Lentorama 2026: Hic es: aedificia Vaticani

Day 13: Vatican Publishing House, Via della Posta

Sixtus V founded the Vatican Publishing House in 1587, and for centuries it included both a press and a bookstore. That bookstore was spun off into its own entity in 1926 by Piux XI, and became a publishing house charged with the production and sales of books printed by the publishing house. 

The house mostly handled official documents and publications of the Vatican, but would later move into publishing works by popes. It turns out that the house holds the copyright to all papal writings, but didn't enforce the copyright until Benedict XVI took office. They stated that the copyright is only enforced in cases where a text no more than 50 years old is republished without citing the Vatican copyright.

In 2015 Francis announced the formation of a Secretariat of Communication, and the house (along with the press) was moved under its umbrella.

Lentorama 2026: Hic es: aedificia Vaticani

Day 12: Museo Pio-Cristiano

Founded two years after the establishment of the Pontifical Commission for Sacred Archaeology, Pope Pius IX founded this museum in 1854 as a place to house excavated items that could not be conserved where found (though a number of items already in Vatican or Roman collections found their way here).

The museum has two halves, one dedicated to monuments, sculptures, and mosaics, the other to inscriptions. The former is open to the public, and apparently has a good collection of sarcophagi. The latter half is for academics only.

Originally housed in the Lateran Palace, the museum was moved to a new building in 1963.

 Lentorama 2026: Hic es: aedificia Vaticani

Day 11: Church of San Pellegrino in the Vatican, Via dei Pellegrini

Built around 800 by Pope Leo III, it is named for St. Peregrine of Auxerre, who was martyred while serving as that city's first bishop in the third century AD. It was originally San Pellegrino in Naumachia, referencing  nearby facility for staging mock naval battles.

After a couple of stints assigned to a Vatican monastery, Clement X gave the church to the Swiss Guard in the 17th century, and for a time it would be the national church of Switzerland in Rome. Today it's the home church of the Vatican's gendarmerie and fire fighters.

Lentorama 2026: Hic es: aedificia Vaticani

Day 10 - Padiglione delle Carrozze

Not so much its own building as part of another, the Carriage Pavilion opened in 1971 to show off the carriages and other historic transport of the Vatican. Located on the main level of the Apostolic Palace, the collection includes sedan chairs, ceremonial carriages, travel carriages, automobiles, and a variety of livery for drivers, horses, and the like.

Notable items in the collection include the Popemobile that John Paul II was in during his assassination attempt, a steering wheel from one of Michael Schumacher's F1 cars, and a Renault 4 with over 300,000 kilometers on it, used by Pope Francis.

 Lentorama 2026: Hic es: aedificia Vaticani

Day 9 - Porta Pertusa, Viale Vaticano

The Porta Pertusa is a gate in the Leonine Wall, which was built in the 9th century by Pope Leo IV (more on the wall later in this series, I would think). It consists of one large gate and two smaller gates, one on each side of the main gate.

It's not clear when the gate was built. Most sources put it after the return of the papacy from Avignon, but there may be a reference to it in a document from 1279. We do know it was a later addition to the wall, as the name comes from the Latin word for drilled, pertusus). The thinking is that the return of the papacy led to increased congestion at existing gates, so a new one was added. It's also thought that the gate was only used by the Curia and other Vatican figures.

The gate itself is notable for its use of bossard, uncut stones with a face projecting from the facade. The uncut projection is left to be shaped later into decoration, coats of arms, etc. In this case, the Medici coat of arms was carved above the large main door of the gate, reflecting the restoration of the gate and part of the wall by Pius IV.

Lentorama 2026: Hic es: aedificia Vaticani

Day 8 - Paul VI Audience Hall

Designed by Pier Luigi Nervi, the hall opened in 1971 as a space for audiences and conferences. In bad weather it can also serve as the location for the pope's weekly Wednesday morning general audience.

The interior of the hall is dominated by The Resurrection, an 80 ton bronze and brass sculpture that apparently depicts Jesus rising from the Garden of Gethsemane, out of a crater created by a nuclear bomb (the threat of nuclear war being much more palpable in the 1970s than it is today). The sculpture is the backdrop to whomever is speaking, and is a bit of an acquired taste. 

In addition to the main hall, there is also a smaller hall (the New Synod Hall) located above the vestibule of the main hall. In 2008 the building won a European Solar Prize for the installation of a solar energy system on its roof that provides all of the power for the building's systems.

The hall itself sits on land donated to the Vatican by the Knight of Columbus. Most of the land is actually in Rome, with a smaller portion within the boundaries of the Vatican (the rostrum where the pope sits is on Vatican land, which makes sense). 

  Lentorama 2026: Hic es: aedificia Vaticani

Day 7 - Chiaramonti Museum

Housed in a loggia connecting the Palace of the Belvedere to the Vatican Palace is this museum, named for Pope Pius VII (Chiaramonti was his pre-papal surname). It is part of the Vatican Museums, others of which will show up here eventually.

In the 1797 Treaty of Tolentino, the Vatican had to cede a large part of its art holdings to France. To make up for the loss, local antiquaries and archaeologists working in the Papal States helped to amass a new collection, which took up residence in this museum upon its 1806 opening. The sculptor Antonio Canova took on a leading role in developing the museum and its collection, focusing on what he saw as the "three sister arts" of sculpture, architecture, and fresco.

The museum boasts over 1000 works of ancient sculpture. The new wing features the Augustus of Prima Porta, a full-length sculpture of the Roman emperor found during excavations on the site of his third (and last) wife's villa. The museum is also noted for the Galleria Lapidaria, a collection of several thousand stone tablets and inscriptions, which is generally only accessible by researchers.