Conclave | 2024

The 'Sistine Chapel' and the rooms and corridors of the 'Casa Santa Marta’, where the Cardinals are held in seclusion, were studio sets – but discover the jigsaw of real locations pieced together to portray the secretive world of the Vatican.

Cardinal Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes), Dean of Cardinals, is charged with overseeing the election of a new Pope in the utmost secrecy of a conclave, which is intended to exclude any outside influence.

There are parts of Vatican City that are off limits, including Casa Santa Marta where the Cardinals are sequestered, and photography is not allowed in the Sistine Chapel, so the production needed substitute locations, studio sets and a bit of imagination.

Fortunately, it’s not the first time a film has been made at Cinecittà Studios, in Rome that featured the Sistine Chapel, so there was an old set kept in mothballs which could be reassembled and refurbished. This only reaches a height of five metres so everything above that level is created digitally.

The Casa Santa Marta was, controversially, re-imagined as belonging to a more modern world than the traditional archaic atmosphere of the Vatican itself.

The severe grey corridor and living quarters are another set built at Cinecittà.

The white pillared exterior is that of the Museo della Civiltà Romana (Museum of Roman Civilization), Piazza Giovanni Agnelli, 10, in the EUR (Esposizione Universale) district, built under the reign of Benito Mussolini between 1939 and 1941.

You might recognise it from the funeral scene in the 2015 Bond movie Spectre, or from Kurt Wimmer's 2002 dystopian sci-fi Equilibrium, with Christian Bale.

The atrium at which the sisters arrive and where Cardinal Lawrence stands alone as the strict confinement of the Cardinals begins, is the old Carlo Forlanini Hospital, Piazza Carlo Forlanini, 1, founded in the 1920s to treat tuberculosis patients and finally opened in 1934. As the number of tuberculosis patients decreased, its use declined and, in 2015, it was closed down. Having been declared an asset unavailable for sale in 2017, the complex has lain largely abandoned, though used as a location for several Italian films.

As the Cardinals arrive, the arched courtyard through which they enter, and where they enjoy an occasional smoke, is that of the Palazzo del Commendatore, a sixteenth-century extension of the Arcispedale di Santo Spirito (the old Hospital di Santo Spirito in Saxia), Borgo Santo Spirito, 3, an ancient hospital now used as a conference centre, in the Borgo district just east of the Vatican.

The auditorium in which the Cardinals conduct their debates is in the Palazzo dei Congressi, of the Roma Convention Centre, Piazza John Kennedy, 1. It’s another part of the EUR, designed in the late 1930s by the architect Adalberto Libera.

The staircase silhouetted against a white wall is also the Palazzo dei Congressi.

The workaday canteen, by the way, belongs to one of Rome’s military academies.

On to the film's “Vatican” itself and a very different style of architecture.

Lawrence’s welcome address to the Cardinals is delivered in the Great Hall – the Salone di Pietro da Cortona – of Palazzo Barberini, Via delle Quattro Fontane, 13. The ceiling of the gorgeous hall, with its gold silk wallpaper, is painted with Pietro di Cortona’s fresco The Allegory of Divine Providence and Barberini Power.

Since the 1620s, the Palazzo was the home of the Barberini family headed by Maffeo Barberini, who did indeed become Pope, as Urban VIII.

We leave Rome completely for the overwhelming marble spaces and giant staircases of “The Vatican”, which are the Palazzo Reale, the Royal Palace, Piazza Carlo III, in Caserta, about 15 miles north of Naples.

The palace has appeared as the Vatican on-screen twice before – both times infiltrated by Toms – by Tom Cruise’s crew, in Mission Impossible III and by Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) in Angels And Demons.

Built in1752 for King Charles III of Naples to rival France’s Versailles, the palace did go on to represent the ‘Parisian’ palace of Louis XVIII (Orson Welles) in Sergei Bondarchuk’s 1970 epic Waterloo with Rod Steiger as Napoleon and Christopher Plummer as the Duke of Wellington.

But of course, many of you will already have recognised its most famous screen appearance, as the ‘Theed Palace’ of Queen Amidala (Natalie Portman) on ‘Naboo’ in 1999’s Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace.

There’s a regular rail service from from Naples to Caserta. The palace is directly opposite the railway station.

It’s back to Rome to find the Vatican gardens, with the pet turtles, which are the gardens of the Museo Nazionale Etrusco (National Etruscan Museum), a museum dedicated to the Etruscan and Faliscan civilizations, housed in the Villa Giulia, Piazzale di Villa Giulia 9. The turtles were introduced for the film into the pond, briefly, when it was noticed that Vatican Gardens do indeed have turtles.

The garden entrance is also where liberal Cardinal Bellini (Stanley Tucci) urges Lawrence to accept votes as he's now the only candidate able to beat the traditionalist Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto).

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