Ciao, Alitalia
“The Pope’s Airline, Alitalia, to Fly Last Flight” — MarketWatch
Alitalia may have had its faults, but how many airlines can claim to have been the “pope’s airline” for over five centuries?
According to Flying Pontiff Quarterly, the trade journal that has covered papal air travel for some centuries now, recent scholarship has unearthed a long-buried document in the overdue section of the Vatican library purporting to trace Alitalia’s role as the official carrier of supreme pontiffs to the papacy of Julius II (1503-13).
The document, titled in Latin “Numquam ad Tempus” (“Never on Time”), asserts that Alitalia had its beginning in the early 1500s, a time of great turbulence (grande turbolenza) and papal fastening of seatbelts as the Holy See engaged in fierce power struggles with the Holy Roman Empire, France, Venice, Naples, Florence and Reykjavik.… Seguir leyendo »