage, was choking narrow
medieval roads. And every time a road was laid or a foundation
dug, builders found the exquisite detritus of the previous civilization—
marble columns, gorgeous statues, and mosaic floors. These were hoisted
up and sold to the highest bidder—usually a cardinal—who integrated
them into his own palazzo.
Despite the flurry of building, by the time Olimpia came to Rome in
1612, the city boasted only 100,000 inhabitants. The center of Christendom
was only half the size of London and a fourth the size of Paris.
Most neighborhoods were semirural in character. In the south and east
of the city were orchards and farms. Monasteries and convents, set in
large gardens, covered much of the western section.
Olimpia’s house was in the most urban area of Rome. It was a short
carriage ride from the Piazza Navona to the street of locksmiths, the
street of booksellers, and streets reserved for rosary makers, glove makers,
jewelers, carriage mechanics, and barbers who could shave a man’s
face, open a vein, and pull his rotten tooth with equal aplomb. Each
establishment had a sign depicting the services offered within—a pipe
for the tobacconist, a bleeding arm for the surgeon—so that illiterate
Romans could find the shop they needed.
Rome made no products for export, such as cloth, ships, or guns. The
economy was primarily focused on the church and its bureaucrats and the
services that supported them. Architects, masons, carpenters, painters,
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