The Vatican- Building a Sacred Megastructure - Full Easy Documentary.

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 the first basilica almost as large as Notre Dame de Paris. It's a construction over 120 meters long and 66 meters wide. These are colossal dimensions. That first basilica was just the start of the architect's ambitions. The new St. Peter's would be the largest church in the world, the size of three soccer fields. It could accommodate 60,000 faithful souls. Both in size, but also in its aesthetic qualities, it needs to be grandiose 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 meters 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's Square demanded a specially designed machine, a 30 meter wooden mechanism that acted as both a crane and a transportation device. It's about 900 men, 144 horses and 40 winches. Architecture was at the service of the church in every detail. Here, an 800 meter 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 kilometers, which is astounding. All these marvels sprang from ingenious minds that would accept no limits. The Vatican court, the best and the brightest. To paint the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo designed his own scaffolding to optimize St. Peter's Square. Bernini imagined a most original design. About 300,000 people can fit into the piazza. 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 megastructure with a truly unique history, the Vatican. In the heart of the Italian peninsula, enclosed in the city of Rome, lies the 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 it, 2,000 years ago, there was nothing on the Vatican Hill. To understand how we went from almost nothing to this megastructure 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 meter bronze canopy, less than 10 meters underground. This is what preceded the construction of the entire Vatican, a necropolis. The necropolis was set up along a small road. On the hill were funerary 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 meters long and 100 meters 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 Lateran 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, they had to create an embankment with a seven meter 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 120 meters long and 66 meters wide, while it reached 90 meters in the transept. Then they had to add another 60 or 70 meters 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 quarries 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 maybe even unfit for religious ceremonies that were taking place there. Would this original basilica continue to be transformed or simply razed? And if the popes chose the second option, should they build an even more colossal church? They wanted something that would reflect the new power and prestige of the Renaissance papacy in size, but also in its form, in its aesthetic qualities. It needed to be grandiose. 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, was quite an adventure. There are many drawings by all the architects that have been involved in the project. So, Bramante, Michelangelo, Della Porta, Maderno. 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 project. Not a classic Latin cross plan, but a Greek cross with a central dome, four secondary domes and four towers in the corners. Bramante 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 proportionately gigantic. The dome model from which Bramante took inspiration for this monumental endeavor was located just two kilometers 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 grandiose 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 gigantic, about 40 to 42 meters 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 its own 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 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. Peter's 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 Latium, but practically all of Europe. Despite an abundance of means, the work progressed slowly. Pope Julius II died in 1513, followed a year later by Bramante. At the time of the architect's death, the structural core of St. Peter'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. Peter's looked like a puzzle for the successors of Julius II and Bramante. If you think about the number of popes and the number of architects, it is a very long-winded project, much longer than any other project that any other pope undertook. For 40 years, St. Peter'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 basilica. When Sangallo took over the reins, he worked on a wooden model for eight years without ever laying a single 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. Michelangelo Buonarroti was called almost in desperation by Pope Paul III in November of 1546 because there were no more great masters. They were practically all dead. Pope Paul III forces Michelangelo to become the architect of St. Peter's. He's 72 years old by this point. You know, absolutely 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 make? Like Bramante, 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 anew. 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 load bearing one, was just over a meter thick, but it was also 42 meters 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 stiffen 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 meters high. Michelangelo doesn't live to see the dome built. 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 Giacomo della Porta, and by the time he showed the outline of his project to the Pope, he fully realized the scope of his mission. Sixtus V has a look at it and says, well, della Porta, how long is this going to take? Now, bear in mind, it took Michelangelo 17 years to build the drum. So della Porta says 10 years, which is a massive underestimate to build this enormous dome twice the height of the Pantheon. And Sixtus says you have two years to complete it. For this dome to be built in such a quick time, della Porta modified Michelangelo's design from a spherical shape. It changed to a pointed one and gained seven meters in height. He retained the idea of the double hull, but his hulls 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 load-bearing 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, della Porta 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 meters 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 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. Della Porta finishes this dome in 22 months. So just under Six Sisters V's two-year time limit. Once the dome was completed, the new architect, Maderno, demolished what remained of the old basilica. With the new nave, St. Peter's was then the largest church in the world. It measured 218 meters long, or two soccer fields end to end. The facade, with its 110 meter 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. Maderno 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 relatively simple on paper, but would end in a nightmare for the architect who had to implement it. Bernini. Bernini was commissioned to build two towers on the facade that had been erected by Maderno. 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 facade of St. Peter's 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's 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 loggia on the facade. Bernini had to take into account a significant element. This 25 meter obelisk. 