The Vatican Museums are gigantic, having numerous galleries and an endless art collections. Being a local tour guide for me is a privilege to show you one of the unusual collections house here, at the Vatican Museums in Rome. 

Among the most curious rooms at the Vatican Museums there is certainly the Carriage Pavilion, which houses the cars, the popemobile (like the one in which John Paul II sat on the day he was the victim of an attack), and the ancient carriages used by the popes from the 19th century onwards. In particular, here there is a truly historic car: the Citroen C6 Lictoria Sex, donated by the fascist regime (hence the nickname Lictoria), to pope Pius XI to celebrate the Lateran Pacts. Why is it so important?

We must think that since Rome was taken by the Savoy army of King Vittorio Emanuele II, the popes had always described themselves as prisoners of war. They never left the confines of the Vatican Walls, excommunicated the various kings on several occasions, invited Christians to stay out of the public and political life of the newborn Italian State. In short, there was certainly no good blood. All until 1929, when the famous Lateran Pacts were signed in the Lateran Library of the homonymous building, adjacent to the Basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano, which regulated the political balance of Italy and the Vatican State. As a sign of relaxation, Mussolini gave to the pope, with a generous concession from Citroen, one of the most fashionable and modern cars of the moment. That car which, however, only traveled 156 kilometers from 9 June 1930, when it was officially donated to the pontiff, to 1996, the date of the last restoration. A car that is certainly fine, with interiors that have been cared for down to the smallest detail, but which was certainly never really used. Apart from the historical value of the car, however, the symbolic load carried by this car is clear. The pope, after years of political rupture, for the first, real time, became the protagonist of the life of Rome. And even a car can underline this...