Meet the Vatican Swiss Guards ready to sacrifice their lives for the pope

With their feathered helmets, ruffled collars and coloured, puffed-sleeve uniforms, the Vatican Swiss Guards are often likened by curious visitors to medieval court jesters. But while they willingly pose for photographs, the watchmen are not there to entertain.

Since the early 16th century, when Swiss mercenaries, revered for their bravery and loyalty, marched to Rome to serve Pope Julius II, the world’s smallest army has been enlisted at the Vatican to protect the pope, his residence and the city’s borders.

Last week journalists were given a rare glimpse of the guards’ barracks in the easternpart of Vatican City, and an insight into the background and daily lives of the troops as they rehearsed for the swearing-in of new recruits.

Dressed in their traditional red, yellow and blue garb complete with armour and halberds, the men practised an impeccably choreographed march in the barracks’ courtyard, each raising three fingers of their right hand to the sky to evoke the Holy Trinity while shouting the pontifical oath.

Among the 34 who will pledge to “sacrifice his life” to defend the pope at a ceremony on Monday is Renato Peter, 22, who was recruited from a village close to Sant Gallo, one of several in Switzerland that has provided young men for the elite corps for centuries.

He has dreamed of becoming a Swiss Guard since first seeing one at a Wednesday morning papal audience at St Peter’s Square at the age of 12.

“Then in the afternoon we went to see the barracks,” added Peter, who at the time was in Rome with his diocese. “I thought to myself: ‘Wow, what a cool job!’ I told my mum that ‘one day I will be a Swiss Guard … This dream never