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pounded of contradictions and oppositions. To the Inquisition he allotted the power with which it blackened itself for all time by per- mitting its lawyers to interfere in the rights of the inquiring reason: Galileo, threatened with the torture, renounced as erroneous his de- fense of the Copernican system.
Innocent X (16441655) of the Pamfili family, was obliged to open his reign by placing on trial some of his predecessor's favourites. They were accused of tampering with Papal justice and with the treasury. A saying went the rounds later on that the bees in the Barberini coat of arms had grown so fat because they had sucked their fill of honey during the twenty years of Urban's reign. Nevertheless the accused found a protector in Mazarin, who had a short time previously be- come cardinal and prime minister and who was indebted to their family. They fled to France and the Pope confiscated their offices and goods. Then the French government intervened, the case was quashed, and they were given back all that had been taken from them.
Soon Innocent himself was given reason for not making war on nepotism. Prior to receiving the tiara he had been a cardinal whom everyone respected an active, just man of rich diplomatic experi- ence who was above all criticism; but the imperious will of the woman who now gained control over him was stronger than the goodwill of the seventy-year-old Pontiff. Energy and softness, determination and inability to make up his mind were strangely paired in him. They are revealed in Velasquez's immortal portrait of 1648, with its eyes that speak many things, its long, strong chin, and its refined, inactive hands. Already as a Cardinal he had owed a great deal to Olimpia Maidalchini of Viterbo, his brother's widow, who had brought a great fortune to the house of Pamfili. She knew how to make the Pope pay for it all. Olim pia nunc impia, said the Roman satirists. She became the most powerful personage in the Vatican. Cardinals hung her picture in their rooms, princes and bearers of petitions sought out her favour as a means by which they could attain their ends. Ambassadors visited her first, and courts sent her presents in order to be assured of an audience. Her house well nigh resembled a court for splendour and society; she married her children to rich partners. But as is so often the case with daughters of fortune, she was soon to
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