DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.68272#0126
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THE GARDENS OF ITALY.
nd. She married Paolo Nini, a noble of Viterbo. Both he and her little son died almost
immediately. Soon after she married Pamfilio Parnphilj, a soldier, who seems to have been a
rough and unkind husband, but he died in 1639, leaving Donna Olimpia, however, with
three sons. She is forty-five before we hear much more of her, but for many years past she
had been gaining that influence, which was to make her fortune, over her brother-in-law, the
abbe, who became Pope five years after Pamfilio’s death. When her husband died Olimpia
was still a young and beautiful woman, but she gave up all idea of pleasure, renouncing all
weaknesses of sex, only going into the world when it was politic to do so, devoting all her ener-
gies to becoming a power and influence in the life of her brother-in-law, who was to become
Innocent X. To him, by character melancholy and undecided, her firm, optimistic nature, full
of cheerfulness and sympathy, soon became absolutely necessary. When the Pope was elected
the people swarmed, according to custom, to exercise their privilege of sacking the Parnphilj palace,
118.—NORTH SIDE OF THE VILLA.
but Olimpia had already prudently removed all the valuable furniture and tapestries, leaving
them only the rubbish to prey upon.
From the first she established a splendid position for herself, only asking the most exalted
persons to share her banquets, and Cardinals and magnates, say the contemporary chronicles,
bowed before her, as her chair, with a baldaquin over it, was borne into the halls of the greatest
nobles and into the palaces of ambassadors.
She lived in the Parnphilj palace in Piazza Navona, and the diarists of the time record many
of her visits to the Vatican and those of the Pope paid to her in return. It seemed, they say,
as if she were an integral part of his grandeur. After every event, every ceremony of import-
ance he would come and sup with Donna Olimpia, sometimes she would carry him off to spend
the day in the garden of some villa, and together they visited the great artists of the day.
Olimpia was received everywhere, and even had permission to enter monasteries where women
were not admitted, being even entertained by the monks at luncheon. What her real relations
THE GARDENS OF ITALY.
nd. She married Paolo Nini, a noble of Viterbo. Both he and her little son died almost
immediately. Soon after she married Pamfilio Parnphilj, a soldier, who seems to have been a
rough and unkind husband, but he died in 1639, leaving Donna Olimpia, however, with
three sons. She is forty-five before we hear much more of her, but for many years past she
had been gaining that influence, which was to make her fortune, over her brother-in-law, the
abbe, who became Pope five years after Pamfilio’s death. When her husband died Olimpia
was still a young and beautiful woman, but she gave up all idea of pleasure, renouncing all
weaknesses of sex, only going into the world when it was politic to do so, devoting all her ener-
gies to becoming a power and influence in the life of her brother-in-law, who was to become
Innocent X. To him, by character melancholy and undecided, her firm, optimistic nature, full
of cheerfulness and sympathy, soon became absolutely necessary. When the Pope was elected
the people swarmed, according to custom, to exercise their privilege of sacking the Parnphilj palace,
118.—NORTH SIDE OF THE VILLA.
but Olimpia had already prudently removed all the valuable furniture and tapestries, leaving
them only the rubbish to prey upon.
From the first she established a splendid position for herself, only asking the most exalted
persons to share her banquets, and Cardinals and magnates, say the contemporary chronicles,
bowed before her, as her chair, with a baldaquin over it, was borne into the halls of the greatest
nobles and into the palaces of ambassadors.
She lived in the Parnphilj palace in Piazza Navona, and the diarists of the time record many
of her visits to the Vatican and those of the Pope paid to her in return. It seemed, they say,
as if she were an integral part of his grandeur. After every event, every ceremony of import-
ance he would come and sup with Donna Olimpia, sometimes she would carry him off to spend
the day in the garden of some villa, and together they visited the great artists of the day.
Olimpia was received everywhere, and even had permission to enter monasteries where women
were not admitted, being even entertained by the monks at luncheon. What her real relations