Olimpia Maidalchini

Olimpia Maidalchini

Olimpia Maidalchini-Pamphilj (born May 26, 1591 in Viterbo , † September 26, 1657 in San Martino al Cimino ) was an important person in papal history around the middle of the 17th century.

origin

Olimpia Maidalchini's parents were Sforza Maidalchini and Vittoria Gualtieri, both of whom belonged to families of the city nobility of Viterbo. She spent her childhood in the local monastery of San Domenico , but received only a moderate education. She successfully resisted the urge of her parents to become a nun and on September 28, 1608 married Paolo Nini from an equally important family. However, he died in 1611 as did both of their only sons, Nino.

Social advancement

At the end of 1612, Olimpia entered into her second marriage, with Pamphilio Pamphilj , 32 years her senior , a member of a family that had risen to the leading ranks of the urban Roman aristocracy a few years earlier with a first cardinal , originally from the Umbrian town of Gubbio . The nephew of this cardinal named Giovanni Battista Pamphilj (from 1644 to 1655 Pope Innocent X ) had already started his long career in the service of the papal curia; he became Olimpia's brother-in-law. In 1619 the first daughter, Maria Flaminia, was born, on February 21, 1622 in Naples the son Camillo Francesco Maria Pamphilij , when the parents were staying there because Giovanni Battista had taken her, who was the envoy of Popes Paul V at the royal court . and Gregory XV. stayed. The couple returned to Rome in 1625 , where their second daughter Costanza was born in 1629. Ten years later Pamphilio died while Maria Flaminia married the Genoese nobleman Andrea Giustiniani in 1640 , son of the Marchese Vincenzo Giustiniani the Younger, who worked in Rome. The daughter of this couple was named Olimpia.

Power position as Pope's sister-in-law

When Giovanni Battista Pamphilj was elected Pope after the death of Urban VIII on September 14, 1644 and took the name Innocent X , Olimpia Maidalchini gained a prominent position. To what extent she herself contributed to the choice of her brother-in-law remains open. Shortly afterwards the new Pope changed his will in her favor and made her the universal heir of his worldly possessions. The new social status quickly became apparent when, a little later, Olimpia's second daughter Costanza married the Prince of Piombino , Niccolò Albergati Ludovisi , the nephew of Pope Gregory XV. On November 14, 1644, Innocent created his 22-year-old nephew Camillo as a cardinal and gave him further offices as nominal commander of the papal troops. The young cardinal with the titular church of Santa Maria in Domnica, however, remained under the supervision of the Cardinal Secretary of State Giovanni Giacomo Panciroli .

First years in a social leadership role

In 1645, Innocent acquired the town of San Martino al Cimino south of Viterbo from the Apostolic Chamber to equip his family , elevated it to a principality along with the further northern villages of Montecalvello, Grotta Santo Stefano and Vallebona, and transferred this to his sister-in-law as his own rights. An inscription plaque, which is embedded in the floor of the mighty monastery church on the northern edge of today's district of Viterbo, identifies Olimpia as a princess and emphasizes her services in the renovation of the church; the text may have been formulated by Olimpia himself.

Because of her position, the new princess took part in state acts of the Pope, which is not surprising, but attracted the Roman people to the first mocking verses, which are known as pasquinades : These were in the form of slips of paper on a fragmentary ancient marble statue known as pasquino , pinned at night. A curiosity of a special kind is the immediate vicinity of this antique piece with a different purpose to the Palazzo Pamphilj, which was then under construction .

In the same year 1646, the sculptor Alessandro Algardi created the expressive marble bust of Olimpia, which is now in the Galleria Doria Pamphilj in Rome: the will power of the sitter can be read directly from it.

Alessandro Algardi: Portrait bust of the Olimpia Maidalchini, Rome, Galleria Doria Pamphili

On January 7, 1647, Cardinalnepot Camillo Pamphilj took a step that was not welcomed for a long time by his mother and uncle, when he resigned his cardinal dignity to marry a rich heiress from the high aristocracy on February 10. It was Olimpia Borghese, nee Aldobrandini, the princess of Rossano and Meldola and heiress of their family. She brought in half of the Aldobrandini's fortune for her husband, including the villa in Frascati named after them . This is where the couple retired after the wedding, which neither the Pope nor the mother or mother-in-law had attended. In the future, these two women of the same name formed a striking opposition, which in some cases unhappily co-determined the papal policy.

On October 7, 1647, Innocent X appointed Olimpia's nephew, Francesco Maidalchini , son of her older brother, as the new cardinal nephew , but this decision was not met with unanimous approval. In the meantime, his aunt did not take part directly in the real affairs of state, but she was involved in the awarding of favors.

Construction activity

Olimpia paid special attention to construction with papal money. The Palazzo Pamphilj was built on today's Piazza Navona between 1644 and 1650 by the architects Girolamo Rainaldi and Francesco Borromini , and Olimpia expressly contributed to the interior design. Right next to it, the church of Sant'Agnese in Agone was built since 1652 , but it was not completed until after the Pope's death by Carlo Rainaldi in 1672. In front of its facade, Gian Lorenzo Bernini , a special favorite of Olimpia in art matters and recommended by her to the Pope, created the four rivers fountain from 1648 to 1651 . Outside the city wall, west of Rome near the Porta San Pancrazio, the Villa Pamphilj was built in a wide landscape area between 1644 and 1652 : It is a building adorned with ancient statues on the outer façade, also known as the Casino di Bel Respiro (Casino of beautiful recreation) becomes.

