The Vatican: Building a Sacred Megastructure - Full Easy Documentary

[Music] on a global scale it may look like a tiny piece of confetti but its place in world history is enormous the Vatican while the city was built around the modest tomb of St Peter everything in it became grandiose starting with a first Basilica almost as large as notam de it's a construction over over 120 M long and 66 M wide these are colossal Dimensions that first Basilica was just the start of the architect's Ambitions the new St Peters would be the largest church in the world the size of three soccer fields it could accommodate

60,000 faithful Souls both in size also in in its aesthetic qualities it needed to be grandios in order to impress its visitors but erecting a church of this magnitude took more than a leap of faith it was an outsized technical conundrum for example how to build a dome 42 m in diameter and as high as a 30-story building there were iron straps the abundance of iron made it an extremely modern work to build the 750 ton obelisk in the middle of St Peter Square demanded a specially designed machine a 30m wooden mechanism that acted as

both a crane and a transportation device it's about 900 men 144 horses and 40 wiches architecture was at the service of the church in every detail here an 800 M secret passage reserved for popes was built there a series of underground bunkers store archives that would span farther than the eye could see if lined up end to end we're talking about 80 linear kilomet which is astounding all these Marvels sprang from ingenious Minds that would accept No Limits The Vatican courted the best and the brightest to paint the cinee chapel Michelangelo designed his own scaffolding

to optimize St Peter Square Bernini imagined a most original design about 300,000 people can fit into the Piaza from the magnificence of showcase rooms to a privileged Peak behind doors usually closed to the public and with the help of 3D animation you are about to discover the building secrets of a mega structure with a truly unique history the Vatican [Music] in the heart of the Italian Peninsula enclosed in the city of Rome lies the [Music] Vatican it spreads less than half a square kilometer a third of which is occupied by Gardens with the exception of

a few plots located outside the city the Vatican is the equivalent size of Monaco divided by five at the head of the smallest country in the world is the Supreme pontiff he rules over barely 900 citizens protected by 135 Swiss guards but although the Vatican is a micro territory in less than 2,000 years it has become a spiritual Beacon for 1.3 billion people if you think about about it 2,000 years ago there was nothing on the Vatican Hill to understand how we went from almost nothing to this Mega structure with ultra powerful symbolism we must

first go to St Peter's Basilica every day more than 20,000 visitors flock there their eyes attracted by the countless wonders above their heads while these Treasures exist their Origins began under the marble of the Basilica at the very vertical point of the famous 28 M bronze canopy less than 10 m underground this is what preceded the construction of the entire Vatican an acropolis [Music] the necropolis was set up along a small road on the hill were ferary buildings it was an area on the outskirts of the city because the Ancients distinguished the living from the

dead the city was the space of the living while the dead were buried outside this Cemetery was therefore outside the city perfectly preserved some tombs over 2,000 years old still exist and near this necropolis another structure played a fundamental role for the Vatican built by Emperor Caligula below the hill and its cemetery is a Roman circus Caligula built an arena that he then passed on to his successors Nero also used it which is why it's called the circus of Caligula and Nero a structure 500 M long and 100 m wide that could hold up to

20,000 Spectators it was in this same circus that a founding event for Christianity is said to have taken place at the very foot of the Obelisk around the year 64 ad after the great fire of Rome in 64 ad emperor Nero decided to blame the Christians and to set up a makeshift spot of execution in this circus he executed St Peter crucified upside down and his friends are given the body of a 70-year-old dead man which they have to bury quickly and they buried him in a hole in the ground this simple hole in the

middle of the necropolis became a tomb where Pilgrims from all over the world came to commune with themselves when emperor Constantine the first Roman Emperor converted to Christianity decided to build churches he made this location the Cornerstone of the structure to come the church that we know today as St John Lan was the first church that he built and that was followed by a series of other churches dedicated to St Peter to St Paul to St Lawrence Etc the Basilica that Constantine built for St Peter was probably the most complex project because the one requisite

