112 



THE GARDENS OF ITALY. 



from the thief, saying she ought to be thankful for what he had left her. The Pope, to console 

 her, made her a present of thirty thousand scudi. This was in August, 1654. 



The last time Innocent left the Vatican was in December of the same year, when he was 

 carried in a litter to Donna Olimpia's garden in the Trastevere. His health was failing fast, 

 and after this she never left him. Other ladies who had striven for his favours tried to see him, 

 but Olimpia fought them all off, herself locked his chamber door at night, and every night bore 

 away the gold received during the day. Every day money was paid in for benefices, for 

 bishoprics, for negotiations, and she is said in ten days to have carried off five hundred thousand 

 francs. Just at the last the general of the Jesuits forbade her access to the Pope, but immediately 

 after his death she forced her way back, and dragged from under the very bed on which the body lay 

 two cases of gold, with which she escaped. Then, with cold-blooded irony, as the question arose 

 as to who was to pay for the obsequies of the dead sovereign, she refused to disburse the cost of 



122. SOUTH-WEST END OF GARDEN 



even a modest funeral, saying, what could a poor widow render in the way of funeral honours 

 worthy of a great pontiff ? 



Olimpia tried in vain to conciliate the new Pope, Alexander VII. She even relaxed her 

 usual avarice so far as to send him two gold vases, asking to be allowed to kiss his feet, but the 

 present was returned with the message that the Vatican was not a place for women. Soon after 

 she received an intimation requiring her to leave Rome, and the rest of her life was passed in a villa 

 near Viterbo. She is said to have left two millions of gold scudi, and her heirs contrived to 

 keep tight hold of it, in spite of the attempts of Alexander to recover a part. 



Nowhere do so many traces of her remain to-day as in the magnificent villa erected on the 

 Janiculum for her son, Camillo. A villa had become the indispensable adjunct of every 

 great Roman family. This villa, erected from the designs of Falda by Algardi, and filled 

 with memorials of Olimpia, is second to none in ample magnificence. The site on the 

 Janiculum is that of the ancient gardens of Galba, and here the murdered Emperor is supposed 

 to have been buried A.D. 69, by his devoted slave Argius. Bartoli says that the villa was 



