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.

ROME’S 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 Vatican—in 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 headquarters—a 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. Peter’s 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 Church’s College of Bishops is considered successor to Christ’s College of Apostles. Saint Peter was chosen by Christ as leader, and his successors on the throne—his successor popes—continue 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 here’s the cool thing: It reflects the original Bramante staircase in the Vatican’s Pio-Clementine Museum, built in 1505 and designed by Donato Bramante, Michelangelo’s associate. Bramante came up with the herringbone paving pattern to facilitate not only comfortable climbing for people but pack animals. The modern day’s Momo had fewer and more purely aesthetic concerns.

GOOD BOYS

DAVE YODER/L’OSSERVATORE ROMANO/NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE

Here we see members of the Sistine Chapel Choir, visiting the tomb of Saint Peter in the basilica in advance of a post–All Saint’s Day service to be presided over by Pope Francis. This choir, consisting today of usually 20 adults (11 tenors; the rest singing bass) and 30 unpaid boys (sopranos and altos), is one of the world’s oldest, dating to the age of Michelangelo. Gregory the Great, in particular, took keen interest in choirs, beginning in the later 6th century, better organizing traditions of singing in church that derived from far earlier epochs.

OFTEN LEFT UNSAID

ALESSANDRA BENEDETTI/CORBIS

The writing here contains depositions recorded on more than 65 yards of parchment housed in the Vatican Museums’ secret archives. The information in 231 separate testimonials relates to the 14th-century trial of the Knights Templar for heresy and other crimes. The excesses and outright criminality of these Christian warriors, as well as those of the Crusades generally, not to mention more recent scandals like the sex-abuse cases, areissues the Church confronts sometimes only reluctantly and after too long a time.

EASY DUTY

DAVE YODER/L’OSSERVATORE ROMANO/NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE

A member of the Swiss Guard parades alone in Scala Regia in the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace. Today, soldiers in the papal Swiss Guard, which originated in bodyguard units dating to the 16th century in various European royal courts, must be males of Swiss citizenship, single at the time of enlistment and deft with traditional weaponry such as swords and halberds, not to mention more modern deterrents like Glock and Steyr pistols and various submachine guns. Of course, the modest Pope Francis has famously chosen to live not in the grandiose Apostolic Palace but in a Vatican guesthouse. It is said that the Swiss Guard in the big building, whether saddened or gladdened, have less to do, as this recent photograph illustrates.