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Historic ‘popes’ baker’ shuts up shop in Rome

After nearly a century as pontiffs’ bread supplier of choice, Rome’s Arrigoni bakery will soon put up the shutters for the last time as mass tourism in the Eternal City ultimately proved deadly for the business.

Published: 7 July 2023 09:47 CEST
Angelo Arrigoni, Rome baker
Angelo Arrigoni, owner of the historic bakery that has supplied bread to popes for nearly a century, closes the shutters of his shop. Photo by Andreas SOLARO / AFP

“We turned the oven off on Tuesday,” said Angelo Arrigoni, 79, whose father opened the little shop in 1930 during Pius XI’s papacy, and who would hand-deliver bread to the papal household.

Each time a new head of the Catholic Church was elected, the “Panificio Arrigoni” on Borgo Pio, just a five-minute walk from St Peter’s Square, would get ready to cater to the new pope’s tastes.

Polish Pope John Paul II, elected in 1978, “said he wanted the bread his workers ate”, Arrigoni said.

“The workers ate both the ciriola, that big, classic Roman loaf that hardly anyone makes anymore, and rosetta rolls,” he told AFP.

“So for his whole papacy, which lasted almost 27 years, we gave him five ciriola and five rosetta rolls.”

Angelo Arrigoni, bread Rome

‘Popes’ baker’ Angelo Arrigoni stands in the bread-making area of his shop in Rome’s Borgo Pio district. Photo by Andreas SOLARO / AFP

READ ALSO: Driver arrested after ramming car through Vatican gate

When his successor Benedict XVI was elected, Arrigoni rang the papal household but was told by a nun that the new German pope would be sticking with the baker he frequented as a cardinal.

“But I am that baker!” he told her, for Benedict had already been getting cheese and unleavened bread from him as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.

Piece of history

Pope Francis has also been served by Arrigoni, but will now need to look elsewhere for his daily bread, after the baker found himself squeezed by a drop in loyal local customers and steep energy prices.

“The district has changed,” he said. “All the houses that used to be full of people have become rentals for tourists,” most of whom don’t do a daily shop for basics, but prefer to eat out in the city’s restaurants.

News that the premises have been sold has saddened Arrigoni’s remaining regular customers.

Tourist guide Francesca Pantusa took her time eating her last sandwich, prepared with care by Arrigoni.

Angelo Arrigoni, Rome bakery

Angelo Arrigoni serves a customer in his historic Borgo Pio bakery. Photo by Andreas SOLARO / AFP

“In Borgo Pio, there are only tourist restaurants…whereas here you can find good products, at the right price and with Angelo who’s incredible – kind, friendly…it makes me want to cry”, she said.

The bakery stood out on the street, particularly for the lack of tourist-friendly tables outside – a sore subject with Arrigoni, after he tried and failed to convince the council to give him permission.

Vatican reporter Iacopo Scaramuzzi slammed the council on Twitter, asking why a city “drunk with nostalgia was unable to preserve its heritage” and save “the popes’ baker…a piece of Vatican history”.

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ROME

Vatican updates guidelines on miracles to avoid ‘confusion among the faithful’

The Vatican updated its rules for supernatural events on Friday, such as visions of Christ or the Virgin Mary, including the acknowledgement that overactive imaginations and outright "lying" risked harming the faithful.

Published: 17 May 2024 16:59 CEST
Vatican updates guidelines on miracles to avoid 'confusion among the faithful'

The new norms, published by the Holy See’s powerful Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith and approved by Pope Francis, allow for a more “prudent” interpretation of events that generally avoids declaring them outright a supernatural event.

“In certain circumstances not everything is black or white,” Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez, who leads the dicastery, said at a press conference.

“Sometimes a possible divine reaction mixes with… human thoughts and fantasies,” Fernandez added.

The history of the Catholic Church is filled with episodes of strange or unexplained phenomena involving religious statues or other objects, whether in Italy or beyond.

The new guidelines come two months after the Church said that a series of widely reported miracles attributed to a statuette of the Virgin Mary – including making a pizza grow in size – were false.

The rules, which represent the first update since 1978, provide more guidance to bishops who until now have been left relatively free to determine the authenticity of such visions on a case-by-case basis.

Underscoring the complexity of the issue, only six cases of such alleged supernatural events have been “officially resolved” by the Vatican since 1950, with one taking “seventy excruciating years”, the document said.

“Today, we have come to the conviction that such complicated situations, which create confusion among the faithful, should always be avoided,” wrote Fernandez in the document.

Argentinian cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez speaks to the press on February 12, 2024. (Photo by Andreas SOLARO / AFP)

The new rules call for more collaboration between the individual dioceses and the Vatican regarding such events. Bishops’ final decisions will be submitted to the dicastery for approval.

That is crucial because “sometimes the discernment may also deal with problems, such as delicts (civil offences), manipulation, damage to the unity of the Church, undue financial gain, and serious doctrinal errors that could cause scandals and undermine the credibility of the Church,” said the document.

They include believers “misled by an event attributed to a divine initiative but is merely the product of someone’s imagination” or those who have an “inclination toward lying”.

In the absence of problems, dioceses will be able to declare a “Nihil Obstat”, indicating there is nothing in the phenomenon contrary to faith and morals.

That falls short of an official declaration of its supernatural authenticity, which is generally to be avoided under the new rules unless the pope authorises it.

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