A brief diversion was provided by the arrival of a buck-toothed, bespectacled nun, breathless and flurried, clutching a large bouquet of flowers. She apologized to the attendants, who shrugged and waved her through the ropes. Depositing the bouquet on the balustrade surrounding the colossal statue of St Veronica, the nun took her place on a bench near the back of the congregation as the priest began reciting the Credo. A plainclothes security man who had been looking on from the fringes of the crowd walked over, picked up the flowers and inspected them suspiciously, as though they might explode.

‘ Et iterum venturus est cum gloria, judicare vivos et mortuos…’

At first the noise sounded like electronic feedback transmitted via the loudspeakers, then the screech of a low-flying aircraft. One or two departing tourists glanced up towards the looming obscurity of the dome, as the man with the suede jacket and gold chain and the woman in the tweed coat and white scarf had been doing all along. That certainly seemed to be the source of the eerie sound, somewhere between a whine and a growl, which billowed down to fill the basilica like coloured dye in a tank of water. Then someone caught sight of the apparition high above, and screamed. The priest faltered, and even the congregation twisted round to see what was happening. In utter silence all watched the black shape tumbling through the dim expanses towards them.

The sight was an ink-blot test for everyone’s secret fears and fantasies. An arthritic seamstress who lived above an automobile body shop in the Borgo Pio saw the long-desired angel swooping down to release her from the torments of the flesh.