This is the unforgettable story of a woman ahead of her time. In Mistress of the Vatican, New York Times bestselling author Eleanor Herman brings to life not only an extraordinary woman lost in history but an entire civilization in all its greatness.

As sister-in-law and reputed mistress of the indecisive Pope Innocent X, she appointed cardinals, negotiated with foreign ambassadors, and helped herself to a heaping portion of the Papal States treasury. The Church firmly states that women must be excluded from church leadership positions-but for more than a decade in the seventeenth century, Olimpia ran the Vatican.

Instead, using her wits, Olimpia became the unofficial ruler of the most powerful institution in the world: the Roman Catholic Church. From the Back Cover Born without a dowry, nearly forced into a convent, and later married off to a man she didnt love, Olimpia Maidalchini vowed never to be poor, powerless, or beholden to any man again. For almost four centuries this astonishing story of a womans absolute power over the Vatican has been successfully buried-until now. Eleanor Herman, the talented author of the New York Times bestselling Sex with Kings and Sex with the Queen goes behind the sacred doors of the Catholic Church in Mistress of the Vatican, a scintillating biography of a powerful yet little-known woman whose remarkable story is ripe with secrets, sex, passion, and ambition. Against all odds, Olimpia became the Mistress of the Vatican and shook the Catholic Church down to its very foundations. She also experienced the triumph of achieving her wildest dreams, despite the bitter handicap of being female. Admired, hated, envied, and feared, Olimpia suffered the tragedy of being born an ambitious woman in a mans world. Widowed twice, she single-handedly seated her indecisive brother-in-law on the throne of St. But Olimpia cleverly escaped the convent, marrying money first, and nobility second. Born of a humble family, at fifteen Olimpia Maidalchini was almost forced to become a nun against her will because her father could not afford a dowry. Cardinals bowed down to her and princes feted her as she made international policy, waged war, patronized Romes greatest baroque artists, and stuffed her pockets with Vatican gold.

Book Synopsis For a decade in the seventeenth century a woman ran the Catholic Church, through her brother-in-law and reputed lover, Pope Innocent X. About the Book The author of Sex with Kings and Sex with the Queen goes behind the sacred doors of the Roman Catholic church in this scintillating biography of a powerful yet little-known woman whose astonishing story has been buried-until now.

Sex with the Queen by Eleanor Herman