Vatican City. The sudden death of the Pope has shaken the Catholic world. In a St. Peter’s Square heaving with worshippers (recreated in California at the Hollywood Park racetrack in Inglewood, south-west of Los Angeles), funeral rites are being carried out. The conclave is about to start in the Sistine Chapel (reconstructed at Sony Studios in Culver City).
Four cardinals are kidnapped before the beginning of the conclave by ancient secret society The Illuminati. Professor Langdon is urgently summoned to Rome to help solve the mystery behind their disappearance. A bird’s-eye view of Rome, panning over first the Colosseum and then the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica, heralds the arrival of the academic in the eternal city.
Langdon’s job is to find the ‘Path of Illumination’, a path connecting four symbolic places in which the four kidnapped ‘preferiti’ (the favourite cardinals to be elected Pope) might be sacrificed.
The first clue erroneously leads Langdon to the Pantheon, the oldest Catholic church in Rome and Raphael’s final resting place, and then to the Chigi Chapel, which was once called the Chapel of Earth (the first element) in the Church of Santa Maria del Popolo. The obelisk with its pyramid-shaped tip in Piazza del Popolo stands authoritatively in the centre of the piazza.
In a St. Peter’s Square waiting to see white smoke, the second clue is related to the element of air, and our heroes find it near Pope Sixtus V’s Egyptian obelisk.
There’s no time to stop though, and we soon head off to the Church of Santa Maria della Vittoria, whose most famous work, the Ecstasy of Saint Teresa by Bernini, symbolises fire.
The fourth element, water, must be represented by a fountain, and the Path of Illumination leads us to Piazza Navona (some filming actually took place in Rome, while some scenes were shot on sets reconstructed at Hollywood Park) in front of another work by Bernini, the Fountain of the Four Rivers.
The race against time to find a bomb that threatens the safety of the Vatican leads our heroes to Castel Sant’Angelo. The characters cross Ponte Sant'Angelo, adorned with statues of angels, and once inside Langdon unearths the Passetto di Borgo, the old escape route that once connected the fortress to the Vatican palaces.
The race comes to an end in the necropolis under St. Peter’s Basilica, where the tomb of the first ever Pope lies, but the last plot twist takes place in the Basilica itself.
As well as the Sistine Chapel, the production team reconstructed the interiors of St. Peter’s Basilica, the Pantheon, Castel Sant’Angelo, the Church of Santa Maria del Popolo and Santa Maria della Vittoria, as well as the frescoes and fountains, more specifically Bernini’s fountain in Piazza Navona, and Michelangelo and Bernini’s sculptures.
The Royal Palace of Caserta was used to film lots of the scenes set in the Vatican.
Vatican City. The sudden death of the Pope has shaken the Catholic world. In a St. Peter’s Square heaving with worshippers (recreated in California at the Hollywood Park racetrack in Inglewood, south-west of Los Angeles), funeral rites are being carried out. The conclave is about to start in the Sistine Chapel (reconstructed at Sony Studios in Culver City).
Four cardinals are kidnapped before the beginning of the conclave by ancient secret society The Illuminati. Professor Langdon is urgently summoned to Rome to help solve the mystery behind their disappearance. A bird’s-eye view of Rome, panning over first the Colosseum and then the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica, heralds the arrival of the academic in the eternal city.
Langdon’s job is to find the ‘Path of Illumination’, a path connecting four symbolic places in which the four kidnapped ‘preferiti’ (the favourite cardinals to be elected Pope) might be sacrificed.
The first clue erroneously leads Langdon to the Pantheon, the oldest Catholic church in Rome and Raphael’s final resting place, and then to the Chigi Chapel, which was once called the Chapel of Earth (the first element) in the Church of Santa Maria del Popolo. The obelisk with its pyramid-shaped tip in Piazza del Popolo stands authoritatively in the centre of the piazza.
In a St. Peter’s Square waiting to see white smoke, the second clue is related to the element of air, and our heroes find it near Pope Sixtus V’s Egyptian obelisk.
There’s no time to stop though, and we soon head off to the Church of Santa Maria della Vittoria, whose most famous work, the Ecstasy of Saint Teresa by Bernini, symbolises fire.
The fourth element, water, must be represented by a fountain, and the Path of Illumination leads us to Piazza Navona (some filming actually took place in Rome, while some scenes were shot on sets reconstructed at Hollywood Park) in front of another work by Bernini, the Fountain of the Four Rivers.
The race against time to find a bomb that threatens the safety of the Vatican leads our heroes to Castel Sant’Angelo. The characters cross Ponte Sant'Angelo, adorned with statues of angels, and once inside Langdon unearths the Passetto di Borgo, the old escape route that once connected the fortress to the Vatican palaces.
The race comes to an end in the necropolis under St. Peter’s Basilica, where the tomb of the first ever Pope lies, but the last plot twist takes place in the Basilica itself.
As well as the Sistine Chapel, the production team reconstructed the interiors of St. Peter’s Basilica, the Pantheon, Castel Sant’Angelo, the Church of Santa Maria del Popolo and Santa Maria della Vittoria, as well as the frescoes and fountains, more specifically Bernini’s fountain in Piazza Navona, and Michelangelo and Bernini’s sculptures.
The Royal Palace of Caserta was used to film lots of the scenes set in the Vatican.
Columbia Pictures, Imagine Entertainment, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Skylark Productions
During the conclave to elect a new Pope, professor of symbology Robert Langdon, a character created by writer Dan Brown, is enlisted by the Vatican to fight the secret society of the Illuminati, whose aim it is to destroy the Church.
