Pope's first refuge: A sumptuous lakeside villa 
 
 CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy — Once he steps down on Thursday, Pope Benedict XVI will begin his retirement in the papal summer residence at Castel Gandolfo, a sumptuous villa outside Rome with ornamental gardens, breathtaking views and its own farm. 
 
 Benedict will spend around two months in the palace, which is perched high on a rocky outcrop above Italy's Lake Albano, before withdrawing to a monastery within the grounds of the Vatican. 
 
 One wing of the palace looks out onto the main square of Castel Gandolfo, a mediaeval town listed among Italy's most beautiful, and it is from a balcony there that Benedict will wave goodbye just before resigning on Thursday at 1900 GMT and retreating to a life of prayer out of the public eye. 
 
 Townspeople and those who have worked in the villa and grown to know Benedict over his eight-year papacy will gather holding torches and rosary beads in the square to pray for him. 
 
 The villa and gardens, owned by the Holy See since 1596, expanded over the centuries to include other properties and now sprawl over 55 hectares (135 acres). 
 
 Inside the grounds, there are views down to the lake or glimpses of the sea beyond gardens decorated with sculptures, and orchards of apricot, peach and olive trees, and greenhouses of ornamental flowers. 
 
 The residence has long been a favourite with popes hoping to escape the infernal heat of a Roman summer and, at 426 metres above sea level, the palace is a cool oasis. 
 
 "The pope, who usually visits at Easter, has brought his stay forward by a month," said Saverio Petrillo, director of the Pontifical Villas. 
 
 "The situation is routine in terms of logistics, but exceptional considering the circumstances," he said. 
 
 Benedict's resignation "took us by surprise, it was like a lightning bolt out of the blue," said the white-haired Petrillo, who said he understood the pope's decision to give up the papacy. 
 
 "Here the pope will find a family atmosphere. There are no great works of art, no huge rooms," he said as he showed off reception rooms decorated with simple wooden crosses, bibles on tables and photographs of Benedict smiling as he walks through the palace grounds. 
 
 Cypresses and sculptured hedges line secluded paths in the gardens, but Benedict does not often stroll among the blooming flowerbeds or fountains, Petrillo said. 
 
 "He is a reserved man of study who is not a huge fan of the great outdoors." 
 
 Benedict will be accompanied by two private secretaries and four lay women and is expected to spend most of his time in his private apartment, which has a view of the sea. 
 
 The pontiff said in 2011 that at Castel Gandolfo, "I find everything: a mountain, a lake, I even see the sea," a phrase immortalised in a plaque on the town hall opposite the palace. 
 
 It was pope Urban VIII who first decided in 1626 to establish the papal summer residence in Castel Gandolfo, which is 30 kilometres (19 miles) from Rome and is also home to the large telescope of the Vatican's Observatory. 
 
 Pope Alexander VII called in Baroque architect Gian Lorenzo Bernini to develop a new wing in 1659. 
 
 Centuries later, after several other villas had been incorporated into the land, Pope Pius XI opened a farm, where he kept animals which had been given to him as gifts -- including wild boar and gazelles. 
 
 It now houses cows, free-range hens, cockerels and pontifical bees. 
 
 Freshly laid eggs, milk, vegetables, fruit, honey and fat rounds of caciotta cheese from the farm are eaten by the pope at breakfast or end up in the kitchen of the papal household back in the Vatican, or on the shelves of the tiny state's supermarket. 
 
 Last year the environmentally-conscious Benedict was also given vines to plant at the villa to make a locally-produced wine for his dinner table, with no carbon footprint. 
 
 Copyright © 2013 AFP. All rights reserved. More » ||||| VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict ended his difficult reign on Thursday pledging unconditional obedience to whoever succeeds him to guide the Roman Catholic Church at one of the most crisis-ridden periods in its 2,000-year history. 
 
 The papacy became vacant at 8 p.m. (1900 GMT/2PM ET), marking the first time in six centuries a pope has resigned instead of ruling for life. 
 
 In a symbolic gesture, the Swiss Guards who stood sentry at the papal summer residence south of Rome, where the pope flew by helicopter less than three hours earlier, quit their posts and the massive wooden doors of the hilltop residence were closed. 
 
 At the same time, the papal apartments in the Vatican were locked and will not be opened until a new pope is elected. 
 
