ABSTRACT
Just under 200 years after the building of Constantine’s church, a papal palace, the Vatican palace, was built alongside it. So, second, the Vatican was, and remains, a papal residence and, eventually, the seat of the papal ‘curia’ or court – the administration of the Church, tribunals, papal advisers and other officials. Catholics very often use the term ‘the Vatican’ to mean the papal administration, though in fact many papal offices are situated elsewhere in Rome, sometimes at some distance from the Vatican Palace itself.
