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Who lives inside the Vatican walls?

The clergy (those who contribute to the operation of the Vatican City religiously) and the Swiss Guards who 'defend' the Vatican City are the only people allowed to reside inside the Vatican City.



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Cooperation with the Italian government Peter's Square, although part of the Vatican City State, is normally patrolled by the Italian police, up to but not including the steps leading to the basilica.

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Pope Gregory was driven by a passion for learning. He ordered that all Egyptian and “Egyptianized” artifacts in the Pontifical states (and Roman antique markets, private villa collections etc.) be gathered together in a new museum.

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The Vatican's history as the seat of the Catholic Church began with the construction of a basilica over St. Peter's grave in Rome in the 4th century A.D. The area developed into a popular pilgrimage site and commercial district, although it was abandoned following the move of the papal court to France in 1309.

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Valued by some as high as €2 billion, Nero's bathtub is one of the most precious works in the Vatican Museums. Stretching a whopping 25ft in diameter, it's made of a deep red/purple porphyry marble. This stone was quarried from a single source in Egypt and no other deposits of it have ever been found.

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The area off the west bank of the Tiber River that comprises the Vatican was once a marshy region known as Ager Vaticanus.

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Peter's Square. The monolith was brought to Rome from the fabled Alexandria by Caligula in the year 37, ostensibly to honor the great Julius Caesar. However, there was once another theory: that the obelisk was not just part of a memorial to a great man from history, but also his mausoleum.

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The Obelisk was moved at the center of St. Peter's Square only in 1586 by the architect Domenico Fontana, under the order of Pope Sixtus V whose main aim was to re-erect all the obelisks of ancient Rome.

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