A Place in the Country

On Aug. 6, 1637, scarlet-robed members of the College of Cardinals filed into the Vatican's Pauline Chapel for a solemn Mass in honor of Cardinal Zacchia, who was considered a shoo-in for election as the next Pope. The incumbent, Pope Urban VIII, supposedly lay dying in his villa at Castel Gandolfo 17 miles away in the Alban hills, and the cardinals were eager to show their esteem for the heir apparent. Just as the Mass was about to begin, the doors of the chapel swung open and Urban VIII, clad in full pontifical robes, strode in. Cardinal Zacchia abruptly collapsed, stricken with a heart attack. Wrote Urban later: the air at Castel Gandolfo had been "the instrument that God used to preserve my life."

God's instrument or no, the air at Castel Gandolfo has refreshed 13 Popes since the time of Urban VIII, the first Pontiff to use the villa as a summer retreat from the oppressive mugginess of summertime Rome. This year Paul VI is continuing the pleasant tradition, which has been skipped by only a small number of Popes--mainly those who considered themselves "prisoners of the Vatican" after the unification of Italy in 1870. When the Italian government recognized the Castel Gandolfo estate as an extraterritorial part of an independent Vatican in 1929, Pope Pius XI promptly refurbished the place, noting ruefully that his successors would probably appreciate the restoration more than "all my speeches and encyclicals." Ever since then, Castel Gandolfo has become the center of Vatican life every year from mid-July until late September, when the Roman heat begins to ease.

Resonant Welcome. The arrival of the Pope each summer--like the arrival of President Nixon in San Clemente--is a gala event. The 4,900 villagers of Castel Gandolfo, who normally support themselves by producing good white wine and some of Italy's tastiest peaches, dress in their Sunday best. The tricolored flag of Italy and the gold-and-white banner of the Vatican wave from every building. Bells peal out in resonant welcome. With the summer Vatican come the tourists, especially on audience days, and restaurants and souvenir stands do a brisk business.

The estate itself runs almost the full length of the town. Occupying 175 acres, the rambling, green-hilled properties are actually 67 acres larger than Vatican City. Some of the property is given over to a modern dairy farm--reputed to be one of the most efficient in Europe--some to an experiment in raising Black Angus cattle for possible widespread use in Italy. There is also a modern chicken farm, and nearly 1,800 olive trees. A floor of the four-story papal palace, which covers about 2 1/2 acres, is occupied by the Jesuits who man the observatory on the roof.

Set amid formal, terraced gardens, the villa resembles a rambling medieval manor house. But the routine within is briskly efficient. Pope Paul VI rises at 6:30 a.m., bathes, is shaved by his valet and says an early Mass. At breakfast (caffe latte, rolls, fruit), the conversation revolves around the morning news while the Pope glances at newspapers: Le Monde, La Stampa, and Corriere della Sera. At 8:30, in the garden under a centuries-old oak tree, Paul receives a worldwide news briefing that often focuses on church matters: excerpts from a German paper's comments on Vatican finances, for example, or the story in Figaro on a liberal theological congress. At 10, the Pope begins private audiences with important Curia prelates, visiting churchmen and other dignitaries. Only on Sundays, when the Pope makes a brief appearance above the palace courtyard, and on Wednesdays, the general-audience day, does the routine vary. Then cars jam the roads leading to the estate, bringing the faithful to audiences similar to those held in Rome. Last Wednesday the audience became even livelier when a former mental patient tossed a few rocks at the Pope--so wide of the mark that the Pontiff never noticed the incident.

Powerful Monarch. Lunch, even on papal vacation, is devoted to business. While light courses of pasta, meat or fish, salad and fruit are served, Paul keeps up a lively chatter with his table companions, often including Papal Secretary of State Jean Cardinal Villot, who has a permanent apartment at the summer villa. After a 1 1/2-hour siesta, there is more work: reading (and often writing marginalia in) the Vatican daily, L'Osservatore Romano, and planning or writing important documents. Like his predecessors, Paul works long hours. An hour or so for prayer in the evening, some minutes of symphonic music, a private walk in the garden, more work. Bedtime rarely comes before 1 or 1:30 in the morning.

Paul believes that there is no reason to leave the burdens of office behind at the Vatican, and his days at Castel Gandolfo have produced some of his most important pronouncements. Last summer, for example, he did much of the work on his mixed-marriage document at the villa. From the same location, in the summer of 1968, he also issued Humanae Vitae, his church-shaking encyclical condemning all forms of artificial birth control.

Castel Gandolfo had a different kind of impact on the reputation of the papacy during the later years of World War II, when the estate was used as a refugee camp and also briefly housed a French army contingent of Moslem Moroccans. The Moslems, noting the presence of some 3,000 women refugees, were duly, if mistakenly, impressed. Italian Novelist Curzio Malaparte records the impression in his book The Skin: "Three thousand wives! The Pope was undoubtedly the most powerful monarch in the world."

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