was that the tomb of St Peter stay where it was and become the central space of the church this is an effort to preserve the exact spot of Peter's tomb which is really beyond the ordinary this extraordinary undertaking began with the dismantling of the circus of Caligula and Nero only the Obelisk that saw the martyrdom of St Peter was spared next it was necessary to compensate for the inclination of the slope on which the Basilica had to sit in order to do this since Peter's tomb was on a hillside the engineers had to Lop off

the top of the hill in order to create a flat Plateau they had to remove land to make room Upstream for the Basilica Downstream on the contrary had to create an embankment with a 7 m tall retaining wall to obtain a large Plateau on which to build this great Basilica the largest in the Christian world at the time it was a construction over 12 120 M long and 66 M wide while it reached 90 m in the transcept then they had to add another 60 or 70 m in front of the Basilica for the atrium

it was really a building of colossal Dimensions with its 88 Columns of precious marble it required considerable Logistics to bring this marble from the Imperial quaries all the way to the capital of Rome by the end of the Middle Ages the Basilica was almost a thousand years old it had deteriorated and successive modifications had made it too heterogeneous you had a building with many say sections added to it unclear and and maybe even unfit for religious ceremonies uh that were taking place there would this original Basilica continue to be transformed or simply raised and if

the popes chose the second option should they build an even more colossal Church they wanted something that would would reflect new power Prestige of uh the Renaissance papacy in size but also in its form in its aesthetic qualities it needed to be grandio symbol of this grandiosity the dome of St Peter's Basilica seems to have been drawn in a single stroke of dazzling genius however the reality is very different and its realization just like that of the rest of the building building was quite an adventure there are many drawings by all the Architects that had

been involved in the project uh so bont Michelangelo deorta madno but how to connect all these drawings and understand who is doing what and what leads to what that is a very difficult puzzle to solve the first pieces of this puzzle built over more than a century were an extraordinary Pope Julius II and a star of Italian architecture of the time Donato bramante who conceived an original [Music] project not a classic Latin cross plan but a Greek cross with a central Dome four secondary domes and Four Towers in the corners ront designed a Greek cross

project which agrees with Renaissance ideas of the ideal building and with say spiritual ideas God being in the center of the universe this project which was courageously approved by the pope was quite Innovative we had never seen such architecture before it would require economic and material efforts that were proportionally gigantic the Dome model from which brante took inspiration for this monumental Endeavor was located just 2 km from the Vatican it was that of the pantheon built during Antiquity a building that remains standing thanks in particular to the technical Mastery of concrete by The Architects of

the time but while bramante decided to use this form he chose to make his Dome several tens of meters higher this grandio church with a central plan is simply carried to the Sky by four gigantic arches which generates an extremely vast Central space the Dome is just as a gigantic about 40 to 42 m in diameter which is technically challenging it wasn't just about building this masonry structure but also making it last over time to that end Not only was it supposed to withstand it weight but also earthquakes lightning and all those constraints that would

put it to the test of time work on the new Basilica began in 1506 and for nearly 120 years it would be an extraordinary [Music] project it was certainly the biggest construction site in the world erecting such a building and this also applies to Gothic cathedrals but especially to St Peters with its particular Dimensions you need bricks lime Stone travertine marble as well as other materials such as iron lead and Tin it's a set of needs that involve not only the current region of laum but practically all of Europe despite an abundance of means the

work progressed slowly Pope Julius II died in 15 13 followed a year later by bante at the time of the architect's death the structural core of St peters's namely the four pillars and their arches was completed however the Dome hadn't been started and the builders didn't even know if it was feasible half under construction half in Ruins St peters's looked like a puzzle for the successors of Julius II and brante if you think about the number of popes and a number of Architects it is a very uh long winded project much longer than any other

