Chapter I

The Secret Archives

The soft blue eyes of the Madonna stared serenely down at me from the gilt-framed painting hanging above the desk of the man in the billowy striped costume. By contrast, the man eyed me up and down suspiciously as he picked up the phone and dialled. Attired in sixteenth-century dress - baggy britches and jacket, starched white neck ruff and floppy black beret - he might easily have been manning a stand at a Renaissance fair. However, this man was no dreamy re-enactor of bygone times, he was a sergeant in the Swiss Guard: a soldier of the smallest yet, arguably, one of the most influential countries in the world - the Vatican City State. I was standing in the Vatican's Constantine Portico, the pedestrian entrance to the Apostolic Palace on the north side of St Peter's Square, awaiting an appointment with Father Michael Rinsonelli.

Father Rinsonelli had written to me a few months earlier, following the Italian publication of my book The Search for the Grail. I had investigated the historicity behind the Grail legend and had arrived at a controversial conclusion. Today, most people think of the Holy Grail as the cup used by Jesus at the Last Supper, but I had argued that the term Grail was originally applied to any holy relic that was thought to have been associated with Christ. In fact, I discovered that a whole variety of receptacles were depicted as the Grail in medieval times: everything ranging from cauldrons to dishes to cups. One such artefact was even a spice jar, said to have been used by Mary Magdalene to collect drops of Christ's blood when he appeared to her after he rose from the tomb.

The spice jar disappeared in Britain during the Middle Ages but it was claimed to have been found by a Midland businessman in the 1920s. The discovery received no recognition at the time and the forgotten relic remained stored away in an attic in the English town of Rugby until I managed to trace it in 1995. When the story of the jar's discovery broke in the Italian press in the August of that year it ignited immediate controversy. It began with Rocco Zingaro di Ferdinando, the grand master of a secret society claiming decent from the ancient crusaders, the Knights Templar, holding a press conference in Rome. Zingaro claimed to posses the true Grail and produced an ornate stone cup as proof. So much did the story of the two grails dominate the Italian media that it sparked a rumpus within the Church itself. The Italian cathedrals at Genoa and Lucca also came forward with their conflicting claims to posses the real Holy Grail and the squabbling even became international when the Spanish cathedral of Valencia joined in with its claim to house the sacred relic.

I was considering a follow-up book and came across a reference to the so-called Secret Archives - supposedly Vatican records to which very few Church officials have access. They were said to contain all sorts of ancient documents concerning events in Church history that the Vatican kept secret. Just out of interest, I wrote to the Vatican Library asking if they could confirm or deny the existence of the archives. I did not really expect to hear back; it came as a complete surprise when Father Rinsonelli - a priest who actually worked in the Vatican Library - wrote me a very friendly reply. He knew of me from the recent publicity and had actually read my book. Father Rinsonelli had trained as an historian at Oxford University before he was ordained and had long been fascinated by the Grail legend. He not only wanted to meet me if ever I was in Rome, he even offered to show me the Secret Archives.

The sergeant replaced the receiver and told me in a polite but clipped Germanic accent that Father Rinsonelli would be down in a few minutes. As I waited, I paced across the portico, my footsteps echoing along the column-flanking corridor that led to the grand stairway which swept upwards into the heart of the Holy See. I stopped and looked up at Bernini's famous seventeenth-century statute of the person responsible for founding the Vatican and establishing the Roman Catholic Church: the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great. It always seemed to me a peculiar irony that Christianity and its message of peace and goodwill should have been so furthered by a man whom history records as a tyrant and a murderer.

In the second decade of the fourth century the Roman Empire was in a state of civil war between two would-be emperors, Maxentius and Constantine. Constantine held much of the western empire but Maxentius still held the city of Rome. On 28 October 312 AD Constantine was ready to lay siege to the capital. Legend has it that on the night before the battle he experienced a vision which converted him to Christianity and he accordingly triumphed. Whatever kind of Christianity the emperor imagined he had embraced it had little to do with the teachings of Jesus. Years after his so-called conversion, Constantine murdered his own son and had his wife boiled alive in her bath.

Historians surmise that Constantine made Christianity the state religion of the Roman Empire as an act of political expediency. He needed something to unite the empire and as his domineering mother, the Empress Helena, had already embraced the widespread religion, it was Christianity he chose to adopt. However, he first needed to unify the Christians, and that was easier said that done. There were a wide variety of Christian movements throughout the empire with greatly differing views and practices. There were the Gnostics of southern Egypt who practised mystical meditation, the Ebionites of Decapolis who lived in communes, the Docetists of Alexandria who believed in the spiritual omnipresence of Jesus, and a myriad others.

