Word: castel
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...scarlet-robed members of the College of Cardinals filed into the Vatican's Pauline Chapel for a solemn Mass in honor of Cardinal Zacchia, who was considered a shoo-in for election as the next Pope. The incumbent, Pope Urban VIII, supposedly lay dying in his villa at Castel Gandolfo 17 miles away in the Alban hills, and the cardinals were eager to show their esteem for the heir apparent. Just as the Mass was about to begin, the doors of the chapel swung open and Urban VIII, clad in full pontifical robes, strode in. Cardinal Zacchia abruptly collapsed...
...instrument or no, the air at Castel Gandolfo has refreshed 13 Popes since the time of Urban VIII, the first Pontiff to use the villa as a summer retreat from the oppressive mugginess of summertime Rome. This year Paul VI is continuing the pleasant tradition, which has been skipped by only a small number of Popes-mainly those who considered themselves "prisoners of the Vatican" after the unification of Italy in 1870. When the Italian government recognized the Castel Gandolfo estate as an extraterritorial part of an independent Vatican in 1929, Pope Pius XI promptly refurbished the place, noting ruefully...
Resonant Welcome. The arrival of the Pope each summer-like the arrival of President Nixon in San Clemente-is a gala event. The 4,900 villagers of Castel Gandolfo, who normally support themselves by producing good white wine and some of Italy's tastiest peaches, dress in their Sunday best. The tricolored flag of Italy and the gold-and-white banner of the Vatican wave from every building. Bells peal out in resonant welcome. With the summer Vatican come the tourists, especially on audience days, and restaurants and souvenir stands do a brisk business...
Paul believes that there is no reason to leave the burdens of office behind at the Vatican, and his days at Castel Gandolfo have produced some of his most important pronouncements. Last summer, for example, he did much of the work on his mixed-marriage document at the villa. From the same location, in the summer of 1968, he also issued Humanae Vitae, his church-shaking encyclical condemning all forms of artificial birth control...
Charge on Wheels. Samperi's protagonist is a lunatic adolescent named Alvise (Lou Castel), who spends most of his time scooting about in a motorized wheelchair. Alvise, the doctors tell his father, shows no positive physical symptoms. Still, his parents airily dismiss the suggestion that the paralysis could be psychosomatic and leave on a business trip, entrusting Alvise to the care of his Aunt Lea (Lisa Gastoni). Zia Lea, a lithe beauty with raven hair and a creamy complexion, is vaguely dissatisfied with her lover of 15 years (Gabriele Ferzetti) and begins to take a more than consanguine interest...