Each year, about seven million tourists come to Rome, most of them to visit the Vatican.
It's an impressive place built over 150 years by the great artists of its time, over the remains of an ancient basilica that covered the tomb of St. Peter.
It's also a place of many unknown details. However, helping to reveal these unknown details, the director of Rome Reports has written a book entitled “The Vatican as you have never been told before.”
JAVIER MARTÍNEZ-BROCAL
Author, “The Vatican as you have never been told before”
“When I go to the Vatican I see tourists and even pilgrims impacted by the beauty of the place. What happens is that I have the feeling that they're unable to interpret them. The Vatican is not a palace, not a museum, it's a church, it's the center of Christianity. Everything inside the Basilica of St. Peter has a meaning. Making this book has been like putting together a jigsaw puzzle and understanding its meaning. What I have found has been very interesting.”
The book offers a tour of St. Peter's Square and Basilica, helping people discover the meaning and anecdotes of things like the obelisk, the dome, Michelangelo's Pietà or the bronze statue of St. Peter.
JAVIER MARTÍNEZ-BROCAL
Author, “The Vatican, as you have never been told before”
“When I accompany people to St. Peter, what I like most is telling them stories about what happened there. For example, I would tell them here on this stone is where the pope crowned Carlo Magno, here in this chapel is where people plundered the Vatican converting it into a stable and disguised a soldier's crucifix while laughing at it; or this is where John Paul II was shot. It's a living church with a very strong history.”
“The Vatican, as you have never been told before” shows the most exciting and human side of St. Peter's Basilica. It will make readers see Rome in a completely different way.
