Gardens of Vatican City

Vatican Hill (; Latin: Mons Vaticanus; Italian: Colle Vaticano) is a hill located across the Tiber river from the traditional seven hills of Rome, that also gave the name to Vatican City. It is the location of St. Peter's Basilica.

Vatican Radio (Italian: Radio Vaticana; Latin: Statio Radiophonica Vaticana) is the official broadcasting service of Vatican City. Established in 1931 by Guglielmo Marconi, today its programs are offered in 47 languages, and are sent out on short wave, DRM, medium wave, FM, satellite and the Internet. Since its inception, Vatican Radio has been maintained by the Jesuit Order. Vatican Radio preserved its independence during the rise of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. Today, programming is produced by over 200 journalists located in 61 countries. Vatican Radio produces more than 42,000 hours of simultaneous broadcasting covering international news, religious celebrations, in-depth programs, and music. The current general director is Father Federico Lombardi, S.J. On 27 June 2015, Pope Francis, in a motu proprio apostolic letter, established the Secretariat for Communications in the Roman Curia, which absorbed Vatican Radio effective 1 January 2017, ending the organization's 85 years of independent operation.

The Governor's Palace (Italian: Palazzo del Governatorato in Vaticano) is the seat of the Pontifical Commission for Vatican City State. The palace is located in the Vatican Gardens behind St. Peter's Basilica.

The Mater Ecclesiae Monastery (Latin for 'Mother of the Church') is a monastery in Vatican City. It was founded around 1990 by Pope John Paul II as a monastery for cloistered nuns. Benedict XVI lived there from his resignation in 2013 till his death in 2022.

Saint Stephen of the Abyssinians (Italian: Santo Stefano degli Abissini) is an Ethiopian Catholic church located in Vatican City. The church dedicated to Stephen the Protomartyr is the national church of Ethiopia. The liturgy is celebrated according to the Alexandrian rite of the Ethiopian Catholic Church. It is one of the only standing structures in the Vatican to survive the destruction of Old St. Peter's Basilica (c. 1505), and thus it is the oldest surviving church (in terms of architectural history) in Vatican City.

The geography of Vatican City is unique due to the country's position as an urban, landlocked enclave of Rome, Italy. With an area of 49 ha (121 acres, or 0.19 sq mi), and a border with Italy of 3.5km, it is the world's smallest independent state. Outside the Vatican City, thirteen buildings in Rome and Castel Gandolfo (the pope's summer residence) enjoy extraterritorial rights (one building, the Paul VI Audience Hall, straddles the border, but its Italian portion has extraterritorial rights). The country contains no major natural resources, and no known natural hazards other than those that affect Rome in general, such as earthquakes.

Vatican City ( (listen)), officially Vatican City State (Italian: Stato della Città del Vaticano; Latin: Status Civitatis Vaticanae), is a landlocked independent city-state, microstate and enclave within Rome, Italy. It became independent from Italy in 1929 with the Lateran Treaty, and it is a distinct territory under "full ownership, exclusive dominion, and sovereign authority and jurisdiction" of the Holy See, itself a sovereign entity of international law, which maintains the city state's temporal, diplomatic, and spiritual independence. With an area of 49 hectares (121 acres) and a 2019 population of about 453, it is the smallest state in the world both by area and population. As governed by the Holy See, Vatican City State is an ecclesiastical or sacerdotal-monarchical state ruled by the Pope who is the bishop of Rome and head of the Catholic Church. The highest state functionaries are all Catholic clergy of various origins. After the Avignon Papacy (1309–1377) the popes have mainly resided at the Apostolic Palace within what is now Vatican City, although at times residing instead in the Quirinal Palace in Rome or elsewhere. The Vatican is also a metonym for the Holy See. The Holy See dates back to early Christianity and is the principal episcopal see of the Catholic Church, which has approximately 1.329 billion baptised Catholics in the world as of 2018 in the Latin Church and 23 Eastern Catholic Churches. The independent state of Vatican City, on the other hand, came into existence on 11 February 1929 by the Lateran Treaty between the Holy See and Italy, which spoke of it as a new creation, not as a vestige of the much larger Papal States (756–1870), which had previously encompassed much of Central Italy. Vatican City contains religious and cultural sites such as St. Peter's Basilica, the Sistine Chapel, and the Vatican Museums. They feature some of the world's most famous paintings and sculptures. The unique economy of Vatican City is supported financially by donations from the faithful, by the sale of postage stamps and souvenirs, fees for admission to museums, and sales of publications. Vatican City has no taxes and items are duty-free.

