VATICAN CITY/ROME
Gazzetta del Sud
Rome, February 14 – Italy and the Vatican on Thursday signed an agreement to complete the restoration of a secret walkway used down the years as an escape passage for popes and fictionally employed by the villains and heroes of Dan Brown’s blockbuster Angels and Demons The deal was inked by Cardinal Giuseppe Bertello, head of the Vatican City’s ‘governorate’, and Italian Culture Minister Lorenzo Ornaghi. They said the Vatican Corridor, also known as the Passetto del Borgo, would be “virtually completely open to visitors” after the restoration. The corridor, famous as the avenue of escape for Pope Clement VIII during the 1527 Sack of Rome, has been partially reopened in two stages, first in 1999 and then in 2005. The last restoration made about two-thirds of it visitable. “We expect it to become an even bigger tourist draw when the restoration is over, while the passage will get much-needed structural bolstering,” Bertello and Ornaghi said.
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