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Vatican City

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Vatican City, also known as the Vatican, is a city-state situated upon Vatican Hill within Rome, Italy.

Although the nation itself is comparatively new, established in 1929 following Italian dictator Benito Mussolini's signing of the Lateran Treaty, the area itself has been governed by the Holy See for centuries.

Adventures in Vatican City[]

In 1933, archaeologist Indiana Jones and his companion Alecia Dunstin visited Rome, Italy during their investigation of the Voynich Manuscript while on the run of Fascists and went to Vatican City to meet Professor Charles Rufus Morey, who was at the Vatican Secret Archive within the Tower of Winds. Once at the Meridian Room, Rufus Morey assisted them with the manuscript and told them that they should go to Libya if they wanted to find the Philosopher's Stone's stone and Alecia's brother Alistair before Leonardo Sarducci.[1]

In October 1937, Indiana Jones headed again to Vatican City after an apparent giant broke into Marshall College and stole an ornate mummified cat that Indiana had unearthed six weeks previously in Siwa, Egypt. The only clue to the giant's identity was a medallion he had inadvertently left behind that bore an emblem similar to that of the Vatican Secret Archive. Before arriving at the Vatican, Indiana was alerted via telegram from his old friend, Father Antonio Morello, that Italy's Fascist regime controlled entry to the Holy See, forcing Indiana to sneak in via the Castel Sant'Angelo causeway and disguise himself as a priest to avoid scrutiny. The situation in the Vatican turned out to be precarious: the Pope had recently fallen ill and the ambitious Cardinal Secretary of State, Father Cesare Ventura, was effectively running the city with backing from Prime Minister Benito Mussolini. In exchange for Mussolini's support, Ventura gave the Blackshirts free run of the Vatican, allowing them to oversee archaeological and renovation projects, as well as confiscate any books and relics they deemed to contain communist messaging. Members of the clergy who disagreed with Ventura's power grab and close relationship with the Fascists were cowed into silence by the Blackshirts.[2]

Vatican

Indiana began his investigation of the giant's medallion in the Apostolic Library, where he found that the medallion could be used as a key to unlock a secret chamber beneath the building, confirming the giant's relationship with the Vatican. More clues led him to a Roman Empire-era necropolis accessed via the Tower of Nicolas V, which contained the tomb of Augur the Giant, a warrior from the First Crusade who led an organization called the Nephilim Order and decreed that its monastic headquarters be built under the Fountain of the Sacrament. Along the way, Indiana met and befriended Gina Lombardi, a journalist who was searching the Vatican for her missing sister Laura, a leading expert in languages. The two entered the Nephilim Order's headquarters and gleaned from records stored within that the Order was interconnected with the highest echelons of the Catholic Church. They also discovered a passageway into the Vatican's secret storeroom of esoteric treasures, among which was the stolen cat mummy. Before Indiana could recover the cat mummy, he was accosted by the giant, Locus. On the heels of subduing Locus, Father Ventura led Mussolini and Nazi archaeologist Emmerich Voss into the treasure room, where Voss and his henchmen proceeded to break open a series of artifacts, including the cat mummy, that the Order had collected to retrieve other, more valuable artifacts concealed within. The hidden artifacts pertained to the Great Circle. Indiana and Gina followed Voss's party to the top of St. Peter's Basilica and then covertly boarded Voss's airship as it departed for Giza, where Voss was running a large-scale excavation to dig up another Great Circle artifact for a top secret Nazi initiative.[2]

Indiana revisited the Vatican four years later in pursuit of notes by the Greek scholar Solon.[3]

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Behind the scenes[]

"With a location like the Vatican, we always had the idea that the rewards would be more than just some experience points and ability upgrades. The detailed environments and authenticity of the world are a key part of the entertainment. You don't need a big set piece that takes place inside the Sistine Chapel for it be rewarding. The Sistine Chapel is already amazing, and the game tries to respect that – the game allows people to be in awe of it as it actually is."
―Zeke Virant[src]

To recreate the Vatican accurately in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, several of MachineGames artists visited the city.[6] Lead game designer Zeke Virant felt that the reward in using the location as a setting was through the authenticity of the world and its detailed environments, citing the experience of viewing the Sistine Chapel as being a key part of the entertainment for players over placing an action set-piece there.[7] For "The Order of Giants", the game's post-release DLC campaign, a choice was made to expand this principle further into Rome as a playable space, thus the creative team decided to have the DLC take place during the base game's storyline instead of after which allowed some foreshadowing towards future events that hearken back to the experience at the Vatican.[8]

Appearances[]

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Notes and references[]

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Indiana Jones and the Philosopher's Stone
  2. ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 2.10 2.11 2.12 2.13 2.14 2.15 2.16 2.17 2.18 2.19 2.20 2.21 2.22 2.23 2.24 2.25 2.26 2.27 2.28 Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Indiana Jones and the Mystery of Mount Sinai
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Indiana Jones and the Great Circle – The Order of Giants
  5. ↑ Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
  6. ↑ Whipping Up a Storm: How Indiana Jones and the Great Circle Took Big Last-Minute Changes on the Chin To Become a Hit With Critics and Players at IGN
  7. ↑ Indiana Jones and the Great Circle: The Order of Giants DLC – First Hands-on at Xbox Wire
  8. ↑ Indiana Jones and The Order of Giants Makes a Great Adventure Game Even Better | gamescom 2025 on YouTube

See also[]

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