When in Rome
Subtitle: a journal of life in Vatican City
By: Robert J. Hutchinson.
Edition: 1st. ed.
Publisher: Doubleday
Published: 1998
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 289
Subjects: Hutchinson, Robert J.; Vatican City -- Description and travel.; Vatican City -- Social life and customs.
Description: When in Rome is a backstairs tour of one of the world's most mysterious and eccentric cities.

Hutchinson introduces the varied and colorful individuals who live and work in the Vatican. In the process, he explores the mysterious orders of medieval knights, some dating back to the First Crusade, which still play a vital role in the Vatican; explains how bumbling Vatican archaeologists found, and then lost, the bones of St.

Peter; probes the sex lives of the popes, from the "pornocracy" of Sergius III to the incestuous orgies of Rodrigo Borgia; experiences high fashion in the Holy See, including a visit to the pope's personal tailor; encounters the weird relics of Catholicism, such as the mummified body of St. Pius X and a museum made entirely out of human bones; recounts the true story behind the True Cross, now kept in a run-down church near the Colosseum; and much, much more.
Notes: "Main Street books."