The Vatican basilica’s art and trades school started in 2022 to train up new laborers in artisanal artistic skills. The courses and room and board are offered to students without cost.
Father Enzo Fortunato, communications director for St. Peter’s Basilica, said the presence of women in the Fabbrica is not entirely new — there were women mosaic artists who worked in the Vatican’s mosaic studio for many years — but their entrance in the Sanpietrini corps is a novelty.
According to Vatican News, in the 1500s, some women and orphans who inherited family businesses from their deceased husbands or fathers were also employed by the Fabbrica under the same conditions as the deceased, male breadwinner.
In the past 500 years, other women in the artistic trades were also hired by the Fabbrica, which was founded with the laying of the foundation stone of St. Peter’s Basilica on April 18, 1506.
The maintenance crew takes its name from “sanpietrini,” also spelled “sampietrini,” the Italian name for the small, square stones that pave St. Peter’s Square and other historic streets in the center of Rome.
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