Mistress of the Vatican: The True Story of Olimpia Maidalchini, the Secret Female Pope (review)

Eleanor Herman's Mistress of the Vaticanis an informative and readable account of the life of Olimpia Maidalchini, a fascinating figure in the history of seventeenth-century Rome, a leading albeit controversial actor in curial politics in the middle of the century, and a woman. This well-researched popular biography is, however, flawed by the author's need to overemphasize the sensational or dramatic elements of Maidalchini's life and its historical context.

Donna Olimpia Maidalchini was born in 1591 in Viterbo as the oldest of three daughters. Hoping to preserve the family property to benefit his only son, Sforza Maidalchini decided that his daughters should take religious vows since the dowry required by a convent was far less than that stipulated for a respectable marriage. Unlike her sisters, Olimpia refused and instead married the wealthy Paolo Nini in 1608. The two children born of this marriage did not survive their first year, and Nini died at the age of twenty-three in 1611. A second marriage to Pamphilio Pamphili at the end of the following year brought Olimpia from Viterbo to Rome and, more important, into the orbit of curial politics in one of the most politicized eras in papal history. Her husband was the older brother of Giambattista Pamphili, who eventually would accede to the papal throne as Innocent X (1644–55). Olimpia moved into the palace of the Pamphili on Piazza Navona, and by the time her brother-in-law was elected pope, there was a long-standing friendship between the two. Olimpia seems to have acted as Giambattista Pamphili's counselor, and she would continue to do so throughout the major part of his pontificate, aside from a brief estrangement from 1651 to 1653. The circumstance that a woman could wield such influence in a rigidly male hierarchy such as that of the Roman Curia was in itself provocative: Olimpia's documented interest in material wealth and immaterial—although equally important—political influence gave rise to strong criticism in her lifetime that has been preserved in popular treatises or relazioniand diplomatic reports. Olimpia was expelled from Rome shortly after the accession of Fabio Chigi, Pope Alexander VII (1655–67). She died in 1657 in Viterbo, a late victim of the plague that had broken out in Rome the year before.

It is laudable that Herman, in this biography, has contributed to making seventeenth-century Roman and papal history accessible to a broader public than that of specialists. The history of the papacy in the half-century following the Westphalian Peace has too long been regarded as a period of decline in general works. The reign of Olimpia's brother-in-law, Innocent X, is actually a fascinating moment of transition. Papal government dominated by client-patron relationships began to give way to appointments based on merit, partly evident in the elevations to the cardinalate made by this pontiff, but also in the restructuring of the office of secretary of state.

Herman is not a professional historian, and she makes no claims to the contrary. However, she has an ability to inform her readers of historical context and environment, and in spite of lesser faults, her presentation is very credible. It is therefore such a shame that she—and her publishers—emphasize what, in their eyes, is sensational.

The biography's subtitle refers to "The Secret Female Pope." No secrets are attached to Olimpia Maidalchini, and her role in papal politics during the pontificate of Innocent X is well recorded in contemporary treatises and later works of scholarship. The author is aware of this, since she discusses six previous works on Olimpia in her preface: several from the twentieth century and the most recent from 1979.Yet, the author insists on making her biography interesting by claiming that the role Olimpia played in papal politics during the pontificate of Innocent...