Book - The Impossible Collection of Vatican: A Private Visit to a Secret World

More than just an enclave within the city of Rome, the Vatican is a complex city-state that for many people still conjures up notions of secrecy. The Vatican has always exercised powers of fascination and seduction over us, with its history stretching back nearly twenty centuries, its spirituality, its scandals and its enigmas. As a fantasy world, it has inspired cinematic visions from Federico Fellini’s Roma to Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather: Part III and Paolo Sorrentino’s The New Pope. But what is the real Vatican? With nearly three hundred popes and antipopes, not to mention a fictitious female pope, among these figures there are a few saints and many sinners. To borrow an ancient image, the Vatican is like Noah’s Ark, containing animals of all kinds, both pure and impure. From the Roman Catholic Church’s earliest developments under Emperor Constantine, to the notorious popes who nevertheless cultivated the artistic flowering of the Renaissance, to modern-day pontiffs who mus