Attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II

Saint Peter's Square (Latin: Forum Sancti Petri, Italian: Piazza San Pietro [ˈpjattsa sam ˈpjɛːtro],) is a large plaza located directly in front of St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City, the papal enclave in Rome, directly west of the neighborhood (rione) of Borgo. Both the square and the basilica are named after Saint Peter, an apostle of Jesus whom Catholics consider to be the first Pope. At the centre of the square is an ancient Egyptian obelisk, erected at the current site in 1586. Gian Lorenzo Bernini designed the square almost 100 years later, including the massive Doric colonnades, four columns deep, which embrace visitors in "the maternal arms of Mother Church". A granite fountain constructed by Bernini in 1675 matches another fountain designed by Carlo Maderno in 1613.

The Church of Saints Martin and Sebastian of the Swiss (Italian: Santi Martino e Sebastiano degli Svizzeri) is a Roman Catholic oratory in Vatican City. The church was built by Pope Pius V in 1568 to serve as a private chapel for the Pontifical Swiss Guards, whose barracks are located next to Porta San Pellegrino, close to the Apostolic Palace. It is considered the national church of Switzerland in Rome. The chapel is conveniently located on the path taken every day by the Guards from their barracks to Portone di Bronzo. It is accessible for the guards, day and night. Baptisms and marriages of members of the Guard can also be celebrated with the permission of the priest of the parish of Saint Anne in Vatican.

Porta San Pellegrino is a gate in the outer wall of Vatican City. It is located beside Bernini's Colonnade and the small Vatican post; it is also known as Porta Viridaria. The gate was rebuilt by Pope Alexander VI in 1492 and his arms are at the top of the gate. The gate is little used.On Friday, 6 February, 2015, Catholic News Service (CNS) reported, in a brief online news release on its website, that the Vatican, through a communique, had announced that it had finished remodeling a public bathroom, to include three showers (which the article stated will be open every day except Wednesday, the day of the Pope's general audience, and other times when there are large events in the Basilica and the Square) and a barber's chair (haircuts will be available on Mondays), near Bernini's Colonnade. The services, which will include issuance of kits for hygiene, are meant for the homeless pilgrims of the Vatican.

The four Raphael Rooms (Italian: Stanze di Raffaello) form a suite of reception rooms in the Apostolic Palace, now part of the Vatican Museums, in Vatican City. They are famous for their frescoes, painted by Raphael and his workshop. Together with Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling frescoes, they are the grand fresco sequences that mark the High Renaissance in Rome. The Stanze, as they are commonly called, were originally intended as a suite of apartments for Pope Julius II. He commissioned Raphael, then a relatively young artist from Urbino, and his studio in 1508 or 1509 to redecorate the existing interiors of the rooms entirely. It was possibly Julius' intent to outshine the apartments of his predecessor (and rival) Pope Alexander VI, as the Stanze are directly above Alexander's Borgia Apartment. They are on the third floor, overlooking the south side of the Belvedere Courtyard. Running from east to west, as a visitor would have entered the apartment, but not following the sequence in which the Stanze were frescoed, the rooms are the Sala di Costantino ("Hall of Constantine"), the Stanza di Eliodoro ("Room of Heliodorus"), the Stanza della Segnatura ("Room of the Signatura"), and the Stanza dell'Incendio del Borgo ("The Room of the Fire in the Borgo"). After the death of Julius in 1513, with two rooms frescoed, Pope Leo X continued the program. Following Raphael's death in 1520, his assistants Gianfrancesco Penni, Giulio Romano and Raffaellino del Colle finished the project with the frescoes in the Sala di Costantino.

Ricciolo d'Italia (literally, "the Curl of Italy") is a narrow section of the border between Vatican City and Italy with a characteristic curl shape with a maximum width of only 3 meters. It came into existence on February 11, 1929, with the signing of the Lateran Pacts, which came into force the following June 7 following the simultaneous publication of the ratifications in the Official Gazette of the Kingdom of Italy and the Acta Apostolicae Sedis.

The papal apartments is the non-official designation for the collection of apartments, which are private, state, and religious, that wrap around a courtyard (the Courtyard of Sixtus V, Cortile di Sisto V) on two sides of the third (top) floor of the Apostolic Palace in Vatican City.Since the 17th century, the papal apartments have been the official residence of the pope in his religious capacity (as supreme pontiff). Prior to 1870, the pope's official residence in his temporal capacity (as sovereign of the Papal States) was the Quirinal Palace, which is now the official residence of the president of the Italian Republic. The papal apartments are referred to in Italian by several terms, including appartamento nobile and appartamento pontificio.

The Apostolic Palace (Latin: Palatium Apostolicum; Italian: Palazzo Apostolico) is the official residence of the pope, the head of the Catholic Church, located in Vatican City. It is also known as the Papal Palace, the Palace of the Vatican and the Vatican Palace. The Vatican itself refers to the building as the Palace of Sixtus V, in honor of Pope Sixtus V, who built most of the present form of the palace. The building contains the papal apartments, various offices of the Catholic Church and the Holy See, private and public chapels, Vatican Museums, and the Vatican Library, including the Sistine Chapel, Raphael Rooms, and Borgia Apartment. The modern tourist can see these last and other parts of the palace, but other parts, such as the Sala Regia (Regal Room) and Cappella Paolina, had long been closed to tourists, though the Sala Regia allowed occasional tourism by 2019. The Scala Regia (Regal Staircase) can be viewed from one end and used to enter the Sala Regia. The Cappella Paolina remains closed to tourists.

