Question about the pope and the vatican Why is the Vatican and the pope guarded by Swiss troops when its in Rome??
isn't the vatican like a state of it own or somerthing, not part of rome. not that that makes it any clearer.
Re: Question about the pope and the vatican he may have asked for swiss troops because he had a secret fetish for swiss rolls
Re: Re: Re: Re: Question about the pope and the vatican Not quite knowing what a cheese eater looks like... i'll take yer word for it....
From what I can remember of history :- Basically the swiss were a bunch of mercenaries in the 1500s or so as they didn't have much of an economy. About the time of the Borgias (or maybe Medicis - I always mixed them up) the vatican retained a regiment of swiss mecenaries to protect the vatican city to protect it from being attacked by other powerful cities within Italy.
They aren't Swiss troops as such, they are called the Swiss Guard. For the history of them etc, see www.vatican.va/roman_curia/swiss_guard/swissguard/storia_en.htm.