In 325 AD Constantine summoned all the Christian leaders to his palace at Nicaea, in what is now Turkey, for a council to agree on the foundations of a unified Church. The emperor faced an almost impossible task. Eventually, after weeks of wrangling, Constantine appointed his political ally Eusebius, the head of the Church at Caesarea in Palestine, to draft a compromise settlement. What Eusebius came up were, in essence, the religious dogma which still remain the central pillars of the established Church. Nearly everyone present objected to something or other and Constantine lost patience. He decreed that anyone who refused to sign the agreement would be banished from the empire. Constantine enforced his ruling: those who dissented were never heard from again and those who conceded became the hierarchy of the Universal or Catholic Church. To commemorate his conversion, Constantine built a splendid church in Rome, above the site thought to be St Peter's tomb. So began the Vatican, now a sprawl of gigantic High Renaissance buildings spreading over 109 acres.

'Mr Phillips!' came a voice from behind me. I turned to face a tall, slim man in his mid fifties who was almost completely bald. 'Father Rinsonelli,' he said cordially, holding out a hand. Father Rinsonelli spoke perfect English with hardly a trace of accent, which was due, I later learned, from him having spent much of his early life in England. He had been born in Rome, but his parents had moved to England after the War. He had been brought up in London and only after studying history at Oxford had returned to Italy to train for the priesthood.

'I thought I'd take you to the Library by the scenic route,' he said, as he led me along the corridor towards the wide stone staircase. This was my first time inside the Vatican and the initial effect was breathtaking: both because of the incredible architecture and the arduous climb. As we made our way up the seemingly endless Scala Regia, two long flights of marble steps, separated by a corridor, I became aware that the pilasters supporting the vaulted ceiling were placed at gradually diminishing intervals. Apparently the design was a deliberate attempt by the architect Berini to leave the visitor with the impression that he was approaching ever closer to the holiest of holies. As indeed we were, Father Rinsonelli informed me when we neared the top. The Pope's private apartments were just off to the right, behind a doorway flanked by two Swiss Guard.

'The Sala Regia,' he said as we reached the head of the great stairway. 'The ceremonial centre of the Apostolic Palace.' We were in a huge barrel-vaulted hall, so vast and empty that it made me feel somewhat exposed as I walked across its marble floor, ever in the gaze of the Swiss Guard who stood in pairs at their posts beside the various doorways that led off in different directions. Father Rinsonelli pointed to the last and most impressive exit. 'The Sistine Chapel,' he said leading the way.

The word chapel I had always associated with humble little buildings. The Sistine Chapel, however, was an enormous single chamber, large enough to contain an modest English cathedral, every inch of its walls and ceiling covered with incredible works of art. Directly facing me as we entered was one of the largest paintings in the world. Covering the entire wall above the high alter was Michelangelo's Last Judgement, some eighteen metres high and twelve metres wide. To either side were other priceless works of art, frescos by Botticelli, Luca Signorelli, Rossselli and Perugino.

Scattered around the hall, groups of tourists were awkwardly craning there necks to get a view of what is arguably the world's most famous work of art: Michelangelo's painting of the Creation on the Sistine Chapel ceiling. I did likewise and immediately felt dizzy. It was not so much the awe inspired by Michelangelo's workmanship but the fact that I could not work out what was holding up the roof. Even in the corridors there had been columns and pillars to either side to support the ceiling. Here the huge concaved expanse just appeared to hang there. It seemed as though the whole edifice would come crashing down on top of us at any moment.

Suddenly the throng of tourists in front of us parted as a stream of black-clad clergy made their way from one door, across the hall and out through another. By the scarlet braiding on his cassock, the elderly gentlemen leading the party was a cardinal and the priests that followed him, with their briefcases and leather-bound folders, seemed more like an entourage of business executives following their chairman into a board meeting. One of the trailing priests, a young man who was hurrying to catch up, was almost knocked over by a tourist who backed into him while still gazing up at the ceiling. The tourist apologised profusely, but the priest just glared at him and hurried on.

'It can be pretty difficult trying to work here sometimes,' said Father Rinsonelli. 'We welcome visitors, but they can get in the way. The Vatican oversees the faith of almost a billion Catholics - that's over three times the number of people who live in the United States. Imagine the US government trying to conduct its day-to-day business with sightseers wandering freely around the corridors of power.'

As we made our way to the Vatican Museum, where the library was situated, Father Rinsonelli told me the history of the Secret Archives. The Archives of the Apostolic See, to use their real name, where basically a record of all that ever went on in the Vatican. They included everything from the minutes of daily meetings to the thinking behind Church dogma and papal decrees - thousands of folders containing briefs, letters and accounts spanning the history of the Vatican. They were, in fact, the working documents of the Curia, the 2000-strong Vatican bureaucracy. Father Rinsonelli, however, was far more than a filing clerk. Archivists, such as he, were members of the Amministrazioni Palatine, a select Vatican department answering directly to the Pope.

