Vatican City

The Papal Basilica built over the tomb of Saint Peter the Apostle, replacing the 4th-century Constantinian basilica. Pope Julius II laid the first stone on April 18, 1506, and after more than a century of work by Bramante, Raphael, Michelangelo, Maderno, and Bernini, Pope Urban VIII consecrated the church on November 18, 1626.

UNESCO World Heritage Site (Vatican City, 1984), Papal BasilicaPiazza San Pietro, 00120 Città del Vaticano

Photo: Alvesgaspar, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons

The preeminent papal chapel of the Apostolic Palace in Vatican City and a crowning monument of High Renaissance sacred art, rebuilt between 1473 and 1481 under Pope Sixtus IV according to the biblical proportions of Solomon's Temple (40.9 meters long, 13.4 meters wide, and 20.7 meters high), uniting fifteenth-century wall frescoes of the lives of Moses and Christ by Perugino, Botticelli, Ghirlandaio, and Rosselli with Michelangelo Buonarroti's Genesis vault (1508 to 1512) and Last Judgment altar wall (1536 to 1541), while serving since 1492 as the sacred chamber of the Papal Conclave.

UNESCO World Heritage Site (Vatican City, inscribed in 1984, Ref. 286), Principal Papal Chapel of the Apostolic Palace, and Official Seat of the Papal Conclave since 1492Apostolic Palace (Palazzo Apostolico), immediately north of St. Peter's Basilica, 00120 Vatican City (Citta del Vaticano)

Photo: Jörg Bittner Unna, CC BY 3.0, Wikimedia Commons

The active pontifical parish church of Vatican City standing beside Porta Sant'Anna, commissioned in 1565 by the Archconfraternity of the Papal Grooms (Palafrenieri) after the pioneering oval-plan design of Renaissance master Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola that heralded the Roman Baroque, famed in art history as the original home of Caravaggio's 1606 altarpiece Madonna dei Palafrenieri, and entrusted since Pope Pius XI's 1929 motu proprio Ex Lateranensi pacto to the Order of Saint Augustine.

UNESCO World Heritage Site (Vatican City, 1984), Sole Official Parish Church of Vatican City State (established 1929), and Pioneering Monument of Oval-Plan Renaissance and Baroque Church ArchitectureVia di Sant'Anna, beside St. Anne's Gate (Porta Sant'Anna) at the northeastern corner of Vatican City, 00120 Vatican City (Citta del Vaticano)

Photo: xiquinhosilva from Cacau, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons

The oldest surviving church inside Vatican City, standing immediately behind the apse of St. Peter's Basilica on the Vatican Hill; tracing its origins to the fifth-century foundation of Pope Leo I and the eighth-century Carolingian reconstruction under Pope Stephen II and Pope Leo III, it was entrusted in 1479 by Pope Sixtus IV to Ethiopian (Abyssinian) monks and became the historic liturgical sanctuary of the Ge'ez Rite and the birthplace of early modern Ethiopian studies in Europe.

UNESCO World Heritage Site (Vatican City, 1984), Oldest Surviving Church Structure in Vatican City (5th and 8th centuries), and Historic National Sanctuary of the Ethiopian Catholic Tradition in Rome since 1479Largo Santo Stefano degli Abissini, directly behind the apse of St. Peter's Basilica on the Vatican Hill slope, 00120 Vatican City (Citta del Vaticano)

Photo: Sailko, CC BY 3.0, Wikimedia Commons

An authentic scale replica of the Grotto of Massabielle in Lourdes nestled among umbrella pines and cypresses on the high western ridge of the Vatican Gardens, presented in 1902 to Pope Leo XIII by Bishop Francois-Xavier Schoepfer of Tarbes and Lourdes, blessed by Pope Pius X in 1905, housing the original stone altar gifted from the Sanctuary of Lourdes in 1960, and cherished for over a century as the personal Rosary retreat of the Roman Pontiffs.

UNESCO World Heritage Site (Vatican City, 1984) and Principal Marian Rosary Sanctuary of the Roman Pontiffs in the Vatican Gardens since 1902Western sector of the Vatican Gardens (Giardini Vaticani), near St. John's Tower (Torre San Giovanni) and the Pontifical Ethiopian College, 00120 Vatican City (Citta del Vaticano)

Photo: Sailko, CC BY 3.0, Wikimedia Commons