MISTRESS OF THE VATICAN

I love to read. So you'd think I'd be a good candidate for book groups. But I'm not. I've never found a book group that selected the kinds of books I wanted to read...books about Italy: fiction set in Italy, memoires of people who live in Italy, historical fiction set in the Renaissance, ancient Rome, World War I and II, the Venetian Republic, biographies of historical Italian's...you get the idea.

Last year I read The Mistress of the Vatican by Eleanor Herman. Herman is a historian, who wrote about the life of Olimpia Maidalchini Pamphili, sister-in-law to Pope Innocent X. Olimpia was an ambitious and manipulative woman. After the death of her rich husband, she used her weak and indecisive brother-in-law to gain additional wealth and power in 17^th century Rome by providing the political strategies and tactics needed to ascend to the papacy. It was also rumored that she was the pope’s mistress, in addition to being his primary advisor; but there’s no hard evidence. As a result of Olimpia's reputation of her relationship with the Pope, she eventually left Rome to spend the remainder of her life in the hill town of San Martino al Cimino, given to her by Pope Innocent X.

A few days ago we visited San Martino nel Cimino after reading the description in the Blue Guide to Central Italy; something sounded vaguely familiar. According to the Blue Guide, “San Martino al Cimino is a village which was entirely rebuilt in the 17^th century by Donna Olimpia Maidalchini-Pamphili, when she was given the principate by her brother-in-law in gratitude for her help in having him elected Pope Innocent X.” Seems like the Blue Guide left out all the good stuff.

Not only was Donna Olimpia a skilled political advisor, she had an eye for urban planning, architecture and landscaping…a true Renaissance woman! San Martino al Cimino is nothing like the old medieval walled towns with their narrow, dark streets and vicoli (alleys). Olimpia had the new walled hilltop town designed with wide streets and boulevards that provided the attached houses with ample daylight and panoramic views of the fertile valleys below. She made sure the streets were lined with ornamental trees that added color and softened the hard stone paved streets and stucco faced houses. Several large landscaped piazzas provide larger open spaces which are supplemented by smaller piazzas with public fountains and large shade trees. The entre urban composition speaks volumes to Olimpia’s many talents and intellect that brought a better life to the cittadini (citizens of the city).

By all accounts Donna Olimpia Maidalchini-Pamphili was a demanding, tough and very unlikeable woman; but she knew how to get things done. It would be great to travel back in time and spend an afternoon sitting under one of those trees in the piazza with Donna Olimpia, sipping wine and listening to her side of the story.

F.Y.I – We share the writing and editing. Bill writes about the substantive, architectural, and historical stuff and Carol writes all the fluffy stuff. This particular post is based on Carol’s reading of the book, a little additional research by Bill and our brief tour of San Martino. In other words: Carol = chiacchierone and Bill = maestro.