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When my vatican tour is ending the visit of the sistine Chapel, I take my friends to see the Swiss Guards before entering saint Peter's Basilica, that belongs to the second part of my tour of Rome.
The Swiss Guard is by far the most important military body in the service of the Pope. Besides guarding the exterior entrances to the apostolic palace, the swiss guard is entrusted with the honorable duty of guarding the immediate entrance to the papal chambers in the sala Clementina. Furthermore, members of the Guard are posted in various parts of the palace, day and night, all serving immediately or remotely for the same purpose of guarding the pope. The special work of the swiss guard is to guard the sacred person of the Pontiff and also to keep watch over the apostolic palaces.
The origin of the papal swiss guard extends back to the fifteenth century.
Their position was secured by treaty under Julius II ( 1503-1513), who, at the instigation of the swiss cardinal Schinner, entered into an agreement with the cantons of Zurich and Lucerne, in accordance with which these cantons undertook to supply two hundred and fifty men as a body guard of the pope.
In the modern times, since 1870, the number of the swiss guards has been reduced to barely 100 members and when the corps is at full strength it has the follwing officers:
- one captain
- one lieutenant
- one second lieutenant
- one chapelain
- one judge
- four sergeants
- seven corporals
- two turnkeys
- two drummers
The members of the swis guard are called halberdiers because they carry halberds on solemn occasions and when they change the guards.
The general qualifications demanded in recruits are that they must be swiss citizens, catholics, born in wedlock, unmarried, under 25 years,minimum 6 feet tall, healthy and free from bodily defects.
Almost every year, on May 5, new recruits swear in saint Peter's Basilica and May 6th is the anniversary of the day in 1527 when 147 swiss Guards died in the sack of Rome while defending Pope Clement VII Medici from the troops of the german emperor Charles V.
The recruits take the following oath in latin language:" I swear to faithfully, loyally, and honorably serve the Supreme Pontiff and his legitimate successor, and also dedicate myself to them with all my strength, sacrificing if necessary also my life to defend them".
A long-standing tradition holds that they were designed by Michelangelo, but there is no foundation for this belief.