My New Facebook Friend's Book Party

I received this email from Eleanor Herman, a new Facebook Friend:

Hi Everybody!

I wanted to remind you of my DC-area book debut on Tuesday, August 26, at 6:30 pm [at the National Press Club]...

For hundreds of years, the Catholic Church has excluded women from leadership positions . . .

. . . now Eleanor Herman debunks the very core of the Church’s justifications

Mistress of the Vatican
The True Story of Olimpia Maidalchini: The Secret Female Pope
by Eleanor Herman

For a decade in the seventeenth century, a woman ran the Catholic Church. For almost four centuries, this astonishing story of a woman’s rise to absolute power over the Vatican has been successfully covered up - until now.

Her name was Olimpia Maidalchini, and through her brother-in-law --and reputed lover-- Pope Innocent X (reigned 1644-1655) she governed the most powerful institution on the face of the Earth. Cardinals and royalty bowed down to her as she made international policy, waged war, patronized Rome’s greatest baroque artists, and stuffed her pockets with Vatican gold.

History at its most exciting, MISTRESS OF THE VATICAN is full of eccentric characters, outrageous situations, and the magnificence and brutality of a bygone age. It brings to life shocking Church traditions – nepotism; corruption; conclaves that leaked like sieves; and servants who routinely plundered the rooms of a dying pontiff, sometimes leaving him naked and decomposing on the floor.

Eleanor Herman – the bestselling author of Sex With the Queen and Sex With Kings - is an engaging, entertaining, and authoritative writer who has hosted shows for The History Channel and National Geographic. To research MISTRESS OF THE VATICAN, she delved into Italian archives for original letters and diplomatic dispatches, discovered Olimpia’s birthplace, and visited her numerous palaces.

What she discovered was fascinating. The widowed sister-in-law of the indecisive Pope Innocent X Olimpia was presumed to be the pope’s mistress. Regardless of whether or not this was true, she certainly was mistress of the Vatican, appointing cardinals, negotiating with foreign powers, and raking in immense sums from the papal treasury. In a church that firmly excludes women from officiating as priests, and even from marrying priests, Olimpia’s story is clearly an uncomfortable one for the Vatican.

Most historical sources disliked Olimpia’s interference in Vatican affairs – she was far smarter than almost all the men in her environment, and it hurt. But some fair-minded ambassadors praised her for her intelligence, dignity, and financial acumen. The French ambassador Bali de Valençais admired Olimpia, informing Louis XIV that she was, without doubt, a “great lady.” Even Cardinal Pallavicino, who despised Olimpia, gave her grudging approval for her “intellect of great worth in economic government” and her “capacity for the highest affairs.”

Envied, admired, and despised, Olimpia was a baroque rock star, belting out her song loudly on a stage of epic exaggeration. But by the end of the seventeenth century, with new popes and new hopes, the scandal of Olimpia, which had gripped all Europe, faded and disappeared. Long forgotten now is her bittersweet tale of power, greed, and the glory of God.

About the author:

Author Eleanor Herman is related to most of the royal houses of Europe. With the blood of kings flowing in her veins, she has spent most of her free time since childhood studying their lives and traveling to their palaces. Herman graduated with a degree in Journalism from Towson State University in Baltimore in 1981. After studying languages in Europe and writing for numerous publications, she worked for German-based Monch Publishing as Associate Publisher of Nato’s Nations and Partners for Peace from 1989-2002. She has interviewed numerous foreign leaders and spoken at NATO Headquarters in Brussels. A member of the National Press Club’s Book and Author Committee, currently her full-time job is researching and writing women’s history.

Mistress of the Vatican:
The True Story of Olimpia Maidalchini: The Secret Female Pope
by Eleanor Herman
William Morrow / On Sale August 12, 2008
$25.95 / Hardcover / ISBN: 978-0-06-124555-8
Contact: Adam Rochkind / 212-207-7034 / adam.rochkind@harpercollins.com