Yesterday night, his sufferings were aggravated by sharp pains in one side; however, it proved possible to restore him with a few sips of broth. But at four in the morning, he gave up the ghost.
The body will be brought from the Quirinale to Saint Peter's in a plain wooden coffin chosen by the Pope in person. He leaves behind him an exemplary reputation as father of the poor, a disinterested administrator of the Church's estates and a pious and just priest.
Now the betting is truly open for the election of the next Pope. Prognostications for this or that cardinal can be voiced aloud without any fear of offending the honour of the Holy Father and his poor sick body.
This should have been Abbot Melani's finest hour: at long last exploiting his network of acquaintances, making friends among those attending the conclave, getting wind of indiscretions, proposing strategies, propagating false rumours to demoralise the other side..
None of that is to be. No clever interpreter of political manoeuvring, no magus of Vatican alchemy will be by my side. I shall observe the conclave from the outside, wide-eyed and with my soul in a state of suspense, like all the other members of the public.
8th October
Tomorrow, the cardinals go into conclave. The factions are on a war footing, all Rome is holding its breath. The city is full of gazettes and broadsheets setting out the composition of the parties that will be entering the lists. Satires, dramas and sonnets flourish, lampoons abound.
Plays are circulated quite without shame or fear of God, lambasting the whole Sacred College, while according special attention to Cardinal Ottoboni and his particular tendencies: in La Babilonia, he is given the role of the chambermaid Nina; in L'Osteria, he becomes Petrina; in Babilonia Crescente, Madam Fulvia, in Babilonia trasformata, a certain Venetian Angeletta. Everyone kills themselves laughing.
The other day, I came upon a sonnet in which poor Pope Innocent the Twelfth (" Duodecimo") becomes Innocent Duodenum. Out of modesty, I shall not reproduce it here.
Besides all the jokes, serious information also circulates. The imperial and Spanish cardinals number eleven, at least on paper. The French are in equal numbers. The party of the Cardinal Zealots is the most numerous, numbering nineteen. Some of these (Moriggia, Carlo Barberini, Colloredo) I have seen at Villa Spada. The group of the Virile are ten, and include the Chamberlain Spinola di San Cesareo; likewise the Drifters. The Ottoboniani and Altieristi (called after the family names of the popes who raised them to the purple) are twelve. These include my master, Cardinal Spada, together with Albani, Mariscotti and, obviously, Ottoboni. Then come the other popes' appointments, the Odescalchini, the Pignatellisti and the Barberini..
According to the gazettes, the divisions cut across all party lines, and so are infinite. Some see rivalries and alliances according to age groups, gifts, aspirations, caprices, even tastes: there are the bitter cardinals, in other words, those known for their ill humour (Panciatici, Buonvisi, Acciaioli, Marescotti), the good-natured and easy going (Moriggia, Radolovich, Barberini, Spinola di Santa Cecilia), the middling ones (Carpegna, Noris, Durazzo, Dal Verme) and lastly, the unripe ones, who are less than seventy years of age and therefore too young to be elected (Spada, Albani, Orsini, Spinola di San Cesareo, Mellini and Rubini).
Negroni is seventy-one years old but has made it clear that he is not willing to be elected; he will vote for whoever merits the appointment, so he swore, and against the undeserving. The latter, of this everyone is convinced, are the overwhelming majority.
Even upright souls will, however, find the way difficult. No favours will be granted, even to those who have all their affairs in good order. Carlo Barberini, for instance, is about the right age, but has to contend with the hatred of the Romans for his relatives (which has lasted for the best part of eighty years), as well as the hostility of Spinola di San Cesareo and, above all, his own stupidity. Accaioli is opposed by Tuscany and France. Abroad, Marescotti is hated only by France, but in Rome also by Bichi (the feeling being entirely mutual). Durazzo is envied for the fact that he is related to the Queen of Spain. Moriggia is too close to Tuscany, Radolovich to Spain. Carpegna is not in good odour with any of the crowned heads of Europe, Colloredo is detested by the French and despised by Ottoboni. Costaguti is notoriously incompetent. Noris suits no one because he is a friar. For whatever reason, Panciatici is favoured by no one.
Many foreigners will not come, being taken up with urgent business of their own (these are said to include the Austrian Kollonitz, the Frenchmen Sousa and Bonsi and the Spaniard Portocarrero). But the struggle will be very hard indeed, so much so that the eminences may wish to opt for a more rapid solution in order to avoid bloodshed. Some say that white smoke may emerge within a fortnight or so, perhaps even less.
18th November
Nothing of the kind. A month and a half has passed since the beginning of the conclave, yet there's not so much as the shadow of a new Pontiff. The Sacred College of Cardinals seems in fact quite indifferent to the election of the new Pope. We have in fact seen nothing but fruitless manoeuvres whereby candidates have been ruined and burnt out. Everything is blocked by France, Spain and the Empire, in a crossfire of vetoes which implacably bars the way to candidates who do not meet with their approval. The independence and prestige of the Church are obviously in pieces, but the cardinals care nothing for that.
Throughout October, things have gone on like this, with a superabundance of verbiage, while first this candidate, then that, is cast into the fray, like so many manikins cast in the fire: Noris, Moriggia, Spinola di Santa Cecilia, Barbarigo, Durazzo, Medici. All proposed, some even joining the fray on their own initiative, all rejected.
The one serious candidature has perhaps been that of Marescotti, who started out with twenty guaranteed votes, but met with French hostility, which makes him ineligible. Colloredo was proposed: in reality, he is absolutely persona non grata to France, and can therefore get nowhere. Everyone was so sure that Colloredo could not make it that they voted for him en masse and he came within a hair's breadth of election, thus causing some half dozen heart attacks in the Sacred College.
Despite the meagre progress, all manner of things have taken place within the sacred walls of the conclave: endless arguments, envy, hatred among the eminences. More than once, the masters of ceremonies have had to silence the brawling by ordering " Ad cellas, Domini" and forcing the cardinals back to their little cells. There has been no lack of unseemly rows among those attending the conclave who have as usual been caught out listening at one another's doorways. There was even a fire that started, perhaps a case of arson: to repair the damage, an architect and four master masons had to be called in urgently.
The atmosphere is, however, not warlike but mean and nasty. The struggle is informed, not by some lust for triumph, but envy. Rather than competing, what counts is to cripple one's adversary: the winning horse is still not there. It is as though everyone were waiting for something.
The more we go on, the more world-weary and lethargic the mood of the eminences. One morning, Marescotti, the one who was supposed to hold all the best cards, had a nasty fall when putting on his drawers and hurt his head. On hearing the news, the other eminences roared with laughter.
On 31st October, a letter came from the Nuncio to Spain, addressed to Innocent XII. The Nuncio did not know that he had died. Again, there was loud laughter among the eminences.
Monsignor Paolo Borghese who, in his capacity as Governor of the Conclave, is supposed to maintain order and decorum within the Sacred College, makes up for the weakness of his brains with the power of his purse, providing endless banquets within the secluded walls of the College. The dining tables are ornamented with sumptuous displays of flowers and fruit, which are renewed every three days.