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Ready for an unparalleled look into the hidden corners of an historic world wonder? 🇻🇦 Stretching on less than 500 square meters, everything was built around a crucial location: The Tomb of Saint-Peter. A modest grave that triggered a series of grandiose constructions, starting with the first basilica built during Antiquity and almost as big as Notre-Dame de Paris. Next, the architects were even more ambitious. The new St. Peter’s would become the largest church in the world. But its construction was a technical conundrum with its dome of 42-meters in diameter culminating at an altitude of over 110 meters, the equivalent of a 30-story building. Behind all of the wonders found in the Vatican lie unsuspected technical challenges : to paint the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo designed his own scaffolding ; to optimize St. Peter’s Square, Bernini imagined a most original design to welcome 300,000 faithful ; out of sight, an 800-meter secret passage was designed to allow the popes to escape from the city… Behind doors traditionally closed to the public and with the help of 3D images, discover the secrets of a megastructure with a truly unique history: The Vatican.
TRANSCRIPT
[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]
The Vatican: Building a Holy City
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
Credits
egos a jewel in a theological setting but which goes beyond it shining among
the most most beautiful pieces of world heritage [Music]
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