Vatican walls: a city within the city of Rome

VATICAN WALLS: A CITY WITHIN THE CITY OF ROME

Have we asked ourselves what's going on behind the brick city walls of the Vatican, which is considered the smallest country in the world with its 108 acres of extension?

Among other things, one rarely hears a loud word or angry shouts in the Vatican. The high decibel din of Rome everyday life remains outside the vatican's walls.

There are no graffiti on the walls because vatican folk interact with more formality than do ordinary Romans most of the time. Some eight hundred people live permanently in the Vatican city, among them a few families with children. Only half of the residents enjoy the pontifical state's citizenship and are entitled to Holy See passports. More than two thousands employees commute every day to the papal enclave from other sections or places nearby every working day.

The supermarket of the Vatican, rserved only to the citizens and the employees is called " Annona": it's a well stocked modern supermarket for a papal state's residents.The latin word "Annona" is coming from the latin of ancient Rome and it denoted the yearly supply of corn and its price to the end consumer: eventually the term came to mean provisions in general.

Like monasteries and other church institutions, the pope's own establishment has always been supplied in part with produce from its own landed properties and has often traded surpluses for other goods. When the vatican became in 1929 a separate state from the rest of Italy, its citizens and residents quickly found that they were saving money by shopping inside the small territory because it was exempt from italian taxes and had no import or export custom duties.

To be able to shop in the Annona supermarket is still a privilege in Rome and you need a card called " tessera". Diplomats accredited at the Holy See, convents, church colleges, and other institutions around town ,that are connected with the vatican, have this precious pass.

In August 846 AD a saracen fleet sailed into the mouth of the Tiber river and overpowered the new fortifications and towns that had been built there. In the fighting that followed Saxons, as well as Lombards, Frisians and Franks who were resident in the school, died defending the city.

Pope Sergius decided to fortify the whole of the vatican hill and to surround saint Peter's. He therefore wrote to the emperor Lothar for advise and assistance. Lothar himself in a Capitualry of november 846 bewailed the fact that the Roman Church should have fallen into the hands of the infidel.

He decided that saint Peter's should be enclosed with a wall and that money should be sent from every part of the empire. However it was not until the accession of Pope Leo IV that the work was taken in hand in a systematic manner. The enclosure on the vatican hill came to be known as the Leonine city.

The walls were built beginning from the mausoleum of Hadrian ( Castel sant' Angelo ), right around the whole of saint Peter's.The walls were built with bricks and contained 44 towers and three gates. The work was carried out by gangs from the estates of the church. These craftmen had a section of the twelve foot thick wall assigned to them and worked under their corrector.

The completed sections were marked with inscriptions. On 27 June 852 the city of Rome, led by pope Leo IV, celebrated the completion of the work; the entire clergy processed barefoot and with ashstrewn heads around the walls, the procession being led by the seven bishops sprinkling the walls with holy water.

Why this belt is so important today and we see it especially when we stand on line before entering the vatican museums? These walls are considered since 1929 the borders between the vatican and Italy.