mistress of the vatican.pdf - End Time Deception

Eleanor Herman
mate. Each one offered the other increased power and prestige and a
place of absolute safety with all defenses let down. It was like a marriage
made in heaven, except, of course, Gianbattista was a priest and Olimpia
was married to his brother.
Sometimes Gianbattista took her out in his carriage to see the monuments
of Rome, tour the vineyards outside the walls, or take the air.
The vegetable sellers in the Piazza Navona, the Pasquino gawkers behind
the Pamphili house, and those coming to pick up their mail at the
post office next door saw Olimpia and her normally somber brother-inlaw
laughing in their carriage brightly painted with the Pamphili coat
of arms—a white dove holding an olive branch in its mouth.
Many Romans recalled the stories of Gianbattista only fifteen years
earlier, when, as a young priest with frizzy ringlets, he had chased
women, dueling over them in the street. Naturally, word got out that
the two were conducting a very public affair right under the nose of
Pamphilio Pamphili, the husband of one and brother of the other. And
the affair would not only have been adulterous, but according to church
law it would have also been incestuous. It was delicious gossip.
Leti sniffed, “This woman went more often in the carriage around
town with her brother-in-law than with her husband. They were locked
up for hours on end in his cabinet, longer than propriety could approve
of, longer than her husband could tolerate. Sometimes he sought his
brother and his wife without finding them, which is proof that he
found it necessary to look for them together, and that she didn’t take a
step without being accompanied by her brother-in-law.” 10
Commenting harshly on Gianbattista’s appearance, Leti continued,
“One thing obliged many people to have a better sentiment of her
conduct . . . which was, that they could not understand how a woman
with an agreeable body and face could resolve to fall in love with the
ugliest and most deformed man that was ever born, for such was her
brother-in-law. . . . From this one can judge the grand ambitions that
rule women. . . . And she, who wanted only to command, loved him all
the more because he allowed her to govern.” 11
We have no record of Pamphilio’s feelings about his brother’s close
relationship with his wife. It is possible the rumors did not unduly
[ 62 ]