The Institute for the Works of Religion (Italian: Istituto per le Opere di Religione; Latin: Institutum pro Operibus Religionis; abbreviated IOR), commonly known as the Vatican Bank, is a financial institution that is situated inside Vatican City and run by a Board of Superintendence, which reports to a Commission of Cardinals and the Pope. It is not a private bank, as there are no owners or shareholders; it has been established in the form of a juridical canonical foundation, pursuant to its statutes. Since 9 July 2014, its president is Jean-Baptiste de Franssu. The IOR is regulated by the Vatican's financial supervisory body AIF (Autorità di Informazione Finanziaria).The Institute was founded in June 1942 by papal decree of Pope Pius XII. In June 2012, the IOR gave a first presentation of its operations. In July 2013, the Institute launched its own website. On 1 October 2013, it also published its first-ever annual report.On 24 June 2013, Pope Francis created a special investigative Pontifical Commission (CRIOR) to study IOR reform. On 7 April 2014, Pope Francis approved respective recommendations on the IOR's future which were jointly developed by the CRIOR and COSEA commissions and the IOR's management. "The IOR will continue to serve with prudence and provide specialized financial services to the Catholic Church worldwide", as the Vatican release stated. On 7 April 2014, Pope Francis approved a proposal on the Institute's future, "reaffirming the importance of the IOR’s mission for the good of the Catholic Church, the Holy See and the Vatican City State".

The Sala del Concistoro (Hall of the Consistory) is a large hall on the third loggia of the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican City. The room is in the residential wing of the palace, added by Pope Sixtus V. It was decorated by Pope Clement VIII. Clement's coat of arms feature on the ceiling of the hall.In the Lives of the Artists, Giorgio Vasari describes Gianfrancesco Penni as the painter of large parts of the designs for Raphael's tapestries in the Sala del Concistoro. Commissioned by Pope Clement VII, the theme of the tapestries is the life of Christ. The tapestries remained unfinished on Raphael's death, and along with tapestries for the Sala del Consistorio were woven in Brussels. The carved and gilded ceiling contains frescos by Cerubino Alberti and Paul Bril.In February 2013, at a ceremony in Sala del Concistoro to announce the date for the canonisation of three martyrs, Pope Benedict XVI announced his resignation.

The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) is the oldest among the departments of the Roman Curia. Its seat is the Palace of the Holy Office in Rome. It was founded to defend the Catholic Church from heresy and is the body responsible for promulgating and defending Roman Catholic doctrine.Formerly known as the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition (1542–1908); the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office (1908–1965); and then until June 2022 the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF; Latin: Congregatio pro Doctrina Fidei). It is still informally known as the Holy Office (Latin: Sanctum Officium) in many Catholic countries.Founded by Pope Paul III in 21 July 1542, the sole objective of the dicastery is to "spread sound Catholic doctrine and defend those points of Christian tradition which seem in danger because of new and unacceptable doctrines."Its headquarters are at the Palace of the Holy Office, just outside Vatican City. The congregation employs an advisory board including cardinals, bishops, priests, lay theologians, and canon lawyers. The current Cardinal Prefect is Luis Ladaria Ferrer, who was appointed by Pope Francis for a five-year term since 1 July 2017.

The Palace of the Holy Office (Italian: Palazzo del Santo Uffizio) is a building in Rome which is an extraterritorial property of Vatican City. It houses the Holy Office of the Roman Catholic Church. The palace is situated south of Saint Peter's Basilica near the Petrine Gate to Vatican City. The building lies outside the confines of Vatican City at the south-eastern corner of the city-state. It is one of the properties of the Holy See in Italy regulated by the 1929 Lateran Treaty signed with the Kingdom of Italy. As such, it has extraterritorial status. The palace was first built after 1514 for Cardinal Lorenzo Pucci, and it was called Palazzo Pucci. Its façade was rebuilt in 1524–1525 by the architects Giuliano Leni, Pietro Roselli and even Michelangelo. When Pucci died in 1531, the building was still not fully completed.In 1566–1567, the palace was purchased by Pope Pius V for 9000 scudi, and it was converted into the seat of the Holy Office. Renovation works were undertaken by Pirro Ligorio and Giovanni Sallustio Peruzzi. A complete renovation of the building was made by Pietro Guidi between 1921 and 1925.It is where Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger formerly worked as Prefect of the Congregation.

The Embassy of the Philippines to the Holy See is the diplomatic mission of the Republic of the Philippines to the Holy See, the central government of the Roman Catholic Church. Opened in 1957, it is located along Via Paolo VI in the rione of Borgo, part of Municipio I in central Rome along the border between Italy and Vatican City, and across from St. Peter's Square. It is distinct from the larger Embassy of the Philippines in Rome, the Philippines' diplomatic mission to Italy.