My guided tour of the magnificent galleries of the Vatican Museum finally ended above the Apostolic Library in a dull, white-washed storeroom some nine metres square.

'The Secret Archives,' Father Rinsonelli announced casually, motioning to the bundles of manila folders stacked all over the floor. I looked at the priest incredulously as he led me on through a series of further dull-looking rooms filled with filing cabinets and endless stacks of loosely-bound papers and documents. No way! The infamous Secret Archives - the records of everything that has gone on behind the Vatican walls for centuries.

'I'm afraid the term Secret Archives is rather misleading,' continued the priest. 'The archives were secret once, and that's how they got their name, but in 1883 Pope Leo XIII declared that the papacy had nothing to fear from history and opened the archives to secular scholars. The real secret about the archives is that they are complete shambles.'

Father Rinsonelli explained how most of the documents had remained unbound and uncatalogued for centuries. In 1980 the Pope had inaugurated a project to house the archives in a new underground facility beneath the Cortile della Pigna and the library staff had since spent much of their time binding and cataloguing everything as the work proceeded. Earlier this century, apparently, one Cardinal Librarian tried to initiate a similar project but abandoned the idea when his staff confidently informed him that the project would take a hundred years.

'Sadly, we have less than twenty staff at any time,' the priest complained. 'The work has been going on for almost two decades and we've hardly made a start. Some say the archives will eventually take up fifty kilometres of shelves, so I think the original estimate of a hundred years may be optimistic.'

Intrigued, I listed as Father Rinsonelli told me of some of the fascinating documents that had been rediscovered during the move: the momentous papal bulls that pronounced the excommunication of Martin Luther and Henry VIII; letters written by Michelangelo and the infamous Lucrezcia Borgia; even the signed testimony of Galileo.

'Unfortunately, most of it makes pretty dull reading,' he concluded, bending down to examine one of the folders. 'Stationery requisitions for August 1961.'

'Why are you showing me all this?' I asked eventually.

'You wrote that you thought the Church is in the business of concealing its history. I wanted you to realise that today that simply isn't true. If there is any particular document you want to see, just ask and I'm sure I can arrange it.'

I didn't quite know how to respond to Father Rinsonelli's invitation. If there were secret documents in the Vatican archives how would I know what they were to ask for them?

'I'm not quite sure what I'll be working on next,' I said after a few moments thought.

'Have you considered a possible link between the Holy Grail and the Holy Mother.'

'The Virgin Mary! Why?'

'I found a rather interesting reference concerning the Grail in the archives.' Father Rinsonelli began by describing a fascinating episode of Vatican intrigue concerning modern Church teachings regarding the Assumption - the Virgin Mary's ascension into heaven.

Even though the Bible makes no reference to the event, an old Church tradition holds that the Virgin Mary ascended bodily into heaven. More progressive members of the Church considered the story a myth and believed that Mary was buried naturally just like anyone else. The Catholic world remained divided on the issue and until recently it was left up to individual church-goers to make up their own minds. In 1950, however, the Assumption was declared dogma by Pope Pius XII. From then on Mary's bodily ascension into heaven became official Church doctrine.

The new doctrine meant that, unlike other saints, Mary's mortal remains were not to be found anywhere on earth. This left the Church with a problem. Just to the east of Jerusalem in the Valley of Jehosaphat is a dark underground shrine which for centuries had been regarded as the Virgin's tomb. It is now empty but when it was discovered in 517 AD by Severus, the bishop of Antioch, it did contain a number of bodies, one of which was said to be Mary's. Since the sixteenth century the parish church of Calcata in Italy made claim to possessing some of these bones which were attributed with miraculous healing properties and every year thousands of Catholics made a pilgrimage to visit the shrine where the relics where housed.

Fearing that the shrine might be used by critics of the Church to undermine the credibility of the Papacy, Cardinal advisors to Pope set up an official investigation into the authenticity of the relics. Giovanni Benedetti, an archaeologist attached to the Vatican Museum, was sent to examine the relics, presumably in the hope of proving them a fake. Although, much to the relief of the Vatican, the relics turned out to be sheep bones, Benedetti inadvertently opened up a completely new can of worms. While he was waiting to examine the bones, he had investigated the authenticity of the Jerusalem tomb. He concluded, like most historians, that there was no evidence that the tomb in the valley of Jehosaphat was really Mary's tomb. (Severus himself even admitted that the he learned that it was Mary's tomb in a dream.) However, during this investigation Benedetti had come across what he considered to be evidence for an altogether different tomb of the Virgin Mary.