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 piazza. This is an extraordinary, mind-boggling amount of people, which tells you something about the scale of the structure. In Bernini's roadmap, 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 Sixtus V wanted to erect obelisks all over Rome. Those were symbols of power, but also landmarks for pilgrims. Sixtus V 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 Domenico 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's being lowered down. In order to best protect the granite, the monument was covered with a wooden formwork. The castello, casso 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. The device moved as it progressed. What he's using is 900 men, 144 horses and 40 winches, using two feet thick hemp rope to re-erect the obelisk. It took 37 days to travel just 300 meters. Despite the crowd present, the maneuver took place in almost absolute silence. As the Pope had threatened to kill anyone who would hinder the 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 Domenico Fontana immediately realizes that by putting water on these hot ropes, they will contract. And this is what happens. In addition to the obelisk, Bernini had to deal with another crucial element, the apostolic palace. Well, they're not going to demolish the apostolic palace. It'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 alive. But when we put the trapezoid 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 meters high formed two arms, those of the Catholic Church welcoming the believers. These are 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 small 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. As the crowning achievement of the ensemble, Bernini arranged 140 statues more than three meters 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 VII, no other pope would agree to revive these excessive works. Alexander VII dies when the piazza is completed. It had already cost squillions. In fact, an estimate has been done for the cost of the building of the whole of St. Peter's and the piazza as somewhere in the region of nine billion dollars. With its spectacular design, St. Peter's Square was the most emblematic and famous gateway to this mini state. 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 secret. This 800 meter long corridor is called the Pasetto di Borgo. 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 what was going on inside it. And of course, all sorts of stories emerge of popes going to meet their mistresses in Castel Sant'Angelo or 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 Saracens take Ostia and they then advance on Rome. They don't enter the city, but they sack the suburban churches. It's certainly a terrible shock to Western Christendom. This is a very important event for the history of the Vatican because it triggers the building of a wall, which has 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 great blocks of stone. But it's probably about eight meters high, two and a half meters thick with towers along it, about 22 or 25 towers. And that wall links Castel Sant'Angelo to the Vatican Hill up behind St. Peter's and then runs down the other side, forming a long rectangular strip, which is about three kilometers long. In the 13th century, an 800 meter portion was transformed. This was the Pasetto di Borgo and it allowed the popes to reach the nearby fortress from the Apostolic Palace. It's a way of linking the Vatican to Castel Sant'Angelo without going down into the street. The presence of the fortress of Castel Sant'Angelo is a safe haven because papal position in Rome was always threatened, not only from the outside, but also by 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 undercover invisibly along this lower covered passageway. In the turbulent history of the Vatican, the Pasetto di Borgo turned out crucial on two occasions. In 1494, when Alexander VI is threatened by the French king, Charles VIII, and he passes down the Pasetto to Castel Sant'Angelo. Most famously, in 1527, Clement VII has to flee the troops of the emperor, Charles V. And of course, you have to imagine not just the Pope going down the Pasetto, but a whole conclave of cardinals and bureaucrats. And there's probably a wonderful scene of chaos inside the Pasetto. Apart from these two warlike episodes, not much is known about how this passage was used. Enough to fuel the rumor around unspeakable meetings. Secret assignations are a feature of political life. The Pasetto is a sort of glorified backstairs, but because it's secret, myths grow up around it and we will never really know. After the last attack of 1527, the Vatican experienced two and a half centuries of peace 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 facade as part of the Tower of the Winds. It's about four centimeters. Despite its 73 meter height, it's a little known tower that cannot be visited. Built at the end of the 16th century, it 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 VIII. 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 the device designed by astronomer Ignacio 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 attests to this, but it's assumed that on March 21st, 1581, Pope Gregory VIII 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 meters from the ground. Normally, according to the calculations of Ignacio Dante, 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 to reach the sun. It took 10 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 centimeters 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 meters from the Tower of the Winds, the Sistine Chapel. Even before Michelangelo arrived in the Sistine Chapel, it was already an extraordinarily beautiful space. Parallel to St. Peter's Basilica, it's a massive building 40 meters long, almost conceived as a military work. Even before it became this mythical space, where new popes are elected in the greatest secrecy, the Sistine 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 Sistine Chapel to the site where future pontiffs would be elected. Before Michelangelo's intervention, the chapel had already been sublimated by painters such as Perugino and Botticelli. Michelangelo was supposed to redecorate the ceiling by simply representing the Twelve Apostles. But that plan wasn't ambitious enough for this intransigent artist. The whole thing was crowned by a magnificent lapis lazuli 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 square meters of surface and at 20 meters above the ground. To access the ceiling, architect Bramante designed a scaffolding. But Michelangelo refused it because the structure fixed in the vault would have left holes in his work. Michelangelo and Bramante 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 arm's length away. The painting 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 incised or punched out, and that would guide the hand while he was working. Struggling against cramps, migraines and stiff necks for more than three 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 really, it affected art in the immediate decades to come. Although Michelangelo left an exceptional imprint through the Sistine Chapel, we mustn't forget his contribution to the realisation of the incredible building that sits next door. The drum designed by Michelangelo inspired his successor, architect Della Porta, 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 kilometres, which is astounding. Where could 80 kilometres of documents be stored in a territory of half a square kilometre? 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 della Pina. There, under the feet of the visitors of the Vatican museums, hides an unsuspected treasure. One tonne of historical documents protected by a concrete bunker of more than 5,000 square metres 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 Knights Templar, written on a 33-metre long parchment. Or this 16th century document, the request for annulment of the marriage of King Henry VIII of England, accompanied by the 81 seals of the lords who signed the document. Set aside from the special rooms of the bunker, less fragile documents exist. Simple administrative records or diplomatic correspondence 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. The term Vatican Secret Archive is a term that is used that have been used since the 17th century, refers to the term secretus 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 Archive. 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 XIII, 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 detente 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 XVI and John Paul 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 egos. A jewel in a theological setting, but which goes beyond it, shining among the most beautiful pieces of world heritage.