Papal apartments

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 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 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.

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 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.

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 Vatican post office has operated its own postal service and issued its own postage stamps since 1929. The postal history of Vatican City begins shortly after its official foundation on 11 February 1929. Two days later, the Vatican post office began operating with supplies and equipment donated by the Italian government. Vatican City became a member of the Universal Postal Union on 1 June, and then on 29 July Vatican City and Italy signed a postal agreement, going into effect on 1 August, providing for the routing of its mail through Rome.

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.

On 13 May 1981, in St. Peter's Square in Vatican City, Pope John Paul II was shot and wounded by Mehmet Ali Ağca while he was entering the square. The Pope was struck twice and suffered severe blood loss. Ağca was apprehended immediately and later sentenced to life in prison by an Italian court. The Pope later forgave Ağca for the assassination attempt. He was pardoned by Italian president Carlo Azeglio Ciampi at the Pope's request and was deported to Turkey in June 2000. Ağca converted to Roman Catholicism in 2007.

The church of Sant'Egidio in Borgo, ...a Borgo, or ...in Vaticano (Saint Giles in Borgo or at the Vatican), is a Roman Catholic oratory in Vatican City dedicated to Saint Giles.

The Vatican Pharmacy (Latin and Italian: Farmacia Vaticana) is the only pharmacy in the Vatican City, founded in 1874 by Eusebio Ludvig Fronmen, a Fatebenefratelli religious. According to Vatican sources, it is the busiest pharmacy in the world, with 2,000 customers per day. Half of those customers come from outside the Vatican for medicines that are not available in Italy or are difficult to find.The current director of the pharmacy is Binish Thomas Mulackal, a Fatebenefratelli monk. Although the director of the pharmacy has always been a monk of that order, the staff pharmacists have been lay people for the past 30 years (7 religious and 53 laypeople in 2014). The pharmacy is organized under the Directorate of Health Services, one of eight Vatican City directorates.

The Church of Saint Anne in the Vatican (Italian: Sant'Anna in Vaticano), known as Sant'Anna de' Parafrenieri (English: Saint Anne of the Grooms), is a Catholic parish church dedicated to Saint Anne in Vatican City. The church is the parish church of the State of Vatican City and is placed under the jurisdiction of the Vicariate of the Vatican City and is located beside the Porta Sant'Anna (Saint Anne's Gate), an international border crossing between Vatican City State and Italy.Commissioned by the Venerabile Arciconfraternita di Sant'Anna de Parafrenieri, Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola introduced the oval plan to church design, for the first time in the churches of Sant'Andrea in Via Flaminia and Saint Anne in Vatican, pioneering a plan which was to become influential to Baroque architecture.