I have a collection of cards and postcards of places we have visited in past decades. Some of them are beautiful, like the photo cards of Greece or of Art work in museums that we particularly liked. While living in Rome, we made a point to visit and attend exhibits in various museums, Rome is a living museum, the Italians throw nothing away. There are many old noble families who have palaces in the City and elsewhere in the Lazio province surrounding the Eternal City. In a twist of history, the Italian Government and Italians in general have great respect for old names and especially if the family has significant ancestors who marked their era. In Rome on either side of the Piazza Venezia you have two such palaces full of artworks accumulated over the centuries. One is the Colonna Palace built on the site of an old Egyptian Temple. The ancestor Prince Admiral Marc Antonio Colonna, was the victor at the naval battle of Lepanto which saved Italy from an invasion by the Ottoman Turks. The Pope granted him the land and many other benefits.

Palazzo Colonna is one of the oldest and largest private family owned palaces in Rome. It appears in movie Roman Holiday with Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck. The Princely Colonna family dates back to the twelfth century and have been living in this renaissance/baroque palace for 800 years. It is open only on Saturday mornings for guided tours of the principal rooms.

The other is the Doria Pamphilij Palace, an enormous private princely family palace also built in the renaissance/baroque style and host many social events. The art gallery is again jaw dropping. It is one of the most important art collections in Europe. The family originally from Genoa, distinguished itself through military campaigns against the French at Crecy and at sea against other enemies of Italy. Andrea Doria is probably the most famous member of the family. Today Prince Jonathan Doria Pamphilij and his husband is the head of the family.

The family through the ages has a lot of colourful characters involved in games of power and politics in Rome. One such person is Olimpia Maidalchini Pamphilij, Princess of San Martino (26 May 1591 – 27 September 1657) was the sister-in-law of Pope Innocent X (Pamphili). A formidable woman, her marble bust can be seen in one of the long galleries of the Palace. You can see her regal authority in her look and posture. She was perceived by her contemporaries as having influence regarding papal appointments.

On May 26, 1591, a tax collector in Viterbo, Italy, named Sforza Maidalchini, and his wife, welcomed another child. He was disappointed to discover that it was a girl. She was christened Olimpia.

When she was 15 years old, he had made his decision: she would become a nun. When her father tried to imprison her in a convent, Olimpia strongly resisted. She won—but, according to her biographer, this formative experience had a lasting effect on her, and she spent the rest of her life fortifying herself with as much wealth and power as she could, perpetually “terrified of being locked up by men.”

In defiance of her father, she married the wealthiest young man in town. Three years later, he died, and she inherited his entire fortune. As a 21-year-old wealthy widow, she made a marriage alliance with a 51-year-old Prince Pamphilio Pamphilj. He gained her fortune, and she gained a title of nobility. Her next project: to help her brother-in-law, 38-year-old Monsignor Giantbattista Pamphilj, rise in his career at the Vatican. She was ambitious and used her political savvy and determination to help him move up the ecclesiastical ladder all the way to the top—she offered advice, she acted as a hostess for him, and she skillfully bribed the right people to get him increasingly better positions. It was a world of deceit, treachery, and manipulation, and she was exceptionally skilled at navigating it.

She secured him a cardinal’s hat in 1629, and after a spectacular turn of events (aka another massive bribe) she got him elected as the next Pope in 1644, he took the name of Innocent X. Thanks to his sister-in-law and key advisor, he had secured what was arguably the most powerful position in all of Europe at the time.

When Pamphilj became Pope Innocent X, he was 70 years old and Olimpia was 53. From the start, it was clear that she was the one in charge, even if the public-facing figure was the Pope. And the men at the Vatican were less than thrilled. “We have just elected a female pope,” Cardinal Alessandro Bichi angrily declared on the day that Cardinal Pamphilij was declared Pope Innocent X. 

 The position of Pope was a religious one, with spiritual duties, but it was also a political one and the responsibilities were endless. Every day, Olimpia arrived at the papal palace early in the morning. She stayed there all day, not leaving till past midnight. She made decisions on important appointments and promotions, she influenced policies, she negotiated with foreign powers, she fielded petitions, etc. She also supported artists like Bernini and Cortona, she supported women in various capacities and is seen by many as an early feminist. She gave funds to support nuns, she sponsored marriage dowries for young girls who were being forced into convents against their wills, and she protected prostitutes by running all the brothels of Rome putting them under the protection of the Vatican, the profits going into the coffers of the Holy See.

Unfortunately Donna Olimpia made many enemies during her time in power. After her brother-in-law, Pope Innocent X died, the new Pope Alexander VII succeeded him, launching an investigation into her conduct during his predecessors’s reign, looking into her “corruption, embezzlement, and the perplexing disappearance of the entire Vatican Treasury.” The investigation didn’t go anywhere, she was exiled to Orvieto where she died.