project that any other Pope undertook for 40 years St peters's would feel its way and resemble a cursed construction site The Architects succeeded each other in vain Raphael died at only 37 years of age while his project aimed at transforming bramante's centered plan into a Latin cross with a more imposing Nave than that of the old B silica when sanalo took over the Reigns he worked on a wooden model for 8 years without ever laying a single [Music] Stone the project would have to wait for the arrival of a quasi retiree to get a boost

this man was none other than Michelangelo mang Michelangelo berarti was called Almost in desperation by Pope Paul III in November 1546 because there were no more great Masters they were practically all dead Pope Paul the thir forces Michelangelo to become the architect of St Peters he's 72 years old by this point you know absolutely uh incredible at 72 years of age was the old Master still capable of a stroke of genius would he live long enough to make his mark on the construction since the Basilica was still without a dome what choice would he [Music]

make like branti he wants to build a hemispherical dome Michelangelo admired the pantheon he said that it was built by angels and not by men these are the most difficult domes to build because the nature of the hemisphere wants to implode Michelangelo went back to the original idea of the Basilica that of bramante's centered plan because perfect symmetry was a symbol of Purity but also for the sake of economy he couldn't just think of something completely out of the blue so he had to work with what was already standing because it would have been far

too expensive to tear down everything and then build something a new but Michelangelo was Michelangelo and he wanted to make an impression his Dome would be the largest ever made Michelangelo developed a revolutionary dome which was a double Dome there were two caps and these caps practically didn't touch each other they were independent from one another and very thin Michelangelo's inner dome which was the loadbearing one was just over a meter thick but it was also 42 m in diameter making it an extremely bold decision the idea behind Michelangelo's double Dome is that the two

domes participate together in the support of the charge they Sten each other being connected both to the foot and the lantern Tower in order to be seen from afar this double structure had to rest on a drum made up of huge pillars namely 16 columns measuring 15 M High Michelangelo doesn't live to see the Dome build what he does manage to finish is the drum when he died the Basilica had a very strange appearance and his successors found themselves with a construction site with a drum at the top but without a dome who would finally

solve The Impossible equation of this Dome as wide as it is high the third architect who succeeded Michelangelo was Gamo deapa and by the time he showed the outline of his project to the pope he fully realized the scope of his mission 6us the 5th has a look at it and says well deap Porter how long is this going to take now bear in mind took Michelangelo 17 years years to build the drum so delaport says 10 years which is a massive underestimate to build this enormous Dome twice the height of the pantheon and sixer

says you have two years to complete it for this Dome to be built in such a quick time deorta modified Michelangelo's design from a spherical shape it changed to a pointed one and gained 7 m in height he retained the idea of the double hole but his holes were thicker and more stable using an ingenious system of ribs the presence of the ribs makes it possible to distribute the load in a more concentrated way on the loadbearing sectors of the drum the second Advantage is that these internal veins unite the two caps if the foundations

settle or in the event of an earthquake they move together giving them stability to top it off delapa laid metal reinforcements all around the structure there are three circles in the lower part four others in the upper part meaning it's an incredibly reinforced Dome with chains iron plates and bars that connect the main elements the abundance of iron makes it an extremely modern work the iron really becomes predominant in the small Dome of the lantern it's 110 M high and since it tends to oscillate when exposed to the wind it had to be made as

elastic as possible that was his you might say technical stroke of Genius uh that made it possible to build a dome actually even higher than Michelangelo had planned and this is also achieved by his workers on site building 24/7 Around the Clock delap Porter finishes this dome in 22 months so just under sixth the Fifth's 2year time limit once the Dome was completed the new architect madno demolished what of the old Basilica with the new Nave St Peters was then the largest church in the world it measured 218 M long or two soccer fields end

to end the facade with its 110 M width was extremely massive and clogged some angles of view from a functional point of view everything was perfect but Michelangelo's project was mutilated we no longer see the Dome or the drum which was a fundamental element of the Dome mno chose this type of facade because it's the type that most resembles that of a palace one that gives the idea that there is an institution inside there was a solution to reduce the massive appearance and highlight the Dome it was relative ly simple on paper but would end

