The funeral of Pope Francis captures a fundamental visual and ideological tension within Catholicism.

In centuries past, the cardinals slept in corridors and rooms of the Apostolic Palace itself during the conclave ...

Architect Gian Lorenzo Bernini, in the 17th century ... cape), the cardinals gather in the Pauline Chapel of the Apostolic Palace and invoke the assistance of the Holy Spirit as they make their ...

They will mount Bernini’s great double-flight Scala Regia ... engraving showing food being brought to the Vatican apostolic palace, and checked before distribution. Beneath the image is the ...

Situated inside the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican ... In the 17th century, architect Gian Lorenzo Bernini designed the famous Vatican plaza, which has a 4,000-year-old Egyptian obelisk at ...

A change in popes is a complicated process, with centuries-old rituals involving the transition in leadership for both the ...

As the night fell on Rome, a long line of mourners — children, nuns, tourists and others — still waited outside the ...

Situated inside the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican ... In the 17th century, architect Gian Lorenzo Bernini designed the famous Vatican plaza, which has a 4,000-year-old Egyptian obelisk at ...

A change in popes — through death or resignation — is a complicated process, with centuries-old rituals involving the ...

Bernini's prodigious output was the result of ... XIV to design an addition—ultimately rejected—to the Louvre royal palace. Throughout his time in France, he complained. All of Paris, he ...

The night before the funeral, the camerlengo will preside over the closing and sealing of the coffin in the presence of other senior cardinals. A white silk cloth will be placed over the pope's face ...