In the prologue, we discover that Pope Lenny Belardo is comatose in Venice. An unusual red neon cross stands out on the wall behind his bed. The Venetian palace used suggests he is being treated in the Fondamenta Nove area, in Campo Santi Giovanni e Paolo which is overlooked by the Scuola Grande di San Marco and the Civil Hospital complex behind it. The series opener is set in a dormitory, also lit by a neon cross: young nuns dance to the hypnotic rhythm of Sofi Tukker’s Good Time Girl in the Refectory of the former Benedictine Convent of San Giorgio Maggiore di Venezia, today the headquarters of the Fondazione Cini: on the back wall behind them, a copy of The Wedding at Cana (painted by Paolo Veronese in 1563, on display in the Louvre) gives the room depth. The lagoon city is featured several times over the course of the 9 episodes in the new season: locations include Piazza San Marco and its Basilica; a waterborne procession with Pope John Paul III along the Grand Canale from the Punta della Dogana to Ca’ d’Oro with a shot of the Church of Santa Maria della Salute and passing beneath the Rialto and Accademia Bridges; Pope Pius XIII goes to live in Palazzo Donà dalle Rose after waking from the coma; Lenny Belardo, in white swimming trunks, parades through a group of women on the Lido with the Excelsior Hotel, well known to Venice Film Festival goers, in the background.
Other locations in the Veneto region included Nervesa della Battaglia (TV) where hundreds of extras helped to recreate Lourdes: Pope Brannox makes an unusual speech to the crowd on the set built on the pebble bed of the Piave River. In nearby Cortina (BL), the new pope is filmed skiing a slalom down the Col Druscè piste several episodes later.
The locations in the city of Rome mixed existing buildings and specifically created sets. Power games are played out in Palazzo Venezia, a disturbing video is screened in the Sala del Concistoro, and the cardinals process through the Sala Regia, in front of the monumental staircase heading for the Sistine Chapel. This was majestically recreated in Cinecittà Studios along with the interiors and exteriors of St. Peters Basilica and the Papal Library. The exterior of Palazzo Venezia was also used: by the fountain in the inner courtyard, Cardinal Spalletta gives the newly anointed Pope advice that sounds like a threat. The end credit sequence features a cardinal dancing in the loggia overlooking the inner courtyard.
The funeral of Francis II is prepared in the Grand Salon in Villa Medici. The bamboo forest of Rome’s Botanical Gardens, in Janiculum, supplied a background for various scenes set in the Vatican gardens, especially when the cardinals meet to consider who could be the new pope. The cardinals walk up the Fountain of the Eleven Spouts to reach the Sistine Chapel for the Pope’s speech in Episode 3. In the same episode, a young nun, Caterina, meets her lover in the small cloister of the Charterhouse of Santa Maria degli Angeli in the Museo Nazionale Romano – Baths of Diocletian, a location used again when Voiello, reinstated as the Vatican Secretary of State, decides to get rid of his enemies. While out of favour with the Pope, he had fled to the Hermitage of Santo Spirito, a monastery at 1,132m above sea level in the Majella Mountain range in Roccamotrice (PE), where he spent his time gardening. Other Papal rooms were supplied by Palazzo Rospligliosi, a historical residence on the Quirinal hill. Here the Pope gives Sofia Dubois his private number. On his return to Rome, Pope Pius XIII works out on the rowing machine in the Galleria di Castelfusano.
Some of the scenes overlooking the sea were shot in Fontania and on Serapo beach in Gaeta (LT) and, off this coast, Pius XIII saves children being held hostage by a terrorist group on the island of Ventotene (LT).
Shooting locations abroad included Woburn Abbey, a noble residence in Bedfordshire, England where Brannox receives Secretary of State Voiello and the cardinals.
In the prologue, we discover that Pope Lenny Belardo is comatose in Venice. An unusual red neon cross stands out on the wall behind his bed. The Venetian palace used suggests he is being treated in the Fondamenta Nove area, in Campo Santi Giovanni e Paolo which is overlooked by the Scuola Grande di San Marco and the Civil Hospital complex behind it. The series opener is set in a dormitory, also lit by a neon cross: young nuns dance to the hypnotic rhythm of Sofi Tukker’s Good Time Girl in the Refectory of the former Benedictine Convent of San Giorgio Maggiore di Venezia, today the headquarters of the Fondazione Cini: on the back wall behind them, a copy of The Wedding at Cana (painted by Paolo Veronese in 1563, on display in the Louvre) gives the room depth. The lagoon city is featured several times over the course of the 9 episodes in the new season: locations include Piazza San Marco and its Basilica; a waterborne procession with Pope John Paul III along the Grand Canale from the Punta della Dogana to Ca’ d’Oro with a shot of the Church of Santa Maria della Salute and passing beneath the Rialto and Accademia Bridges; Pope Pius XIII goes to live in Palazzo Donà dalle Rose after waking from the coma; Lenny Belardo, in white swimming trunks, parades through a group of women on the Lido with the Excelsior Hotel, well known to Venice Film Festival goers, in the background.
Other locations in the Veneto region included Nervesa della Battaglia (TV) where hundreds of extras helped to recreate Lourdes: Pope Brannox makes an unusual speech to the crowd on the set built on the pebble bed of the Piave River. In nearby Cortina (BL), the new pope is filmed skiing a slalom down the Col Druscè piste several episodes later.
The locations in the city of Rome mixed existing buildings and specifically created sets. Power games are played out in Palazzo Venezia, a disturbing video is screened in the Sala del Concistoro, and the cardinals process through the Sala Regia, in front of the monumental staircase heading for the Sistine Chapel. This was majestically recreated in Cinecittà Studios along with the interiors and exteriors of St. Peters Basilica and the Papal Library. The exterior of Palazzo Venezia was also used: by the fountain in the inner courtyard, Cardinal Spalletta gives the newly anointed Pope advice that sounds like a threat. The end credit sequence features a cardinal dancing in the loggia overlooking the inner courtyard.
The funeral of Francis II is prepared in the Grand Salon in Villa Medici. The bamboo forest of Rome’s Botanical Gardens, in Janiculum, supplied a background for various scenes set in the Vatican gardens, especially when the cardinals meet to consider who could be the new pope. The cardinals walk up the Fountain of the Eleven Spouts to reach the Sistine Chapel for the Pope’s speech in Episode 3. In the same episode, a young nun, Caterina, meets her lover in the small cloister of the Charterhouse of Santa Maria degli Angeli in the Museo Nazionale Romano – Baths of Diocletian, a location used again when Voiello, reinstated as the Vatican Secretary of State, decides to get rid of his enemies. While out of favour with the Pope, he had fled to the Hermitage of Santo Spirito, a monastery at 1,132m above sea level in the Majella Mountain range in Roccamotrice (PE), where he spent his time gardening. Other Papal rooms were supplied by Palazzo Rospligliosi, a historical residence on the Quirinal hill. Here the Pope gives Sofia Dubois his private number. On his return to Rome, Pope Pius XIII works out on the rowing machine in the Galleria di Castelfusano.
Some of the scenes overlooking the sea were shot in Fontania and on Serapo beach in Gaeta (LT) and, off this coast, Pius XIII saves children being held hostage by a terrorist group on the island of Ventotene (LT).
Shooting locations abroad included Woburn Abbey, a noble residence in Bedfordshire, England where Brannox receives Secretary of State Voiello and the cardinals.
The Apartment, Wildside
With Pope Pius XIII in a coma for months, the Catholic Church is undergoing a period of impasse, overwhelmed by external threats and scandals, that only a new Pope, an aristocratic British Cardinal, can resolve.