 As he left the Vatican several hours earlier by helicopter, he sent his last Twitter message: “Thank you for your love and support. May you always experience the joy that comes from putting Christ at the center of your lives.” 
 
 Bells rang out from St Peter’s Basilica and churches all over Rome as the helicopter circled Vatican City and flew over the Colosseum and other landmarks to give the pontiff one last view of the city where he is also bishop. 
 
 “As you know, today is different to previous ones,” he told an emotional, cheering crowd holding balloons and banners after he arrived in the small town of Castel Gandolfo, where the summer residence it located. 
 
 He told the crowd, many of whom were crying, that he would soon become “simply be a pilgrim who is starting the last phase of his pilgrimage on this earth”. 
 
 He then turned and went inside the villa, never to be seen again as pope. 
 
 “I wanted to see him for the last time. I hope his successor follows in his footsteps. I feel very moved to be here,” said Giuseppe Ercolino, a 19-year-old student from a nearby town. 
 
 In an emotional farewell to cardinals on Thursday morning in the Vatican’s frescoed Sala Clementina, Benedict appeared to send a strong message to the top echelons of the Church as well as the faithful to unite behind his successor, whoever he is. 
 
 “I will continue to be close to you in prayer, especially in the next few days, so that you are fully accepting of the action of the Holy Spirit in the election of the new pope,” he said. “May the Lord show you what he wants. Among you there is the future pope, to whom I today declare my unconditional reverence and obedience.” 
 
 The pledge, made ahead of the closed-doors conclave where cardinals will elect his successor, was significant because for the first time in history, there will be a reigning pope and a former pope living side by side in the Vatican. 
 
 Some Church scholars worry that if the next pope undoes some of Benedict’s policies while his predecessor is still alive, Benedict could act as a lightning rod for conservatives and polarize the 1.2 billion-member Church. 
 
 Before boarding the helicopter, Pope Benedict said goodbye to monsignors, nuns, Vatican staff and Swiss guards in the San Damaso courtyard of the Holy See’s apostolic palace. Many of his staff had tears in their eyes as the helicopter left. 
 
 Benedict will spend the first few months of his retirement in the papal summer residence, a complex of villas boasting lush gardens, a farm and stunning views over Lake Albano in the volcanic crater below the town. 
 
 Benedict will stay until April when renovations are completed on a convent in the Vatican that will be his new home. 
 
 Pope Benedict XVI speaks to the faithful for the last time from the balcony of his summer residence in Castel Gandolfo February 28, 2013. Pope Benedict left the Vatican on Thursday after pledging unconditional obedience to whoever succeeds him to guide the Roman Catholic Church at one of the most crisis-ridden periods in its 2,000-year history. REUTERS/ Tony Gentile ( ITALY - Tags: RELIGION) 
 
 PAPAL PROBLEMS 
 
 With the election of the next pope taking place in the wake of sexual abuse scandals, leaks of his private papers by his butler, falling membership and demands for a greater role for women, many in the Church believe it would benefit from a fresh face from a non-European country. 
 
 A number of cardinals from the developing world, including Ghanaian Peter Turkson and Antonio Tagle of the Philippines are two names often mentioned as leading candidates from the developing world who listen more. 
 
 “At the past two conclaves, the cardinals elected the smartest man in the room. Now, it may be time to choose a man who will listen to all the other smart people in the Church,” said Father Tom Resse, a historian and senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University. 
 
 Benedict, wearing the white papal cassock and red cape he will shed after his resignation becomes official, urged the Church to strive to be “deeply united”. 
 
 A lover of classical music, he compared the Church hierarchy to an orchestra with many instruments which should always seek to be harmonious. 
 
 “In these past eight years we have lived, with faith, beautiful moments of radiant light in the path of the Church as well as moments when some clouds darkened the sky,” he said, adding that he had “tried to serve Christ and his Church with deep and total love”. 
 
 NEW POPE BEFORE EASTER 
 
 Once the chair of St Peter is vacant, cardinals who have assembled from around the world will begin planning the conclave that will elect his successor. 
 
 One of the first questions facing these “princes of the Church” is when the 115 cardinal electors should enter the Sistine Chapel for the voting. They will hold a first meeting on Friday but a decision may not come until next week. 
 
