Pope Benedict XVI has emerged as one of Italy's most popular authors, after selling more than 2.5 million copies of his latest book in just over a year. The sales of Jesus of Nazareth, the first part of a two-volume biography of Christ, has convinced Helder, the largest Catholic publisher in Europe, to reprint a series of Benedict's earlier scholarship.
The book came eighth on last year's bestseller chart in Italy, despite costing £15.50, and outsold the latest releases by Paolo Coelho and Wilbur Smith.
Over £1.6 million in royalties has gone to the Ratzinger Foundation, the pope's charity which gives bursaries to poor students.
The popularity of the pope has also helped sales of his two encyclicals, God is Love and Saved by Hope. Around three million copies of the two works have been sold.
The Pope said that Jesus of Nazareth represented his "long interior journey" in search of "the face of the Lord".
He began the work before his election in 2005, and wrote the final six chapters "using all my free moments" afterwards. The British edition of the book is published by Bloomsbury, the publishers of Harry Potter.
The Pope's previous career as a senior theologian means there is a vast back-catalogue of his work that publishers are eager to capitalise on.
Before becoming the head of the Roman Catholic Church, Benedict had penned 132 books, monographs and commentaries.
"We are going to reprint 13 volumes to start with," said Father Giuseppe Costa, an official at the Vatican's publishing house who is cooperating with Helder.
"There is a rich and extraordinary catalogue and today's readers are looking at it with growing interest," he added. "In the pope there is a strong point of reference, both for religion and culture."
Benedict is currently working on his third encyclical, tentatively titled *Love in the Truth*, and on the second part of Jesus of Nazareth. He is expected to finish both works over his summer holidays, which he usually devotes to non-stop writing.
* A new book claims that the Pope's cousin was killed by the Nazis for having Downs Syndrome. In Benedict of Bavaria: An Intimate Portrait of the Pope and His Homeland, Professor Brennan Pursell, an American historian, said the episode had happened when Benedict was 14, in 1941.
The book recounts that a group of doctors came to the house of Benedict's cousin with the order to deport him because of his handicap.
"Only later did the Ratzinger family receive the news that their young one was dead," the book states, in an episode which may have shaped the thinking of the young pope.
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