in a nightmare for the architect who had to implement it berini berini was commissioned to build two towers on a facade that had been erected by madno but because the lands on which that part of the structure are standing are quite marshy the foundations were not enough to support these towers so when he started to build these towers very quickly cracks appeared in the facad of St Peters that made clear that technically this was not possible despite this failure Bernini managed to leave an exceptional imprint he organized the entire interior of the Basilica from the

realization of the canopy to the decoration of the pillars of the Dome and the tiling of the church a few years later he was entrusted with a mission that would Mark the architecture of the Vatican even more designing St Peter Square in whatever shape it's going to take the primary specification is to do with as many people as possible being able to see the benediction lodger on the facade Bernini had to take into account a significant element this 25 M OB isk how could this monolith of over 300 tons previously located at the level of

the old circus be moved how did Bernini optimize the space to accommodate such an impressive crowd we estimate that about 300,000 people can fit into the Piaza this is an extraordinary mindboggling amount of people which tells you something about the scale of the structure in bernini's road map the monolith had to Mark the center of the future square not only because that's where St Peter had died but also because Pope 6us I wanted to erect obelisks all over Rome those were symbols of power but also landmarks for pilgrims 6 is the 5ifth is the Pope

that re erects almost all of the obelisks that you see standing in Rome today he's taking on board what the ancient Roman emperors did the symbols of power over the world he put them in strategic locations that would help pilgrims navigate through the city moving an obelisk weighing over 300 tons is a high-risk operation because Granite poorly withstands the tensions needed to pull it in order to put all the chances on his side the pope organized a design competition there is a European wide competition and probably something around 500 submissions were sent to the pope

trying to come up with various Solutions one of the suggestions that came in was prey Italian Dominico Fontana won the competition instead of a hymn the architect came up with an amazing machine the main construction is called the Castello this is a Monumental wooden framework that functions as various areas of support for the ropes and the winches as a crane to lift it up but also to protect it as it being lowered down in order to best protect the granite the monument was covered with a wooden form work the Castello Castle in Italian lifted the

Obelisk as a crane would in a second step the monolith was placed on a ramp resting on logs to pull the Obelisk a system of cap stands was arranged that allowed the strength of men and horses to be combined find the device moved as it progressed what he's using is 900 men 144 horses and 40 winches using 2T thick hemp rope to re-erect the obelisk it took 37 days to travel just 300 M despite the crowd present the maneuver took place in almost absolute silence as the pope had threatened to kill anyone who would hinder

the [Music] operations when the moment came to finally erect the Obelisk the men had a brush With Disaster it gets to this very dramatic moment where the Obelisk is kind of at this angle the ropes have heated up and have become slack it really looks like it's going to end in disaster and then a sailor who obviously is going to know about ropes cries out from the crowd water on the ropes and Dominico Fontana immediately realizes that by putting water on these hot ropes they will contract and this is what happens in addition to the

Avis Bernini had to deal with another crucial element the apostolic Palace well they're not going to demolish the apostolic Palace there's been far too much investment the Sumptuous decoration and the whole complex Bernini was forced to imagine a design to avoid the palace and the most judicious was a trapeze plan to finish his drawing he also had to find a figure whose Obelisk was the center here again he showed creativity with not one but two circles that came together to form an oval why the oval with an oval you create movement which makes it feel

more align but when we put the trapezoids and the oval shape there is potentially another symbolism it turns into a keyhole so possibly referencing the keys of St Peter and the key to Salvation once completed the result was spectacular 284 Columns of 16 M High formed two arms those of the Catholic Church welcoming the Believers these are comp composed of being four columns deep that divide the space up into three passageways so the central one is the largest wide enough for carriages to go through and then the two smaller ones either side for pedestrians carved

