Birz 12 ... notes...
As the Birz 12 episode (scanlation available here) focus pretty havily on Italy I thought to post some notes about it.
Let's start with the whole England isn't anymore catholic.
It's not that the pope stopped Henry VIII from divorcing. It's that back then you needed his permission to divoce as the church generally didn't allow it unless the case at hand met certain requisites.
However technically there weren't the requisites to give Henry VIII permission to divorce. Henry tried to persuade the Pope to do it anyway and the Pope might have agreed but Charles V (King of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor) got in Henry's way and persuaded the Pope to stay firm and not allow the divorce as the divorce would damage Charles' interests.
So no, it wasn't like he wasn't allowed to do it, just due to the Pope's intrigues, he wasn't allowed to do it due to the rules of the catholic church that still doesn't allow people to divorce unless certain conditions are met, period.
He started making intrigues with the Pope to get the special permission to divorce even when he didn't have the right to get it in the first place and his plan backfired when Charles joined the game as well.
Going on.
The schism took place, as everyone likely know, in 1534
The statue the strip mentioned though was done in 1672-78 by Bernini and it's part of the monument to Alexander VII (1599-1667) which you can find in St. Peter in Vatican.
The statue is an allegory representing the Prudence stepping on the Anglican church because that pope had been particularly involved in the fight between the catholic church and the other churches.
The skull (which is actually a full skeleton) in the same statue is actually another allegory always in the same monument, representing the death and symbolizing the flow slow and implacable of earthly life (he hold a hourglass in his hand) and it's pretty common in the monuments of the deceased popes. No reference to England here.
You can see the monument here. The skeleton is in the middle while the Prudence is the statue at the right.
The 'clothing check people' won't stop you from entering in Vatican but from entering in the Saint Peter church (as they should do if you try to enter in any other church or sacred place) and in the museum.
Recently though, as more and more people complained about being stopped from entering in St. Peter because they didn't have the right clothes slowing further the already endlessly long line to enter in the church, rules had become even more strict and you can get a scolding for your clothes and not be allowed in if you also try to enter in a shop in Vatican City with them.
During my stay (in July a month in which Rome is pretty hot) however I hadn't seen any clothing control beyond the one in the church and the museum and people entered without problems in the city with short clothes, to cover them up with more proper ones when they were to enter in the church or the museum. Actually it was a pretty common sign to see people that were about to enter in the church pulling out extra clothes to look more modest during the time they would spend in the church and then pull them off when they exited.
Vatican City is actually bigger than just Saint Peter's church but people isn't checked for clothes in it... though sometimes I've the feeling this strip confuses St. Peter with Vatican.
The silence sign doesn't just refer to Chinese people. It says more or less the same in all the languages and it's a warning toward everyone who'll try to enter in the church, written in what are judged the most common languages spoken by who go to visit the church (Italian, French, English, German, Spanish and Chinese). Again, you can find it in any church or sacred place, though if the church is small and not important it's usually only in Italian.
I fear there's a mistake in the translation (or in what Himaruya wrote? Actually I'm pretty confused by what is said...) because you actually can enter in Vatican City at any time and in the Vatican Museum (I assume that's where Japan and Italy are) way earlier than 5 p.m.
Actually you can enter from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm and you've to be out of it at 6:00 pm... although you must start leaving the rooms by 5:30 pm (the place is pretty big and if you're at the farthest place from the exit, half a hour is the time you'll need to reach the exit).
There are no limits of time for your staying in the Vatican museum beyond whose so you can confortably spend all the morning and part of the afternoon in it (I did because the place is really big and with lot of things to see and 30 minutes won't absolutely be enough to see it all!)
The same problem applies if they're actually in St. Peter as you can enter in St Peter from 7.00 am to 6.30 pm (during spring/summer it's 7:00 pm).
If it's referring to Vatican City in general I couldn't find in any place something saying that the city will be 'closed' at a certain hour. However once St. Peter and the museum are closed there's really not much to walk around in it.
There are 6/7 masses every day in St. Peter, not just on Sunday afternoon. The masses on Sunday afternoon are at 12:15 pm, 4.00 pm and at 5.45 pm.
The real must see though is the pope's benediction at Sunday noon so I guess the two most popular masses are the one that's before it, at 11:30am and the one that's after it, at 12:15pm. Considering that when the pope gives his benediction St Peter's square is completely filled with people and it's said the ovato tondo is 240 meters across you can easily figure the place is pretty crowded.
And hum... about the food shall be protected line... well, it's true recently here we're working a lot to protect national food as there were a lot of foreign food industries and restaurants who claimed they were selling original Italian food when the thing they were selling wasn't even remotely Italian...
And LOL, out of late even the Italian Mc Donalds are trying to create hamburgers with an Italian regional flavour, using typical Italian regional ingredients...
There's to say Italian regions are pretty proud of their local foods (which vary from region to region) so maybe this will turn out as a pretty good idea.
About the last strip... I've recently discovered Italy has plenty of ghosts... but no matter which sort of ghost they are, no Italian mind them much or think them scary (or remember they're supposed to live in certain places ^_^;) so I guess what Feliciano says it's pretty true, our ghosts aren't something we're scared of.
