At the end of the afternoon on Monday, July 8, 2024, Pope Francis left the Vatican to go to an optician in the center of Rome, not far from the Trevi Fountain, several Italian media outlets reported.
According to the Italian daily Avvenire, which belongs to the Italian bishops, the Pope had called the owner of the shop, Alessandro Spiezia, the previous Saturday morning, to schedule an appointment to come by the shop to get his glasses checked out.
Francis apparently told the optician that “you have already bothered to come to me twice, this time I am coming to you.”
In fact, Spiezia has been Francis’ go-to optician for some years and this is also not the first time that the Pontiff personally visited the “Ottica Spiezia.”
Back in 2015 he also went to the shop for the same reason as this latest outing: to get his lenses switched but to keep the same frame. Like that previous time, the shop was quickly surrounded by crowds of curious tourists and Romans trying to catch a glimpse of the Pope.
According to Avvenire, the Holy Father stopped to greet the onlookers and distributed some rosaries to the crowds and candies to children.
The emotion at seeing the Pope in your shop
"The years pass, I have had the honor of meeting the Holy Father many times, but the emotion always increases," Alessandro Spiezia told Avvenire. "I will not hide the fact that this time I was even more excited than usual. And the knowledge that I enjoy his esteem and, forgive me the term, his friendship, fills me with joy."
In fact, Pope Francis reportedly spent around half an hour in the shop and greeted Alessandro’s wife, Anna Maria, by phone, and also their son Luca, who was present and is also an optician.
“Holy Father, come anytime [for dinner]. I'll make you a nice carbonara,” Anna Maria apparently said over the phone.
On Sunday, July 7, Pope Francis had gone to Trieste, a city in northeastern Italy, for the closing of the 50th Social Week of Italian Catholics, and many observers had noticed he had difficulty reading his homily. Perhaps he was simply waiting to get his glasses updated!
Pope Francis’ outings
The Pontiff is technically on his summer break at the moment, as his general and private audiences are suspended for the month of July. However he is known to prefer staying at the Vatican during his holidays.
This is not the first time that Francis has left the Vatican for surprise visits in Rome. In 2022 he visited a record store in the center of Rome and in 2016 he went to get shoes from an orthopedic shop not far from the Vatican.
In February 2021, the Bishop of Rome also paid an impromptu visit to Edith Bruck, a poet and Holocaust survivor, at her home in Rome.