in travertine a noble Stone The Columns varied in diameter as a result depending on the viewing angle from the square one sees single columns instead of an alignment of four [Music] as the crowning achievement of The Ensemble Bernini arranged 140 statues more than 3 m High the last major project of the Vatican lasted only 10 years but it was far from unanimous regardless of all of the work problems it's built very very quickly but also under enormous criticism not only of cost but of design a lot of people thought the design was hideous for his

project Bernini had imagined a third arm to create an effect of surprise when visitors would arrive at the square and suddenly discover the Basilica but after the death of the patron Alexander iith no other Pope would agree to revive these excessive works Alexander iith dies when the Piaza is completed it had already cost squillions in fact an estimate has been done for the cost of the building of the hole of St Peters and the Piaza as somewhere in the region of 9 billion with its spectacular design St Peter Square was the most emblematic and famous

gateway to this miniate Beyond this symbolic border officially it was no longer the territory of the Vatican but that of the Italian republic and while one can unassumingly cross the border from one country to the other simply by setting foot on the Square there is another passage much less known and totally [Music] secret this 800 met long Corridor is called the Peto de Borgo [Music] how did this tunnel come about what was it used for was it to exfiltrate pontiffs in danger or engage in obscure activities it was built as a covered passage which people

would not see uh what was going on inside it and of course all sorts of stories emerge of popes going to meet their Mistresses in CA St Angelo all going to see the execution of somebody they particularly hated the Vatican had not always been surrounded by an enclosure in fact it wasn't until a traumatic event that the papacy decided to protect itself in 846 the sarens take AA and they then Advance on R they don't enter the city but they sack the Suburban churches it's certainly a terrible shock to West and christon this is a

very important event for the history of Vatican because it triggers the building of a wall which is begun in 848 it took four years to build this wall of which very few elements remain today it's built entirely of Roman bricks with some some great blocks of stone but it's probably about 8 m High 2 and 1/2 M thick with Towers along it about 22 or 25 towers and that wall links Casta St Angelo to the Vatican Hill up behind St peters's and then runs down the other side forming a long rectangular strip which is about

3 km is long in the 13th century an 800 met portion was transformed this was the paceto de Borgo and it allowed the popes to reach the nearby Fortress from the apostolic Palace it's a way of linking the Vatican to Casta s Angelo without going down into the street the presence of the Fortress of Casto Sant Angelo is a safe haven uh because papal position in Rome was always threatened not only from the outside but also by you know riots and difficulties inside the city this highly strategic access was transformed again in the 15th century

the rampart was raised the old wall walk thus became a tunnel with arrow slits on each side above an open passage with crenellations was built so you could have soldiers above soldiers below and also soldiers can move freely and under cover invisibly along this lower covered passageway in the turbulent history of the Vatican the petto de Borgo turned out crucial on two occasions in 1494 when Alexander V 6 is threatened by the French King Charles thei and he passes down the Peto to Kasa Sandra most famously in 1527 Clement iith uh has to flee the

troops of the emperor Charles the fth and of course you have to imagine not just the pope you know going down the Peta but you know a whole conclave of cardinals of bureaucrats and there's probably a wonderful scene of you know chaos inside the Peta apart from these two warlike episodes not much is known about how this passage was used us enough to fuel the rumor around unspeakable meetings secret assignations are a feature of political life the bacetto is a sort of glorified backstairs but because it's secret myths grw up around it and we will

never really know after the last attack of 1527 the Vatican experienced 2 and a half centuries of piece and continued its incredible architectural Adventure by building the largest Basilica in the world of course but not only this included instructions that were more modest but no less amazing like this Tower called the Tower of the Winds it's the second highest point in the Vatican it was not built to monitor enemies but to scrutinize the Stars why was the papacy so interested in astronomy how did the construction of this Tower influence the calendars of the entire planet

and why drill a hole in its structure they drilled a very small orifice in the southern facad as part of the Tower of the Winds it's about 4 cm despite its 73 M height it's a little known tower that cannot be visited built at the end of the 16th century a had a very precise purpose the construction of the Tower of the Winds between 1578 and 1580 made it possible to validate the reform of the calendar that the pope absolutely wanted to complete before the end of his pontificate this Pope was Gregory VII and with