Let's start with the whole England isn't anymore catholic.
It's not that the pope stopped Henry VIII from divorcing. It's that back then you needed his permission to divoce as the church generally didn't allow it unless the case at hand met certain requisites.
However technically there weren't the requisites to give Henry VIII permission to divorce. Henry tried to persuade the Pope to do it anyway and the Pope might have agreed but Charles V (King of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor) got in Henry's way and persuaded the Pope to stay firm and not allow the divorce as the divorce would damage Charles' interests.
So no, it wasn't like he wasn't allowed to do it, just due to the Pope's intrigues, he wasn't allowed to do it due to the rules of the catholic church that still doesn't allow people to divorce unless certain conditions are met, period.
He started making intrigues with the Pope to get the special permission to divorce even when he didn't have the right to get it in the first place and his plan backfired when Charles joined the game as well.
Going on.
The schism took place, as everyone likely know, in 1534
The statue the strip mentioned though was done in 1672-78 by Bernini and it's part of the monument to Alexander VII (1599-1667) which you can find in St. Peter in Vatican.
The statue is an allegory representing the Prudence stepping on the Anglican church because that pope had been particularly involved in the fight between the catholic church and the other churches.
The skull (which is actually a full skeleton) in the same statue is actually another allegory always in the same monument, representing the death and symbolizing the flow slow and implacable of earthly life (he hold a hourglass in his hand) and it's pretty common in the monuments of the deceased popes. No reference to England here.
You can see the monument here. The skeleton is in the middle while the Prudence is the statue at the right.
The 'clothing check people' won't stop you from entering in Vatican but from entering in the Saint Peter church (as they should do if you try to enter in any other church or sacred place) and in the museum.
Recently though, as more and more people complained about being stopped from entering in St. Peter because they didn't have the right clothes slowing further the already endlessly long line to enter in the church, rules had become even more strict and you can get a scolding for your clothes and not be allowed in if you also try to enter in a shop in Vatican City with them.
During my stay (in July a month in which Rome is pretty hot) however I hadn't seen any clothing control beyond the one in the church and the museum and people entered without problems in the city with short clothes, to cover them up with more proper ones when they were to enter in the church or the museum. Actually it was a pretty common sign to see people that were about to enter in the church pulling out extra clothes to look more modest during the time they would spend in the church and then pull them off when they exited.
Vatican City is actually bigger than just Saint Peter's church but people isn't checked for clothes in it... though sometimes I've the feeling this strip confuses St. Peter with Vatican.
The silence sign doesn't just refer to Chinese people. It says more or less the same in all the languages and it's a warning toward everyone who'll try to enter in the church, written in what are judged the most common languages spoken by who go to visit the church (Italian, French, English, German, Spanish and Chinese). Again, you can find it in any church or sacred place, though if the church is small and not important it's usually only in Italian.
I fear there's a mistake in the translation (or in what Himaruya wrote? Actually I'm pretty confused by what is said...) because you actually can enter in Vatican City at any time and in the Vatican Museum (I assume that's where Japan and Italy are) way earlier than 5 p.m.
Actually you can enter from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm and you've to be out of it at 6:00 pm... although you must start leaving the rooms by 5:30 pm (the place is pretty big and if you're at the farthest place from the exit, half a hour is the time you'll need to reach the exit).
There are no limits of time for your staying in the Vatican museum beyond whose so you can confortably spend all the morning and part of the afternoon in it (I did because the place is really big and with lot of things to see and 30 minutes won't absolutely be enough to see it all!)
The same problem applies if they're actually in St. Peter as you can enter in St Peter from 7.00 am to 6.30 pm (during spring/summer it's 7:00 pm).
If it's referring to Vatican City in general I couldn't find in any place something saying that the city will be 'closed' at a certain hour. However once St. Peter and the museum are closed there's really not much to walk around in it.
There are 6/7 masses every day in St. Peter, not just on Sunday afternoon. The masses on Sunday afternoon are at 12:15 pm, 4.00 pm and at 5.45 pm.
The real must see though is the pope's benediction at Sunday noon so I guess the two most popular masses are the one that's before it, at 11:30am and the one that's after it, at 12:15pm. Considering that when the pope gives his benediction St Peter's square is completely filled with people and it's said the ovato tondo is 240 meters across you can easily figure the place is pretty crowded.
And hum... about the food shall be protected line... well, it's true recently here we're working a lot to protect national food as there were a lot of foreign food industries and restaurants who claimed they were selling original Italian food when the thing they were selling wasn't even remotely Italian...
And LOL, out of late even the Italian Mc Donalds are trying to create hamburgers with an Italian regional flavour, using typical Italian regional ingredients...
There's to say Italian regions are pretty proud of their local foods (which vary from region to region) so maybe this will turn out as a pretty good idea.
About the last strip... I've recently discovered Italy has plenty of ghosts... but no matter which sort of ghost they are, no Italian mind them much or think them scary (or remember they're supposed to live in certain places ^_^;) so I guess what Feliciano says it's pretty true, our ghosts aren't something we're scared of.