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Secret Vatican Archives UFO ON SEAL ?

Looks like a UFO...

... but sadly is just an old-style Cardinal's hat.
 
Nobody expects the extraterrestrial inquisition! Their two weapons are lasers, and teleporters and anal probes, three...three weapons, lasers, teleporters, anal probes, mothmen, four...etc etc
 
Sorry, no UFOs here:

Vatican's Secret Archives on display in Rome exhibition
An appeal by the English Parliament asking the Pope to annul Henry VIII's marriage to Catherine of Aragon will be among 100 priceless documents from the Vatican's Secret Archives to go on display in an unprecedented exhibition in Rome.
By Nick Squires, Rome
10:05PM BST 05 Jul 2011

The parchment document, which bears the red wax seals of more than 80 English lords, cardinals and bishops, was sent to Pope Clement VII in 1530 but failed to resolve the dispute, which eventually led to religious schism and the founding of the Church of England.

It will be displayed alongside documents from the heresy trial of Galileo Galilei, whose scientific theories attracted the hostility of the Catholic Church in the early 17th century.

One of the most unusual documents is a letter written on birch bark in 1887 by the Ojibwe Indians of Ontario, Canada, to Pope Leo XIII.

Other previously unseen documents relate to Pope Pius XII, who has been accused of not doing enough to speak out about the Holocaust during the Second World War.

The Vatican has until now stubbornly resisted calls from historians and Jewish groups to release papers from Pius XII's controversial papacy, from 1939 to 1958.

The documents, stamped with seals which read 'Archivio Segreto Vaticano', are among tens of thousands that are kept in the Secret Archives, a fortresslike building tucked behind St Peter's Basilica, its approach lined with Swiss Guards in ceremonial uniform.

The archives, which date back more than 1,000 years, will go on show in a special exhibition in Rome's Capitoline Museums from February to September next year.
It will be the first time they have been allowed out of the Vatican vaults.
The exhibition, "Lux in Arcana: The Vatican Secret Archives Revealed", will commemorate the 400th anniversary of the establishment of the Secret Archives in their present form.

Last year the Vatican allowed a publishing company to compile a lavishly-illustrated book about the archives, in a bid to dispel the myths and mystique created by works of fiction such as Dan Brown's Angels and Demons.

The archives provide one of the key settings in Brown's thriller, in which Harvard "symbologist" Robert Langdon, played in the 2009 film by Tom Hanks, races against time to stop a secret religious order, the Illuminati, from destroying the Vatican.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... ition.html
 
But what about the secret secret archives?

Vatican exhibition covers 1,000 years of European history
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/wor ... 98442.html
Mon, Mar 05, 2012

One of the world’s greatest collections has gone on display in Rome, writes PADDY AGNEW

RESIGNATION CAN have its drawbacks.

Take Pope Celestine V, the hermit from the Abruzzi mountains who reigned as pope for all of five months, from July to December 1294.

Celestine got the nod at the age of 80 when four cardinals and two notaries were sent to tell him he had been elected. Making their way up Mount Morrone, they came across a holy man in wornout garments, eyes “swollen from weeping”, with an unkempt beard and confused gaze.

Pietro del Morrone, later Celestine V, reportedly knelt down at the cardinals’ feet. Pietro only accepted the papacy to break the stalemate of an electoral conclave that had gone on for more than two years. But he might have been better keeping to his cave in the mountains. Years of the hermit’s life hardly represent the ideal preparation for occupying the seat of Peter.

Very quickly, and after having committed a series of errors in office, Celestine realised the mistake he had made and resigned. The problem was that his successor, Boniface VIII, decided it would be bad for business to have two popes knocking around, so he ordered that Celestine be imprisoned even before he himself had been elected.

With the help of supporters, Celestine escaped and went on the run for nine months but he was eventually caught and imprisoned in the castle of Fumone, which belonged to Boniface. In May 1296, 18 months after his abdication, Celestine died in captivity, perhaps having been murdered by Boniface or perhaps just worn out by his troubles.

The story of Celestine V is just one of many fascinating tales recounted in Lux in Arcana or The Vatican Secret Archives Revealed ( www.luxinarcana.org), an unprecedented exhibition at Rome’s Capitoline Museum that runs through to early September. If you are in Rome this summer, do not miss it.

A couple of years ago, thanks to Belgian publishing house VdH, I was fortunate enough to be given a tour round the Vatican’s secret archives by archivist Enrico Flaiani. Walking around a small part of its 85km of bookshelves was an overwhelming experience.

Coming face to face with original documents that touched on the life and times of such as Henry VIII, Erasmus of Rotterdam, Michelangelo, Mary Queen of Scots, Lucrezia Borgia, Boccaccio, Voltaire, Mozart, Galileo Galilei – and many, many others – was like taking a walking tour through the last 1,000 years of European history.

In 27 years in Rome, it was the first time I had had such a privilege, one that has been extended to the general public. Many of the most remarkable documents in the archives are on display here in a user-friendly, modern, multimedia format that makes this one of the most remarkable exhibitions that even the Eternal City has ever seen.

In the case of Celestine, the exhibition features the original letter that the cardinals delivered to him, announcing his election. All the documents are under heavy glass but they come complete with a little adjacent film show that puts them into their historical and political context.

There is the letter addressed by the peers and the lords of England to Pope Clement VII in July 1530, basically calling on him to hurry up and annul Henry VIII’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon, or else . . .

This is not just any old letter; rather it is written in Latin on parchment about 90 centimetres wide with a 16th-century version of a spread sheet containing 83 signatures in 13 different columns below the Latin text, rounded off by 81 ornate wax seals.

Then there is Decet Romanum Pontificem, the January 1521 papal bull of Leo X excommunicating German Augustinian friar Martin Luther.

The inquisition of Galileo Galilei, the trial of the Knights Templar, a bill from Michaelangelo to the bishop of Cesena, a note in which Bernini “signs” for a consignment of marble, a letter to Pope Innocent X written on silk by the Ming Empress Helena – all that and much, much more besides are to be found at Lux in Arcana.

Again, this one is not to be missed.
Click to expand...
 
ramonmercado said:
But what about the secret secret archives?
Click to expand...
On display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying "Beware of The Leopard".
 
You must remember that the 'Secret' in the'Secret Archives' doesn't mean confidential - just personal.
 
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