this Tower he hoped to correct the old Julian calendar inherited from Julius Caesar a calendar that was insufficiently precise and that shifted religious festivals over the centuries the Julian calendar didn't work well because it's an approximation the Julian year is about 11 minutes longer than the average solar year those 11 minutes add up over time and after about 128 years you have a lag that amounts to one day one has to push the doors of the room on the second floor to discover cover the device designed by astronomer ignasio Dante one of the best of

his time lost in the beard of a mural is an Oculus it was pierced to let in the sunlight on the ground is a line engraved in the marble oriented from north to south it is a meridian line it's a line on which the position of the sun is projected when the Sun Peaks in the sky and on this line we can then trace the particular moments that are the entrances of the Sun in the different signs of the zodiac marking the most important points that are the spring and Autumn equinoxes and the summer and

winter solstices the long awaited demonstration took place in 1581 no archive attest to this but it's assumed that on March 21st 1581 Pope Gregory VII came to this line to check firsthand that this reform was necessary that day they watched for the ray of sunshine to cross the Oculus placed 5.2 M from the ground normally according to the calculations of ignasio DTI the light should be positioned at the level of the sign of Aries the Ram at noon the Sun should have hit this exact position on the line but it didn't it was already much

more advanced and it took 11 days for the sun to bridge the gap between the two positions that was indeed the discrepancy that occurred at the time between the theoretical and ecclesiastical Equinox of March 21st and the real Equinox that fell at the time on March 11th the reform of the calendar took place the following year the calculation of leap years was modified and the month of October amputated to make up for the lag they simply made 10 days disappear from the calendar the day that followed October 5th 1582 was October 15th 1582 even if

the demonstration made in the tower of the Winds only validated the long work of a scientific commission this staging was symbolic of the power of the papacy this hole of just a few centimet had great consequences the Gregorian calendar would be imposed on the entire planet the reform initially spread to Catholic countries it came up against a lot of reluctance on the part of the Protestant countries England moved to the Gregorian calendar in 1752 this reform took time to spread it was adopted in Russia in 1918 one of the very last countries to convert was

Saudi Arabia in 2016 whether scientific or artistic nothing at the Vatican is ever gratuitous each gesture must contribute to the greatness of the church and certain popes have put that into practice more than others notably in this building located 200 M from the Tower of the Winds the ctin chapel even before Michelangelo arrived in the cine Chapel it was already an extraordinarily beautiful space parallel to St Peter's Basilica it's a massive building 40 m long almost conceived as a military work even before it became this mythical space where new Popes are elected in the greatest

secrecy the cine Chapel was already a strategic place at any given time there would be a liturgy going on in that space you would have the entire hierarchy of the church in one room so the building was also constructed so there was a certain amount of security for that reason it was very easy to adapt the function of the cinee Chapel to the site where future pontiffs would be elected before Michelangelo's intervention the chapel had already been sublimated by painters such as Perino and belli Michelangelo was supposed to redecorate the ceiling by simply representing the

12 apostles but that plan wasn't ambitious enough for this intransigent [Music] artist the whole thing was crowned by a magnificent lapis leli blue sky flecked with golden stars but the ceiling began to flake and this man who never does things the way other people do them began to Envision a decoration that would be unlike anything anyone had ever seen before the challenge wasn't only artistic it was also physical and Technical because he had to paint more than 1,000 s m of surface and at 20 m above the ground to access the ceiling architect brante designed

a scaffolding but Michelangelo refused it because the structure fixed in the vault would have left holes in his work Michelangelo and veronte didn't get along very well so Michelangelo said he would handle it himself the wooden scaffolding that Michelangelo designed wasn't hung on the ceiling instead resting on studs fixed above the windows of the chapel the platform on which the artist worked followed the curvature of the ceiling to limit the efforts of an extremely uncomfortable task the bridge would allow him to always be at the same distance so basically it's just an arms length away

