a red sign, shared Gustav’s petite figure so the motorbike’s suspension prostrated a little. Yet, I didn’t have to pass on convenience in two respects. Firstly, there was a wire basket attached to the carrier, just like Sancta had predicted. In a single soundless bound I was in it and made myself comfortable between potatoes, leeks and eggplants. On the other hand the modern moped didn’t have anything in common with the loudly rattling motorino with a frugal suspension, which provoked slipped disk at every bump, which I knew from old Sophia Loren movies. Our pope mobile for average pay grades literally hovered over the asphalt.
And that’s how my chauffeur and I flew along the Corso Vittorio Emanuele II in God’s name – half of Rome was named after this Emanuele II apparently –, reached the good old Tiber, which flowed away in the most impervious moss-green, crossed the, guess what, Vittorio-Emanuele-II-bridge, made a turn to the left at the Castel Sant Angelo, and finally found our way into the Via della Conciliazione. There must be few people in this world who have ever heard of this street name, however, many who have a picture of these street in their minds. As this street offers the free and billionfold photographed view at St. Peter’s Square and the dome of the St. Peter’s Cathedral. Even the Protestant poet Schiller once raved about this estate of the pope: »A true kingdom of heaven is his house. As these shapes are not from this world.« And so it comes apparent again that a good architect is well worth the money.
As I drove towards the capital of the Catholics, I remembered that of all things this access was due to the signature of a previously mentioned nice guy, namely the fascist dictator Mussolini, who had hoped to gain broader support from the people by aligning with the Catholic church. On February 11, 1929 he granted the Vatican autonomy with all consequences according to international law. Fortunately, today wasn’t Wednesday, when the pope usually blesses pilgrims from all over the world at St. Peter’s Square. There had been no getting through otherwise. There was a lukewarm stir on the broad boulevard, while St. Peter’s Cathedral with its titanic dome towered next to us like a massif hewed by Michelangelo. Groups of priests, nuns and pilgrims made their way to the cathedral or were already on their way home, with enraptured faces after hours of sightseeing. There were devotional objects of the pope or Christian bookstores all over the place; such a density of crucifixes and rosaries must be unique in this world.
To me being hurled from one millennial kingdom to another caused a proper dizziness. There’s the following reason for the control center of the latter kingdom, which in contrary to the Roman empire hasn’t lost any of its influence, is situated so far from the city center: In the year 280 or so the wealthy family Laterani had given some buildings and their garden to one of all sects, who believed that a man from Nazareth had been God’s son. And according to the apostles Saint Peter had suffered the ordeal in this spot in either 64 or 67 AD. It’s true that I store God in my heart, regardless of where I’m standing or going, and I feel embraced by Him even though I don’t go to church on a regular basis, but only those, who have once faced this biggest church in the world, are able to conceive the power of faith. At the end of the street my driver made a turn to the left and decreased the pace down to step speed. I jumped at the opportunity and out of the wire basket, and ran towards St. Peter’s Square!
The Piazza San Pietro is a perfect creation – regardless of it being filled with tens of thousands, sometimes even with hundreds of thousands or being rather deserted like right now. At full tilt, the May sun shone on the 790-feet-long ellipse with the high Egyptian obelisk in its center and caused striking shadows. 284 pillars and 88 travertine piers, which looked like widely outstretched arms, encompassed the oval in rows of four. White striped intarsia imbedded in the pavement functioned as dividing sections and led towards the middle. Two tall fountains with giant granite bowls on their sides enlivened the square with their high plumes of water.
The black-dressed clerical people, here and there also some tourists and pilgrims, who usually were