It is certainly not a suite, as is often indicated, and not even a real apartment: the department in which Pope Francis has been hospitalized since February 14 is located on the tenth floor – the last – of the Gemelli Polyclinic in Rome, the hospital born from the dream of a Franciscan friar, Agostino Gemelli. Of course, it is a wing of the reserved hospital, for obvious reasons of privacy, but is well inserted within the hospital. Perhaps, in a few they know that on the tenth floor, close to the Pope, there are the rooms of pediatric oncology, which Pope Francis visited during the July 2021 operation of diverticular stenosis, and then in the subsequent intervention to the intestine, stopping – as usual – to dialogue with young patients. Sick among the sick, therefore: Pope Francis, of course, has the exclusive use of some rooms of the hospital, but is not extraneous to the life of the Polyclinic.
In jargon, this “special department” is called Vatican Tre, after square San Pietro (the Vatican one, of course) and Castel Gandolfo (Vatican two). It was Pope Wojtyla who renamed him like this, in the post-angelus of 13 October 1966, recited precisely by the windows of the hospital. John Paul II and Bergoglio were the only two popes who stayed at Gemelli, inaugurated in 1964 and founded on a land donated in 1934 by Pope Pius XI. Wojtyla, even, was hospitalized seven times, the first when he was injured by Ali Agcà in St. Peter’s Square, on May 13, 1981. Following an emergency operation, there remained two weeks, until June 3. He returned a few days later – on June 20 – for a bad viral infection, perhaps caused by the blood transfusions obtained during the surgery. He was discharged on August 14, after almost two months, a period in which he underwent a new small operation. The other most demanding hospitalizations of John Paul II were, in 1992, for the removal of an intestinal cancer; in 1993, for the dislocation to the right shoulder, due to a fall from the steps of the Nervi room; In 1994, for the fracture of the right femur following a fall in the bathroom and in 1996 for appendicitis.
In February 2005, a few months before dying, John Paul II stayed again at the Vatican three for an elective tracheotomy. In the report of his last days of life, drawn up by Dr. Renato Buzzonetti, his personal doctor, and published in the book Let me gowe read that the pontiff had been hospitalized following respiratory crises that had led him almost to asphyxia. St. John Paul II gave his consent to the intervention but, with disarming simplicity, he asked if he had been waiting for a few months, perhaps after the summer holidays, because he wanted to celebrate Easter. And, in fact, he celebrated the resurrection (Easter, in 2005, was March 27 and John Paul II died a few days later, on April 2), but after the tracheotomy obviously could no longer speak.
For Francesco, however, this is the fourth hospitalization to Vatican Tre, the longest and most delicate. The first time was in July 2021 (from 4 to 14) when he spent 10 days at Gemelli for a colon operation. From 29 March to 1 April 2023, the Pope spent three days in the hospital for a respiratory infection, while on June 7, 2023 he was operated on the abdomen and discharged 9 days later. It is found precisely in what is called the Popi apartment, with two views, one on the main entrance of the hospital structure, from which John Paul II, when he succeeded, recited the Angelus; On the other hand – and it is the panorama that can be seen from his bed – on San Pietro. All the reconstructions on the division of the spaces of this department – even on the white color of the walls – have never been confirmed and derive from media suggestion. Certainly, being a department, in addition to the room where the Pope’s bed is located, there is a room for doctors and sanitary personnel, the bathroom and a small chapel. You can also access it from dedicated lifts, which guarantee the privacy of the patient and guests who visit him. There are, being a hospital, all the instruments necessary for care. TO guarantee security and privacy, the agents of the Italian State Police, the Vatican Gendarmerie and the security of the same Polyclinic. That – with 1,611 beds, almost 6 thousand employees, over 90 thousand surgical interventions per year for 57 technologically advanced surgical rooms – is one of the best and largest hospitals in the world, in the first place in Italy, for the fourth consecutive time, in the 2024 ranking of the American magazine Newsweek. Moreover, when he imagined him, Father Agostino Gemelli (who did not have time to see him made, because he died in 1959) had this idea: to create a real excellence, based on Catholic values.
