The Vatican on Tuesday opened the doors to one of Renaissance Rome’s most spectacular palazzos, normally hidden from public view since it houses some of the Holy See’s most secretive offices: the ecclesial tribunals that decide everything from marriage annulments to plenary indulgences.
The Palazzo della Cancelleria is located near the Campo dei Fiori market at the start of the Via del Pellegrino, named for the religious pilgrims who used it to walk towards St. Peter’s Basilica on the other side of the Tiber River. It was built in the late 1400s on the ruins of a paleo-Christian church as a residence for Cardinal Raffaele Riario, whose uncle, Pope Sixtus IV, is perhaps best known for having commissioned an even more spectacular masterpiece, the Sistine Chapel.
