When the first whispers reached Rome, they sounded like the usual Vatican gossip — unverified, unprovable, safely ignored. But by the time the bells rang for morning mass, something had cracked inside the walls of the world’s smallest state. A secret, buried deep in marble and ritual, had come to light.
The discovery began not in a chapel, but in the sub-basement of the Apostolic Archive — a sealed corridor few outside the Curia even knew existed. The corridor, part of an old fire-proof vault built in the 19th century, was undergoing quiet renovation after humidity damaged part of the structure. A team of restorers, working under dim artificial light, broke through an old plaster partition and uncovered a narrow passage leading to a forgotten chamber.