Olimpia Maidalchini
Italian noble (1594-1657)
Olimpia Maidalchini Pamphilj, Princess of San Martino (26 May 1591 – 27 September 1657), (also spelled Pamphili and known as Olimpia Pamphili), was the sister-in-law of Pope Innocent X (Pamphili). She was perceived by her contemporaries as having influence regarding papal appointments.
She is not to be confused with her daughter-in-law Olimpia Aldobrandini, who married her son Camillo.
Early life
Maidalchini was born in Viterbo, the eldest of three daughters of Sforza Maidalchini (1561–1623), a condottiere, by his second wife, Vittoria Gualterio, patrician of Orvieto and Rome. Her mother Vittoria was a noble of Viterbo, the daughter of Giulio Gualterio (who was the son of Sebastiano Gualterio, Bishop of Viterbo, and Papal Nuncio to France and the Council of Trent).
Her family was noble, but only moderately wealthy. In order to conserve the family property for his only son Andrea, Sforza Maidalchini decided that his daughters should enter religious life, where the dowry to enter a convent was less than that required for a suitable marriage. Olimpia refused, and in 1608 married Paolo Nini, one of the wealthiest men in Viterbo. Their two children both died in infancy and Nini himself died in 1611 at the age of twenty-three.
Her second marriage was to Pamphilio Pamphili, elder brother of Cardinal Giambattista Pamphili, the future Pope Innocent X. The Cardinal had been appointed nuncio to the Kingdom of Naples, and Pamphilio and his wife joined him, living in a home adjacent to the nunciature.
“Olimpia Maidalchini” enters the record as italian noble (1594-1657). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Olimpia, Maidalchini and Italian can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q260170. VIAF identifies the subject as 43112137. The Library of Congress control number is n79055053. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1591, 1657, 1561 and 1623.
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This entry incorporates text from “Olimpia Maidalchini” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.