President Sergio Mattarella welcomed His Holiness Pope Leo XIV to the Quirinale Palace on the occasion of the Pontiff’s Official Visit to the Italian Republic.
Pope Leo XIV was received by President Mattarella in the Courtyard of Honour with full military honours. Following the performance of the national anthems of the Vatican City State and the Italian Republic, the President and the Holy Father proceeded to the Bronzino Hall for the presentation of their respective delegations and the official photograph before the national flags.
The two leaders then held a private conversation in the Studio alla Vetrata, while the Vatican and Italian delegations met separately in the Music Room.
After their private meeting, the Holy Father and President Mattarella moved to the Lille Tapestry Hall for the traditional exchange of gifts.
Pope Leo XIV presented the President with a Vatican Mosaic Studio work depicting the Colosseum, along with a signed and dedicated copy of the Apostolic Exhortation “Dilexi te.”
President Mattarella, in turn, offered the Pontiff an etching from the second half of the seventeenth century portraying Alessandro Algardi’s sculpture of Saint Leo the Great at St. Peter’s Basilica, together with an 1827 biography of Saint Rose of Lima.
The meeting continued with a brief visit to the Chapel of the Annunciation, after which the President and the Pope proceeded to the Hall of Mirrors. There, they met with the President of the Senate, Ignazio La Russa; the President of the Chamber of Deputies, Lorenzo Fontana; the Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni; and the President of the Constitutional Court, Giovanni Amoroso, accompanied by their respective Secretaries-General.
The visit concluded in the Great Hall of Receptions (Salone delle Feste), where President Mattarella and Pope Leo XIV delivered their formal addresses.