Léon, in the matter, promises to be more bucolic. The young pope with a very discreet pontificate will take up residence in Castel Gandolfo from July 6, and for two weeks. He will not stay in the apostolic palace, transformed into a museum under the pontificate of François, but in one of the villas of the estate, the Villa Barberini. This area and the village of Castel Gandolfo, perched on the hills overlooking Lake Albano and the Tyrrhenian sea will offer it a much less suffocating climate than that which reigns in Rome in the summer. It was this situation which led the Domitian emperor to build his villa there from Antiquity. It is also in front of a much more humble place than the Place Saint-Pierre du Vatican that Pope Léon will recite the prayer of the Angelus this Sunday. Piazza della Libertà, to which the balcony of the apostolic palace opens, is a real Italian postcard with its fountain, church, town hall, pharmacy and bar. Praying with the pope in front of a well -struck espresso, that too, it’s chic.
Many popes crossed the premises, sometimes chatting with the villagers and inhabitants of the region. Jean-Paul II, aficionados of the estate, had a swimming pool built there, offered by Canadian Catholics. No one knows if Leon will take advantage of it. Surely he will hit the ball on the tennis court, he who regularly practices this sport.
For the rest, the Pope will work, but at a less dense pace, taking advantage of the gardens, probably looking at the stars from the astronomical telescope installed on the roofs of the apostolic palace, visiting the organic farm whose production is sold at the Vatican supermarket. No doubt remembering that it was also here, during the Second World War, that Pius XII hid twelve thousand opponents to the Nazi regime, to the point of giving up her room to pregnant women. Fifty children were born there.
Léon XIV, the man of files, tennis and Peru