 The Vatican seems to be aiming for an election by mid-March so the new pope can be installed in office before Palm Sunday on March 24 and lead the Holy Week services that culminate in Easter on the following Sunday. 
 
 Slideshow (6 Images) 
 
 In the meantime, the cardinals will hold daily consultations at the Vatican at which they discuss issues facing the Church, get to know each other better and size up potential leaders for the 2,000-year-old Church. 
 
 There are no official candidates, no open campaigning and no clear front runner for the job. Cardinals tipped as favorites by Vatican-watchers include Turkson, Tagle, Brazil’s Odilo Scherer, Canadian Marc Ouellet, Italy’s Angelo Scola and Timothy Dolan of the United States. 
 
 Benedict, a bookish man who did not seek the papacy and did not enjoy being in the global spotlight, proved an energetic teacher of Catholic doctrine but a poor manager of the Curia, the Vatican bureaucracy that became mired in scandal. 
 
 He leaves his successor a top secret report on rivalries and scandals within the Curia, prompted by leaks of internal files last year that documented the problems hidden behind the Vatican’s thick walls and the Church’s traditional secrecy. ||||| Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI comes home on Thursday to a new house and a new pope, as an unprecedented era begins of a retired pontiff living side-by-side with a reigning one inside the Vatican gardens. 
 
 FILE - This Feb. 12, 2013 file photo shows a view of the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery inside the Vatican State, where Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI will live in retirement. The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE- In this March 23, 2013 file photo provided by the Vatican paper L'Osservatore Romano, Pope Francis, right, and Pope emeritus Benedict XVI meet in Castel Gandolfo. Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE - Pope Benedict XVI leaves after greeting the faithful from the balcony window of the papal summer residence of Castel Gandolfo, the scenic town where he will spend his first post-Vatican days and... (Associated Press) 
 
 All eyes will be on Benedict's physical state as he is welcomed by Pope Francis at his new retirement home, a converted monastery tucked behind St. Peter's Basilica. The last time he was seen by the public _ March 23 _ Benedict appeared remarkably more frail and thin than when he left the Vatican on his final day as pope three weeks earlier. 
 
 The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, has acknowledged Benedict's post-retirement decline but insists the 86-year-old German isn't suffering from any ailment and is just old. 
 
 "He is a man who is not young: He is old and his strength is slowly ebbing," Lombardi said this week. "However, there is no special illness. He is an old man who is healthy." 
 
 Since his Feb. 28 resignation, Benedict has been "hidden to the world" as he himself predicted, living at the papal residence in Castel Gandolfo, in the hills south of Rome. He chose to leave the Vatican immediately after his resignation to physically remove himself from the process of electing his successor and from Pope Francis' first weeks as pontiff. 
 
 His absence also gave workers time to finish up renovations on the monastery on the edge of the Vatican gardens that until last year housed groups of cloistered nuns who were invited for a few years at a time to live inside the Vatican to pray for the pontiff and church at large. 
 
 In the small building, with a chapel attached, Benedict will live with his personal secretary, Monsignor Georg Gaenswein, and the four consecrated women who look after him, preparing his meals and tending to the household. Inside the small building, Benedict has at his disposal a small library and a study. A guest room is available for when his brother, Monsignor Georg Ratzinger, comes to visit. 
 
 "It is certainly small but well-equipped," Lombardi said. 
 
 When Benedict announced his intention to resign _ the first pontiff to do so in 600 years _ questions immediately swirled about the implications of having two popes living alongside one another inside the Vatican. 
 
 Benedict fueled those concerns when he chose to be called "emeritus pope" and "Your Holiness" rather than "emeritus bishop of Rome." He also raised eyebrows when he chose to continue wearing the white cassock of the papacy. 
 
 Given the political intrigues that plague the Vatican, it wasn't much of a stretch of the imagination to wonder if some cardinals, bishops and monsignors _ not to mention ordinary Catholics _ might continue making Benedict their point of reference rather than the new pope. 
 
 However, Benedict made clear on his final day as pope that he was renouncing the job and pledged his "unconditional reverence and obedience" to his then-unknown successor. It was a pledge he repeated in person on March 23 when Francis went to have lunch with him at Castel Gandolfo. 
 
