As "Vatican News" reported on Thursday, the prisoners were part of a group of pilgrims from Venice. They had been given leave to travel to Rome.
The Patriarch of Venice, Francesco Moraglia, who accompanied the group, spoke afterwards of a "very cordial, very fraternal, but not formal meeting" without prepared speeches.
The group of pilgrims presented the Pope with a Murano glass chalice as a gift. In an improvised speech, the Pope encouraged the prisoners to "look to a future that they must build. Yes, even in the present, in these years in which they are also completing a path of justice towards society."
Announcement for summer stay in the Albanian mountains
Leo's predecessor Francis (2013-2025) repeatedly visited prisons during his pontificate and celebrated masses with the prisoners there, including the women's prison on the island of Giudecca in Venice on 28 April 2024.
His last trip to the diocese of Rome four days before his death took him to a detention centre near the Vatican on Maundy Thursday.
Meanwhile, the Vatican press office announced that Pope Leo XIV would celebrate Mass with poor people cared for by Caritas on Sunday 17 August during his second short summer stay in the Alban Hills.
The service will take place in the pilgrimage church of Santa Maria della Rotonda in Albano.