Outline of Vatican City
Vatican City – an ecclesiastical or sacerdotal-monarchical state, being the sovereign territory of the Holy See and ruled by the Bishop of Rome—the Pope, the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church. The territory of this landlocked sovereign city-state consists of a walled enclave within the city of Rome, Italy. It has an area of approximately , and a population of just over 800. This makes Vatican City the smallest independent state in the world by both area and population.Geography of Vatican CityVatican City is an enclave in an urban area, and lacks the geographic features common to (much larger) countries:Demographics of Vatican City
Vatican Splendors
The Vatican Splendors provides the United States with an exclusive look into the history of the Catholic Church and the inside of the Vatican. Numerous people desire to see these works of art in Rome as well as the rest of the world, as Jaweed Kaleem explains in his article. "Each day, 20,000 visitors line up for hours to catch these masterpieces by names synonymous with beauty -- Michelangelo, Bernini and Guercino, to name a few -- and to get a glimpse into the history of faith and aesthetics." Furthermore, several of the artifacts arranged in the Vatican Splendors would not be shown in Rome. According to Peter Radestsky, "'Even if you go to Rome, you won't see some of these things. They're just not displayed." This statement is reiterated in Kaleem's article. "'There are many objects that have not been on tour before,' says Mark Greenberg, president of Evergreen Exhibitions, a San Antonio company that also put together the prior Vatian exhibit in Fort Lauderdale. 'If you had a chance to go to Rome, you would not see the reliquary with the bones of Sts. Peter and Paul because it is kept in a private chapel in the College of St. Urban,' he says. 'The statues of Sts. Peter, Paul, John and Andrew are new, as is the Guercino painting.'"