the painting uh technique required that he stand with his head thrown back there were large prepared drawings of exactly what is going to go on that section of the ceiling it would be applied either ins sized or punched out and that would guide the and while he was working struggling against cramps migraines and stiff necks for more than 3 years Michelangelo Illustrated scenes from The Bible by playing with the reliefs of the Vault the sculptor by training created a painting So organic that his character seemed to be in motion halfway through when the scaffolding was

moved to paint the second part of the Vault everyone finally discovered his work and it was a revelation it was hailed as a masterpiece from the first moment the pope was delighted everyone was amazed by it and it really it affected art in the immediate decades to [Music] come although Michelangelo left an exceptional imprint through the sytin chapel we mustn't forget his contribution to the realization of the incredible building that sits next door the drum designed by Michelangelo inspired his successor architect deorta who himself placed a dome over it to cap it all off Bernini

added a touch of genius with his square of such original design but in the last 350 years the architectural history of the Vatican has been much quieter it must be said that the land available in the smallest state in the world is limited and when it comes to storing huge archives imagination is key for the Vatican Apostolic archive we're talking about 80 linear kilometers which is astounding where could 80 km of documents be stored in a territory of half a square kilometer what do these archives contain and why were they called secret archives for more

than 400 years to find out one must go to the Courtyard of Fontana de laa there under the feet of the visitors of the Vatican Museums hides an unsuspected treasure one ton of historical documents protected by a concrete bunker of more than 5,000 s m over two floors a ventilated building designed to resist flames and evacuate moisture outside the structure to preserve the most precious and fragile writings architects conceived an additional space on each floor inside these special rooms the temperature and humidity are constant it should be noted that some documents are over 1,000 years

old among the most spectacular are documents that date from the 13th century these are some of the oldest written in Mongolian language there's also the records of the trial of Galileo which are quite impressive or the documents related to the excommunication of Luther in the 16th century these are significant documents fragments of intellectual or religious history or simply diplomatic relations that are kept here among the carefully preserved pieces is an investigation for the trial of the knight's Templar written on a 33m long parchment or this 16th century document the request for analment of the mar

marage of King Henry VII of England accompanied by the 81 seals of the Lords who signed the [Music] document set aside from the special rooms of the bunker less fragile documents exist simple administrative records or diplomatic correspondents from all eras and any and all countries more than enough to fuel fantasies around an institution with a misleading name the Vatican secret archive [Music] the term Vatican secret archive that had been used since the 17th century refers to the term secretos in Latin which evokes the personal and private nature of these archives there's absolutely nothing hidden about

them it was to avoid this confusion that in 2019 Pope Francis changed the term from Vatican secret archive to Vatican Apostolic archiv the apostolic archive was created in the 17th century and the first storage spaces continue to be used given the immense mass of documents and the fact that they keep flowing daily mainly in the underground bunker built in 1982 this gold mine to some historians isn't entirely accessible as the Pope in office decides what is viewable or not since the end of the 19th century and Pope Leo the 13th the archives have been open

to researchers there's this slightly ambivalent effort of open-mindedness to historical science and at the same time the desire to defend the history of the church against what it perceived as attacks and over the years this detent has increased pontificate by pontificate today the archives are accessible up to 1958 the history of the Vatican continues to be written day after day and while they await to be made available to researchers the most recent pages of this history rest on separate shelves behind carefully locked Gates like these documents of the pontificates of Benedict V 16th and John

Paul [Music] II much like these archives the Vatican fascinates as much ink continues to be spilled over it it's a place like no other on the planet with one foot in an age-old past and the other in the 21st century it showcases an exceptional architecture and a construction bearing the marks of a deep belief in God or the purest artistic gestures but also of power struggles money and egos a jewel in a theological setting but which goes beyond it shining among the most most beautiful pieces of world heritage [Music]