The Casina Pio IV (or Villa Pia) is a patrician villa in Vatican City which is now home to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences and the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas. The predecessor of the present complex structure was begun in the spring of 1558 by Pope Paul IV in the Vatican Gardens, west of the Cortile del Belvedere. Paul IV commissioned the initial project of the 'Casina del Boschetto', as it was originally called, from an unknown architect; the first mention of the single-storey building can be found on 30 April 1558, and a notice of the following 6 May, says that the Pope spent "two thirds of his time at the Belvedere, where he has begun to build a fountain in the woods". Upon Paul IV's death on 18 August 1559, Pope Pius IV took on the project, which had not yet been completed, and, turning to Pirro Ligorio, improved it. The complex, as it was completed in 1562, comprised an elliptical cortile, two free-standing portals, and the loggia with its fountain. Rich sculptural stuccos, once supplemented by some fifty ancient Roman sculptures, enliven the exterior (illustration). A team of at least six major painters, including Federico Barocci, Federico Zuccari, and Santi di Tito and their assistants, frescoed the interiors.The Casina's rich and at times obscure iconographic programme, of the efficacy of baptism, the primacy of the papacy and the welcomed punitive powers of the Church, seems to have been inspired by Cardinal Charles Borromeo, nephew of Pius IV, who probably had it in mind as the headquarters for the Academy he was about to found, on 20 April 1562, called Accademia Noctes Vaticanae. Graham Smith suggests that the interrelated iconography of the interior frescoes was inspired by Cardinal Marcantonio da Mula. Pope Pius XI, the founder of the current Pontifical Academy of Sciences, made the Casina the Academy's current headquarters in 1936.

The Latinitas Foundation (Latin: Opus Fundatum Latinitas) was an organisation dedicated to furthering the education of Latin and the publication of articles in the language. It was established on 30 June 1976 by Pope Paul VI and was superseded by the Pontifical Academy for Latin (Pontificia Academia Latinitatis) which was established on 10 November 2012 by Pope Benedict XVI.

A pontifical academy is an academic honorary society established by or under the direction of the Holy See. Some were in existence well before they were accepted as "Pontifical."

The Pontifical Academy of Sciences (Italian: Pontificia accademia delle scienze, Latin: Pontificia Academia Scientiarum) is a scientific academy of the Vatican City, established in 1936 by Pope Pius XI. Its aim is to promote the progress of the mathematical, physical, and natural sciences and the study of related epistemological problems. The Accademia Pontificia dei Nuovi Lincei ("Pontifical Academy of the New Lynxes") was founded in 1847 as a more closely supervised successor to the Accademia dei Lincei ("Academy of Lynxes") established in Rome in 1603 by the learned Roman Prince, Federico Cesi (1585–1630), who was a young botanist and naturalist, and which claimed Galileo Galilei as its president. The Accademia dei Lincei survives as a wholly separate institution.The Academy of Sciences, one of the Pontifical academies at the Vatican in Rome, is headquartered in the Casina Pio IV in the heart of the Vatican Gardens.

Grotta di Lourdes (also Grotta della Madonna di Lourdes) is an artificial cave in the Vatican gardens. It was built in 1902–05 and is a replica of the Lourdes Grotto in France. The context of building this grotto is the vision of the Madonna that a young girl, Bernadette Soubirous, experienced 18 times. Prior to that the Pope had promulgated the dogma of the Immaculate Conception in 1854.Pope Francis, two days after his election as Roman Pontiff, visited the Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes on the afternoon of 15 March 2013 and offered prayers before the statue of the Virgin Mary.