As the Italian newspaper "Il Messaggero" (Friday) reports, one of the papal shoemakers from the era of Benedict XVI (2005-2013) has presented the new Pope in the Vatican with a pair of handmade, elegant black moccasins - and thus has a good chance of becoming the new papal shoe supplier.
The shoemaker, who is based in Rome, also has a good chance because he comes from Peru - the country where Leo XIV worked for a long time as a missionary and later as a bishop, and whose passport he also holds.
The shoemaker posted about the handmade pair of shoes and the handover to the Pope on his Instagram profile.
A chequered history
The elegant black shoes mark a new stage in the chequered history of papal footwear. In memory of the martyrdom of the Apostle Peter, they have been coloured red for centuries.
There were corresponding slippers for appearances inside the Apostolic Palace and leather shoes for other occasions.
Since Pius XI (1922-1939), the shoes were supplied by a shoemaking dynasty in Vigevano in Lombardy. John Paul II rarely wore the red shoes and for a while preferred comfortable shoes from Dr Martens.
Benedict XVI returned to the red shoe of the popes. He was supplied by a shoemaker from Novara as well as by the Peruvian shoemaker Antonio Arellano near the Vatican, whose products - then still in black - he already appreciated as Curia Cardinal (1982-2005).
Arellano and his son Daniel now seem to have found the ideal solution for the present day with the elegant black low shoe for Leo XIV.