Conclave key spots: Where the papal election unfolds in the Vatican
A worker operates on a crane for preparations of the main central loggia balcony of the St Peter’s Basilica where the name of the new pope will be announced and where he will give the Urbi and orbi at The Vatican, on May 5, 2025. Agence France-Presse
VATICAN CITY — From the Sistine Chapel to St Peter’s Square, locations in the Vatican where the new pope’s election will play out in the coming days are part of a priceless cultural heritage.
Here are descriptions of the main spots to watch:
Santa Marta guesthouse
This building completed in the 1990s just behind St Peter’s Basilica is where the cardinal electors stay during the conclave.
It was home to the late Pope Francis during his papacy.
In centuries past, the cardinals slept in corridors and rooms of the Apostolic Palace itself during the conclave.
READ: Sistine Chapel readied for next pope’s election
Their new lodgings include en-suite bathrooms and hotel-style room service. But there are not enough rooms for all 133 cardinals who will be voting in the conclave.
Cardinals were assigned rooms by drawing lots and some will be housed at Santa Marta Vecchia, a building next door usually used to accommodate Vatican officials.
According to the Vatican, they will be allowed to move into the rooms on Tuesday evening or the morning of Wednesday, the day the conclave is due to begin.
Every morning during the conclave, the cardinals will head approximately 500 meters (yards), either on foot or in minibuses with blacked-out windows, to the Sistine Chapel.
St Peter’s Basilica
Cardinals will celebrate a special mass in St Peter’s, the church at the heart of Roman Catholicism, before the start of the conclave.
Following the mass, the cardinals will walk in procession to the Sistine Chapel singing the hymn “Veni Creator Spiritus” (“Come Creator Spirit”) in Latin to invoke the Holy Spirit.
READ: Vatican chimney installed ahead of papal conclave
The basilica, one of the largest churches in the world, is a jewel of Renaissance architecture and contains the tomb of St Peter — the first pope.
Sistine Chapel
Situated inside the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican, this 15th-century chapel is world-renowned for its spectacular ceiling frescoes by Michelangelo.
A special stove has been installed in the chapel, where the cardinals’ ballots are burnt after voting during the conclave, until one candidate has garnered enough votes to become pope.
Black smoke indicates that the required majority for a new pope has not been found, while white smoke means that there is a new leader for the Catholic world.
The colour of the smoke is altered using chemicals.
St Peter’s Square
In the 17th century, architect Gian Lorenzo Bernini designed the famous Vatican plaza, which has a 4,000-year-old Egyptian obelisk at its center.
The Baroque plaza’s famous marble colonnades — four columns deep — are arranged in an elliptical shape.
Tens of thousands of people are expected to gather in the square to await the election of the pope.
He will appear to the world for the first time on the main balcony on the facade of the basilica, to a cry of “Habemus Papam!” (“We have a Pope!”). He will then deliver his first blessing.
