The Editors Of Life-Secrets Of The Vatican

SECRETS
OF THE
VATICAN

BY ROBERT SULLIVAN

PHOTOGRAPH BY GIOVANNI CIARLO/AP

To herald the Lux in Arcana (Light in Secret Matters) exhibition in Rome in 2012, the storehouse of the Vaticans secret archives is shown.

SECRETS
OF THE
VATICAN

DAVE YODER/LOSSERVATORE ROMANO/NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE

IN THE SHADOWS , staff prepare the balcony from which Pope Francis will soon deliver his Urbi et Orbi address to the throng below.

INTRODUCTION

A PLACE

LIKE NO OTHER

The Vatican is, in the minds of many, a buildinga church, a cathedral, the majestic St. Peters Basilica of Michelangelos imagination. Thats the Vatican. But, strange to say, thats the Vatican writ small.

It is very much more. It is also, surrounding the wonderful plaza outside St. Petes, a smallish community populated largely by priests and nuns and their associates. It is a homeof the pope, currently the phenomenally popular Francis. It is a conglomeration of several of the worlds greatest museums and libraries. It is a graveyard where lie some of historys most famous figures, including (maybeand well get to that) Saint Peter, the first pope. It is a swirling story of endless intrigues. It is a top-tier tourist site, for many of the reasons just mentioned.

It is a city independent of Rome and a nation-state independent of Italy; in this, its not unlike the equally tiny Monaco, except for the obvious secular-religious divide. No casinos in the Vatican.

As with Mecca or Jerusalem or Salt Lake City, it is the place where one of the variously faithful must one day go. It is a magnet of pilgrimage and a matter of belief.

Each of these places and others central to other religions are of course special, resonant and altogether unique. And therefore, perforce, the Vatican is a place like no otherand it really is quite a place. Christianity being the worlds largest religion (2.4 billion followers) and Catholicism being such a force in the Christian community (1.2 billion adherents), the Vatican is quite a place.

Christianity might have been born in Bethlehem or Nazarethit was certainly born in the Middle Eastbut the Roman Catholic Church today is housed in Rome (or, to be precise, Vatican City), where all of the history, tradition and present practice are retained and maintained. The Vatican buzzes daily, and the Catholic Churchs past, descended from Christ, buzzes day and night. In the chap-els and hallways, clerics meditate, confessions are said, tour guides lead visitors from all the continents, these visitors pause and contemplate, paintings are marveled at... and secrets and rumors, many of them false and some of them perhaps true, are whispered.

Our LIFE books are often tours of this or that subjectAmericas splendor, the strange marvels of the deep sea, civil rights or the Civil War, outer spaceanything that can be seen and, with help from the narrative, comprehended. We show what we can, and explicate or embellish what cannot be fully explained in a picture.

Here, we embark upon our tour of the Vatican and its secrets.

There is perhaps not a subject so concisely beautiful yet so outwardly mysterious.

Were excited by the challenge, and eager for the road ahead. Lets travel on together.

ANTONELLO NUSCA/POLARIS

AT THE HEART, ST. PETERS. This view of the transcendent basilica is from a window in Castel SantAngelo (Castle of the Holy Angel), which was originally built in Rome as a mausoleum for the Roman emperor Hadrian and subsequently used as a fort by Catholic popes; it is today a museum.

We will hear much more of Michelangelo and his colleagues in building todays Vatican, but at this early point: The young sculptor, painter and architect Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni was already accomplishedhe had finished his Piet when he was just 24 when, in 1505, Pope Julius II summoned him back to Rome for a huge job: his (Juliuss) tomb. Funding for the project was dicey, and Michelangelo kept getting thrown new commissions, by Julius and other patrons in Rome and elsewhere, and the tomb wouldnt be finished for 40 years (and even then, not to Michelangelos satisfaction). In the interim, all of those other commissions, the products of which today fill St. Peters Basilica and are manifested in its very walls, are a testimony to Michelangelos genius.

BEHIND

CLOSED DOORS

How to set the mood for a book called not simply The Vatican but Secrets of the Vatican ? Perhaps with a brief visual tour? Here we present what you can consider stops along the way. But that implies the casual. There is nothing casual about these stops.

ROMES EARLIEST CHRISTIANS

MAX ROSSI/REUTERS/CORBIS

This catacomb in Rome was used for Christian burials from the late 2nd century, when Christianity was still very much illicit in the Roman Empire, through the 5th century; the photograph of this skull, in the Catacombs of Priscilla, was made in late 2013. The catacombs are not within the Vatican walls, but they certainly comment on the Vaticanin fact are a precursor of sorts. As we will learn elsewhere in these pages, before there was the formal Vatican, there was Christian Rome: rebel enclaves, then various strong precincts, finally a headquartersa distilling of the Church in Rome. These early and extra-Vatican chapters are all essential to understanding the Vatican story. To return to this picture: When Christianity was outside the law within the empire but already growing in Rome, Priscilla was perhaps an early convert. The walls of her catacombs are decorated with Christian symbols and some of the oldest surviving Marian paintings.

ORDINATION

GIANNI GIANSANTI/SYGMA/CORBIS

Bishops of the Church are made in St. Peters Basilica. Bishops are, essentially, a very high order of cleric, and their chief is the Bishop of Rome, the pope. A brief theology of this: The Roman Catholic Churchs College of Bishops is considered successor to Christs College of Apostles. Saint Peter was chosen by Christ as leader, and his successors on the thronehis successor popescontinue to govern their fellow bishops and speak for the whole Church. In short: The pope makes new bishops of his choosing, and the pope is the ultimate bishop.

ROUND AND ROUND

STEVEN VIDLER/CORBIS

Here we peer down upon the spiral staircase of the Musei Vaticani. We will reenter this wing and other Vatican museums later in our pages, but quickly: this amazing staircase! Yes, it is modern; it has nothing to do with Michelangelo... well, next to nothing. It is a double spiral staircase designed by Giuseppe Momo in 1932. But heres the cool thing: It reflects the original Bramante staircase in the Vaticans Pio-Clementine Museum, built in 1505 and designed by Donato Bramante, Michelangelos associate. Bramante came up with the herringbone paving pattern to facilitate not only comfortable climbing for people but pack animals. The modern days Momo had fewer and more purely aesthetic concerns.