He may live in one of the world’s most iconic religious palaces, boasting priceless art treasures, but the Pope follows an austere, simple and scholarly daily life. A methodical and disciplined man, he rises at 6am in the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican, where his predecessors have lived since 1377.
The 83-year-old pontiff showers, shaves and dresses in his white cassock.
At 6.50am he leaves his bedroom and walks 20 metres to the adjacent private chapel where he kneels in prayer for 15 minutes before celebrating mass in Italian with his two secretaries, Monsignors Georg Ganswein and Alfred Xuereb.
Also at mass are four Italian lay women who work in the papal apartment.
Benedict has breakfast at 8am with the secretaries and the lay women whom he calls his ‘family’.
This is typically caffe latte, bread, butter, marmalade and sometimes a doughnut or biscuits.
The breakfast is served by his valet Paolo Gabriele.
Afterwards the Pope retires to his room.
Comprising 10 rooms in all, including the chapel and recently-modernised kitchen, the papal apartment – with its 16th-century marble floors and antique wooden ceilings – is on the third floor of the palace. It even has a medical room with dental facilities.
By 9am, Benedict is in his large private study, where he has his desk and personal library of 20,000 books. It is from the window of this room with its panoramic views that he blesses pilgrims in St Peter’s Square on Sundays at midday.
Every morning, his first visitor is Sister Birgit Wansing, his personal assistant, who can decipher Benedict’s neat, small writing better than anyone else.
The Pope has already written two books on Jesus Of Nazareth and is working on a third. Sr Birgit types these manuscripts, which run to more than 1,000 pages, on a computer. When she has finished, Monsignor Ganswein briefs him on the day’s agenda.
At 11am, he receives visitors, including heads of state and royalty, while seated at a wooden table, on which there is a gold clock and a crucifix. Previous visitors have included Prince Charles, the King of Saudi Arabia, Prime Ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, as well as Presidents George W Bush and Barack Obama.
Here, too, he has received religious leaders, such as the Dalai Lama and the Archbishop Of Canterbury, as well as cardinals and bishops from all over the world.
Every Wednesday, the Pope holds public audiences for up to 10,000 people in the Paul VI Hall or in St Peter’s Square at which he will deliver learned talks. Afterwards, Benedict returns to the papal apartment for lunch with his ‘family’.
Sometimes other guests join them, including his 86-year-old brother Georg, a distinguished choirmaster and canon of Regensburg, who has a room in the apartments.
Served by the valet, lunch is at 1.30pm and often includes such dishes as pasta with curry, rigatoni with ham, pasta with salmon and zucchini, risotto, chicken rolls and meat slices with rocket. The Pope never drinks wine with meals, taking orange juice instead.
On celebratory occasions, however, he likes a glass of port, limoncello – a lemon liqueur – or Italian spumante.
Lunch ends at 2pm, and afterwards the pontiff likes to take a stroll among the covered roof-top gardens above the Apostolic Palace before retiring for an afternoon nap. He then returns to his study by 4pm.
Sometimes, Benedict prefers to take a walk in the splendid Vatican gardens and recite the rosary with his secretary.
From 6pm he receives the heads of the Vatican offices to discuss important questions and make decisions, including the appointment of bishops around the world.
Also, on a daily basis, he will meet with the Cardinal Secretary Of State, Tarcisio Bertone. He is the Pope’s right-hand man, equivalent in rank to a Prime Minister.
At around 7pm the Holy Father goes to the chapel to pray, and then dines with his secretaries and lay women.
Dinner ends at eight sharp, and they all move into the living room to watch the TV news from Italy or Germany.
Benedict also likes to relax by playing Mozart, Schubert or Chopin on the upright piano he brought with him to the papal apartment after his election.
The Pope retires to his bedroom around 9pm, but will often work, read and pray for another hour before finally turning in for the day.
The Papal Palace
The vast Apostolic Palace, the official residence of the Pope, sits on the eastern sections of the Vatican Hill in Rome.
Within the walls are the papal apartments, government offices of the Roman Catholic Church and the Holy See, private and public chapels, Vatican museums and the library.
In the wing to the left are accommodated a portion of the library, the Galleria dei Candelabri, and Raphael’s tapestries.
The right wing forms the Museo Chiaramonti – a museum with over 1,000 classical sculptures – and a parade of statues and heads of Augustus, Julius, Titus, Trajan, Demosthenes and Athene.
The private library is a vast room. Established in 1475, it holds some 75,000 manuscripts and more than one million printed books.
Within the palace is the Sistine Chapel – famous for its architecture and, of course, the stunning ceiling painted by Michelangelo in 1511.
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