Apostolic Palace, removed the seals from the papal apartment, Prevost evaluates the return. Ten rooms, there is also a medical suite

Refresh the walls by choosing different colors, add or remove furnishings, change the lighting of the rooms, modernize the systems and services. It is done in all the houses when a new tenantbetween small or large renovations. It also happens for the Popes: at the entrance of each new pontiff the apartment in Apostolic Palace It is renewed according to the tastes and needs of those who live there.

Being the apartment sealed with the death of the previous Popein the Vatican it is used to wait for the new pontiff (he can do it only) breaks the seals. Which Leone XIV did yesterday, immediately after his First Regina Coeli from the loggia of San Pietro. Only now in case can the workers In charge of the works, except for the quick cleaner already carried out precedence. In the meantime, every Pope in charge « adapts » in another apartment: Leone XIV lives at the moment in that in which he lived Cardinal, in Palazzo del Sant’Offizio.

Everything suggests that Pope Prevost has chosen to live in the apartment: unlike the predecessor who, unique among all the Popes, chose to live all his 12 years of pontificate in the suite of the Casa Santa Martamade by John Paul II in 2005 to accommodate the voters of the conclave, passage prelates and guests of the Holy See. In reality there was already the ancient « Pontificium Hospitium Sanctae Marthae », a hospice for priestsbut was transformed into a modern and functional residence.

Ten rooms, the room with desk

The papal apartment has one dozen large roomsincluding a private study (where especially John Paul II spent a lot of time meditating, writing and praying in the corner he had set up with images of the Madonna and relics of saints to whom he was devoted) one bedroom with a desk nineteenth -century, a great chapel and even one Medical suite with equipment for interventions urgency.

It was made in recent times of Wojtyla’s pontificate, whose health conditions were now precarious. It also has a garden hanging e Sisters’ accommodation German Benedictine who manage the prefecture of the pontifical house. And then the library private, with the famous window on the squarefrom which the Pope overlooks the Angelus every week, and where he meets private guests.

But after the loss, with the unification of Italy, of the Quirinale, where the Popes lived from 1805 to 1870, the apartment reserved for the pontiff occupied the first floor. To the upper ones the servitude was hosted, as it was used then. It was Pius X, elected in 1903 after Leo XIII, who « moved » to the third and highest lodge of the building.

The pool, the tennis court

Until John Paul IIwho arrived at the papal throne at « just » 58 years old and in an enviable physical form, that the popes could have played sports appeared unthinkable. But he, who loved him, had a swimming pool made in the summer residence of Castel Gandolfowho frequented as soon as he could.
So much so that in July 1980 they were really taken while swimming some photoshowever, made public many years later. Leo XIV could instead cultivate his passion for tennis in Red land in the Vatican, next to the Leonine wallsbuilt by another lion, the IV, between 848 and 852, to protect Rome from invasions. Hidden by green and invisible from the outside, the new pope already frequented him as a cardinal.

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