When Benedetti reported back on his findings, he was summoned to appear before one of the most powerful departments in the Vatican - the Holy Inquisition. Although it was renamed the Holy Office in 1908, this High Court of orthodoxy is still, even today, very much in the business of ferreting out heretics, and something of its sinister reputation still clings to its offices in St Peter's Square. The Inquisition may no longer have the power to burn dissenters at the stake, but it does wield the authority to censor Church writings and to excommunicate any Catholic who it deems to have offended the faith. On pain of excommunication, Benedetti was instructed to discontinue his work and was forbidden to publish or speak publicly about his research. A good Catholic and an employee of the Vatican, Benedetti complied.

Father Rinsonelli had found the minutes of Benedetti's appearance before the Holy Office. Although they apparently gave no specific reference to the evidence for a second tomb, they did make the Holy Office position clear. Although it was evidently their informed opinion that the second tomb was simply a Dark Age legend, they considered that any further investigations into the subject by a Vatican official would appear divisive.

Like the Holy Office, Father Rinsonelli accepted that doctrine of the Assumption and considered the second tomb to be a myth. However, he had found something in the report which had intrigued him. It seems as though Benedetti had spoken to someone about his theory because the minutes showed that he had been specifically instructed to clarify a remark that he had made. Father Rinsonelli took out a notebook from his pocket and read his translation of the relevant reference: '"His [Benedetti's] statement that the Holy Mother was the Holy Grail should be properly clarified so that no improper inference should be made. Namely, that the Grail was merely an artistic representation of the Holy Mother."'

This was a concept new to Father Rinsonelli and he wanted to know if I had ever come across any evidence of a link between Mary and the Grail legend.

'Mary Magdalene, yes,' I replied, 'but not the Virgin Mary. But even that, I'm certain, was a medieval legend.' It was indeed an interesting concept: a sacred chalice which contained the holy blood of Jesus - an early Christian symbol for the Christ's mother. 'I wouldn't disagree, though,' I said. 'As you know, I think the Grail became different things to different people. As for the Virgin Mary, I don't know much about her.'

'Nor does anyone,' said Father Rinsonelli, turning and staring out through the window across the jumbled rooftops of the Vatican City. 'Our Lady is the most important woman who ever lived, yet the Bible tells us almost nothing about her.'

From the Catholic perspective Farther Rinsonelli was right. According to the Dogmatic Constitution of the Church: "Mary has by grace been exalted above all angels and men to a place second only to her Son". The Virgin Mary is by far the most venerated of saints. Most saints have only one annual feast or holy day, St Mary has one every few weeks, and all Catholic churches, abbeys and cathedrals have a Lady Chapel dedicated to her, regardless of which saint the building itself is dedicated to. Moreover, most daily prayers are offered exclusively to the Virgin. Of the 165 prayers of the rosary, required to be regularly recited by Catholics, 150 are the Ave Maria - the 'Hail Mary'.

The Bible, on the other hand, is strangely silent concerning most of her life. It gives Mary great importance as the mother of Christ, it tells how she conceived by direct intervention of the Holy Ghost and gave birth to Jesus in Bethlehem. But apart from her presence at the foot of the cross during the Crucifixion, she appears in only a few brief episodes during Jesus' ministry and then only as a periphery character. After the Crucifixion the gospels tell us nothing of where she lived or died: neither is there a single reference either to her burial or the Assumption.

Giovanni Benedetti's investigations concerning the tomb of the Virgin Mary was only one of the many topics Father Rinsonelli and I discussed before parting company that day, but the story had intrigued me far more than the priest knew or intended. It had me thinking about the whole question of the Virgin Mary. To almost a billion Catholics, Mary is the most important woman who ever lived but her life on earth is almost a complete mystery. She appears only briefly in a few Biblical verses and no contemporary records concerning her have ever been found. There and then I had decided on my next historical investigation. I was determined to discover the truth about the Mother of Christ. Who was she, really? What was she like as a person? Where did she live out her life and where did she eventually die? And there was the most impelling question of all - where was she buried?

As I left St Peter's Square later that afternoon, I glanced over at the High Renaissance building directly opposite the Constantine Portico - the Holy Office. Bound by the doctrine of the Assumption, Father Rinsonelli had not given a second thought to Benedetti's notion that there might be a real tomb of the Virgin Mary. I, however, could not help feeling that there was more to the Holy Office muzzling Benedetti than the report revealed? Had he discovered compelling evidence that there really was a second tomb? Although I did not know it at the time, I was about to embark upon the search to uncover one of the greatest secrets in Christian history - the tomb of the Virgin Mary.