Ultimately, Olimpia paid special attention to the expansion of its small principality and especially its main towns, which were redesigned as a country residence according to modern urban criteria. Next to the monastery church, the Palazzo Pamphilj was built, a very simple structure with no elaborate exterior decoration. The main street with uniformly designed small houses and several fountains as well as two side streets along the houses attached to the city wall lead to the south, where a ceremonial gate with a building inscription and the Pope's coat of arms completes the whole ensemble. The newly built place has almost exactly the shape of the Roman Piazza Navona.

Palazzo Pamphili, San Martino al Cimino

Last time in the center of power

After the son of Camillo Pamphilj and Olimpia Aldobrandini, Giovanbattista, named after his great-uncle, was born on June 24, 1648, the parents returned to Rome and took up residence in the Palazzo Farnese .

In 1649 Olimpia Maidalchini had relics of St. Francesca Romana brought to San Martino al Cimino under dubious circumstances , which brought her noticeable reluctance from the Roman population. On the eve of the Holy Year 1650, she took part in the solemn ceremony at which Innocent X opened the holy door of St. Peter's Basilica. In the same year the painter Diego Velázquez created her now lost portrait, while the portrait of the Pope has been preserved.

In 1650 there was still an upset between the Pope and his sister-in-law when he appointed a new cardinal nepot from the broader family, Camillo Astalli, in September. Already in June he had revoked Olimpia's right to dispose of the family property as he saw fit. The noticeably snubbed one then withdrew for a long time to the recently completed Palazzo Pamphilj in Rome.

It was not until March 1653 that the two sisters of the Pope, who lived as nuns in Viterbo, achieved a family reconciliation, which was reinforced by the birth of the second son of Camillo and Olimpia, Benedetto, in April; he became a cardinal himself in 1681. In addition, Olimpia Giustiniani and Prince Maffeo Barberini married in June , which brought about the reconciliation of the two papal families of the Barberini and Pamphilj. At the same time, Olimpia Maidalchini returned to public life in Rome. This new situation was confirmed on October 12, 1653, when the Pope visited his relatives in their principality and gave in to their will to overthrow Cardinal Astalli. Finally, in mid-1654, the Pope and Princess established each other as heirs.

On December 14, 1654, Innocent X caught a cold while visiting the Villa Pamphilj, from which he never recovered. The Cardinal Secretary of State Fabio Chigi, who had been in office since 1650, prevented Olimpia from visiting his sickbed in the Vatican . When the Pope died on January 7, 1655, the two had never met again, and the funeral was carried out in a remarkably simple form: the sister-in-law is said to have refused to pay for the funeral expenses because she claimed to be a poor widow. The Pope's grave monument in Sant'Agnese in Agone only had a descendant built in 1730.

Exile, death and aftermath

In the conclave after Innocent's death, the majority of the cardinals quickly turned against the Pamphilj family. On April 7th, Fabio Chigi was elected as the new Pope and took the name Alexander VII . One of his first decisions was the banishment of Olimpias from Rome. This withdrew first to Viterbo, then to San Martino al Cimino. Here she died of the plague on September 26, 1657 and was buried in the monastery church in a side chapel of the choir, where an inscription in the floor commemorates her. Her cash legacy is said to have amounted to two million scudi.

Funerary inscription from Olimpia Maidalchini, San Martino al Cimino, monastery church

In the numerous pasquinades, Olimpia was denigrated not only as "Olim Pia" (once pious), but also as "Pimpaccia di Piazza Navona" ("the wrapped up from Piazza Navona"). In addition, an alleged love affair with her steward was imputed to her. In addition, diatribes were devoted to her influencing the papal brother-in-law: She was referred to as the “almost popess”. As early as 1666, such a representation appeared in Geneva under the harmless title "Vita di Donna Olimpia Maidalchini", which determined the image of Olimpia as the main representative of degenerate nepotism with its French, English and Dutch translations.

The Pamphilj family died out in 1760 with Girolamo Pamphilj, who found his grave in the same chapel as his ancestor. It was absorbed by the Doria Pamphilj Landi family, which also died out in direct male succession , and whose adopted heirs still own Palazzo Doria-Pamphilj to this day .

literature

• Gustavo Brigante Colonna: Olimpia Pamphilj. "Cardinal Padrone". Milan 1941.
• Donata Chiomanti Vassalli: Donna Olimpia o del nepotismo nel Seicento. Milan 1979.
• Sivigliano Alloisi: Imago pietatis 1650. I Pamphilj a San Martino al Cimino. Rome 1987, ISBN 88-7621-572-7 .
• Susan Russell: L'intervento di Donna Olimpia Pamphilj nella Sala Grande di Palazzo Pamphilj a Piazza Navona. In: Bollettino d'Arte. Volume 81, 1996, pp. 111-120.
• Stefano Tabacchi:  MAIDALCHINI, Olimpia. In: Mario Caravale (ed.): Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (DBI). Volume 67:  Macchi – Malaspina. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome 2006, pp. 531-536.
• Stephanie C. Leone: The Palazzo Pamphilj in Piazza Navona: Constructing Identity in Early Modern Rome. London 2008, ISBN 978-1-905375-07-3 .
• Eleanor Herman: Mistress of the Vatican. The True Story of Olimpia Maidalchini, the Secret Female Pope. New York 2008, ISBN 978-0-06-124555-8 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Consistory - November 14, 1644 . Catholic Hierarchy. November 20, 2018. Retrieved December 7, 2018.
2. ↑ Report on San Martino al Cimino ( Memento of the original from March 16, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.