When a future pope needed new soles, he strolled to a shoe-repair shop practically around
the corner from the Vatican. When he was pope and nearing retirement, he had the same shoemaker craft a pair of comfy calfskin slippers.
Borgo, the sleepy, medieval neighborhood with a timeless feel right outside the Vatican borders, has been at the service of pontiffs for centuries.
From re-soling to risotto, from light bulbs to linguine, Borgo is the go-to place for up-and-coming cardinals — and even for popes, too.
Pilgrims might hurry through Borgo’s narrow cobblestone streets to catch papal blessings in jam-packed St. Peter’s Square.
But gastronomically picky prelates and monsignors often stop to dine in the neighborhood eateries, debating the qualities of the next pontiff while tucking into tagliatelle and sausage in pistachio pesto or marsala-soaked braised pork.
A stroll along Borgo’s slow-paced streets between meal times might yield sights of prelates on errands such as those that Joseph Ratzinger ran when, as a German cardinal, he lived in an apartment just outside Vatican walls. Proudly displayed inside the shoemaker’s shop and in a lighting and electrical-repair store are photographs of the businesses’ owners with faithful client Ratzinger, more famous as the recently retired Pope Benedict XVI.
Borgo means “village” in Italian, and the neighborhood clearly has a quaint, insular quality — perhaps because some of its streets are closed to traffic.
“It’s a small town in a big city,” said Patrizia Podetti, whose restaurant, Velando, was hopping with cardinals in the run-up to the conclave that elected Pope Francis. “Everyone knows you, and everything’s on a human scale.”Several cardinals and other high-ranked Vatican churchmen live in apartments at the Vatican’s edges.
Ratzinger lived in a modern, austere-looking building at No. 1 Piazza della Citta Leonina, where tenants are listed anonymously on the building’s intercom system.
Around the corner from Ratzinger’s place is a T-shaped intersection with a traffic light at the end of Borgo’s main street, Borgo Pio. When the light turns green at the gate, dark-colored sedans roll in and out with Vatican City license plates, chauffeuring cardinals. It was there, just outside St. Anna’s Gate, a Vatican side entrance, that Pope Francis shook off his security handlers, took a few steps outside the Holy See’s confines and waded up to an admiring crowd on the first Sunday of his papacy.
Borgo tourists should stay alert: Who knows whether Francis, quickly dubbed the “unpredictable pope” by the Italian media, will succumb to Borgo’s simple charms and cross the street again?
In late afternoon, after a long day’s work at the Vatican, Ratzinger, sometimes with satchel in hand, would stroll Borgo’s few blocks, largely empty of tourists by then. Other prelates also use Borgo as a backyard of sorts, perhaps lunching with ambassadors to the Holy See or consulting with colleagues over a shot of grappa at the end of a meal.
Velando, located at Borgo Vittorio 26, is a favorite dining spot for the churchmen, with sleek wooden furnishings, subdued lighting and a vaulted, whitewashed ceiling lending an air of a small cathedral. Ratzinger often dined there before becoming pope; his favorite dish, Podetti said, was rosemary-seasoned risotto.
Near St. Anna’s Gate works Borgo’s most famous tailor for clerical garb. Using a 1960s-vintage, pea-green sewing machine, owner Raniero Mancinelli has been sewing cardinals’ red robes and papal hats for decades — including last-minute orders to spiff up cardinals’ and bishops’ garb for Francis’ installation.
But most of Borgo’s shops sell ordinary items for laity and clergy alike. On Borgo Pio (or pious village in Italian), next to a takeout pizza place, a simple housewares store sells items such as laundry detergent. Such mom-and-pop shops were once common in Rome; many have closed their doors, unable to compete with now ubiquitous supermarkets. The housewares place currently sports a “for sale” sign; down the block is a shuttered butcher shop.
Not counting lunch or dinner, Borgo and its few blocks, lined with simple, often wood-trimmed buildings, many of them several centuries old, can be explored leisurely in a couple of hours. Some street names recall wares once made there, like Via degli Ombrellari (umbrella-makers street), although these days, Asian immigrants pop out at every corner on rainy days to sell folding versions.
One of Borgo’s most interesting features runs above street level but is rarely accessible. Called Il Passetto di Borgo, it is a fortified, medieval-era corridor that served as a covered walkway linking the Vatican to Castel Sant’Angelo, a fortress just beyond Borgo’s border.
Pope Clement VII used it to scurry to safety during the sack of Rome in 1527.
Opened occasionally for tourists, as it was a few summers ago, the Passetto offers strollers a peek into Roman houses built practically smack up against the bricked arches beneath it.
In the last weeks of Benedict’s papacy, the Vatican and Italy’s culture ministry signed an accord for restoration work that would allow public access again.
Borgo seems to end abruptly because two streets were removed during Benito Mussolini’s rule and replaced by the broad Via della Conciliazione, stretching between a bridge over the Tiber and St. Peter’s Square.
The main street, Borgo Pio, ends suddenly too, at a modern, brick-faced building that houses a Catholic university but once was an adult movie theater.
In Rome, the sacred and the profane are rarely far apart.