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

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. For almost four centuries this astonishing story of a woman’s absolute power over the Vatican has been successfully buried—until now.

• Sex with Kings: 500 Years of Adultery, Power, Rivalry, and Revenge
• The Tigress of Forli: Renaissance Italy's Most Courageous and Notorious Countess, Caterina Riario Sforza de' Medici
• Sex with the Queen: 900 Years of Vile Kings, Virile Lovers, and Passionate Politics (P.S.)
• The Pope's Daughter: The Extraordinary Life of Felice della Rovere
• Four Queens: The Provencal Sisters Who Ruled Europe
• The Rival Queens: Catherine de' Medici, Her Daughter Marguerite de Valois, and the Betrayal that Ignited a Kingdom
• Cleopatra: A Life
• The Lady Queen: The Notorious Reign of Joanna I, Queen of Naples, Jerusalem, and Sicily
• The Borgias and Their Enemies: 1431-1519
• The Royal Art of Poison: Filthy Palaces, Fatal Cosmetics, Deadly Medicine, and Murder Most Foul