 It was during that visit that the world saw how frail Benedict had become in the three weeks since his emotional departure from the Apostolic Palace: Always a man with a purposeful walk, he shuffled tentatively that day, using his cane. 
 
 Francis, for his part, seems utterly unfazed by the novel situation unfolding. He has frequently invoked Benedict's name and work and has called him on a half-dozen occasions, making clear he has no intention of ignoring the fact that there's another pope still very much alive and now living on the other side of the garden from the Vatican hotel where he lives. 
 
 Francis' gestures to Benedict during that March 23 visit were also remarkable: He refused to pray on the special papal kneeler in the small chapel of Castel Gandolfo, preferring to join Benedict on a kneeler in the pews, and referring to his predecessor as his "brother." 
 
 Now that they're neighbors, they might bump into one another on walks in the Vatican gardens or at the shrine to the Madonna on the top of the hill, just a stone's throw from Benedict's new home. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Follow Nicole Winfield at www.twitter.com/nwinfield ||||| Benedict has been living in Castel Gandolfo, the summer papal residence outside Rome, since his shock resignation at the end of February. 
 
 But it was always a temporary arrangement and today the German-born former pontiff moved into his new retirement home within the Vatican gardens this afternoon. 
 
 The 86-year-old ex-Pope was picked up by helicopter from the grounds of Castel Gandolfo, which perches on the rim of a volcanic crater lake, and flown to the Vatican, a 15 minute flight away. 
 
 Pope Francis met him at the door of the former monastery which is his new home. The current pontiff has made repeated gestures of friendship towards Benedict, visiting him in Castel Gandolfo, calling him on his birthday and holding mass for him. 
 
 He is taking up residence in a former convent in the Vatican's extensive gardens. Situated on a hill within the city state, it commands views of St Peter's Basilica, the rooftops of Rome and the Apennine mountains. 
 
 It is a 10 minute walk from Casa Santa Marta, the Vatican residence where Pope Francis has chosen to live since his election, having rejected the option of living in the much larger and more lavish papal apartments. 
 
 The two popes will be dressed very similarly – as Pope Emeritus, Benedict wears a white cassock, while Francis wears a white cassock with a short cape around his shoulders. 
 
 Vatican observers have speculated that the presence of a "shadow Pope" could cause difficulties for Francis, but Vatican officials insist that Benedict intends to devote the rest of his life to study and prayer and will not be making public pronouncements which could contradict those of his successor. 
 
 When he announced his decision to step down, Benedict said he would live out his remaining days "hidden from the world". 
 
 Benedict will live on the ground floor of the convent, which has undergone extensive renovations. 
 
 He will be accompanied by a small staff, including his personal secretary, Archbishop Georg Ganswein. 
 
 Benedict looked pale and bowed the last time he was seen in public, on March 23, when he welcomed Francis to Castel Gandolfo – the first time that an ex-Pope had met a living Pope since the 13th century. 
 
 Benedict's frail appearance contrasted with that of the much more robust-looking Pope Francis. 
 
 The Vatican insists that Benedict does not have a serious illness or medical condition, but is simply slowing down as a result of his advanced age.
– It's Pope Benedict XVI's last day on the job, but don't expect much fanfare: There won't be a major ceremony or declaration, Reuters reports. Clad in a red ceremonial cape called a mozzetta, the AP notes that he met with some 100 cardinals at the Apostolic Palace this morning to say goodbye, telling them, "Among you is the future pope ... to whom I today declare my unconditional reverence and obedience." After a short helicopter ride, Benedict will hold his final public appearance from a balcony at the papal summer residence, Castel Gandolfo, just south of Rome; about 7,000 are expected to be there, Sky News reports, contrasting with yesterday's 150,000. Benedict officially retires at 2pm Eastern time. At that time—8pm locally—the Swiss Guards outside the residence will prepare to head back to Rome. Benedict himself will stay for two months before moving to a renovated convent at the Vatican. The palace at Castel Gandolfo overlooks a lake and the main square of the medieval town, considered one of the most beautiful in Italy, AFP notes. "Here the pope will find a family atmosphere. There are no great works of art, no huge rooms," says an official. At Castel Gandolfo, the pope said in 2011, "I find everything: a mountain, a lake, I even see the sea." The words now appear on a town hall plaque.