Note 69 — III THE DUCHESS SOPHIA (HANOVER, OSNABRÜCK, AND HANOVER, 1658-1688)

This was the vivacious Valerio Maccioni, one of the pleasant Catholic ecclesiastics who were Sophia’s familiar associates and correspondents in these kindly days. (Others were the Abbé (afterwards Count) Balati, a Florentine nobleman who was afterwards of service to Ernest Augustus as a diplomatist and to the ladies of his family in the matter of chiffons at Paris, and the Abbé Hortensio Mauro, Italian secretary, and afterwards attached to the Court at Celle.) Maccioni, after acting for some years as John Frederick’s ecclesiastical adviser and as papal representative at Hanover, was episcopated in 1669, when about thirty-eight years of age. He died at Hanover in 1676. Sophia was on the easiest of terms with him, as is shown by the references, in her letters to him, to the Holy Court at ‘Traive,’ and to a prophetess with a magic mirror, whom she requested the Bishop to exorcise, should he opine that the devil had a hand in her manifestations.