When in Rome: A Journal of Life in Vatican City

Lighthearted and altogether fascinating, When in Rome is a delightful backstairs tour of one of the world's most mysterious and eccentric cities. With playful good humor, Robert Hutchinson introduces the varied and colorful individuals who live and work in the Vatican. In the process, he explores the mysterious orders of medieval knights, some dating back to the First Crusade, which still play a vital role in the Vatican; explains how bumblig Vatican archaeologists found, and then lost, the bones of St. Peter; probes the sex lives of the popes, from the "pornocracy" of Sergius II to the incestuous orgies of Rodrigo Borgia; experiences high fashion in the Holy See, including a visit to the pope's personal taylor; encounters the weird relics of Catholicism, such as the mummified body of St. Paul X and a museum made entirely out of human bones;recounts the true story behind the True Cross, now kept in a run-down church near the Collosseum and much, much more.