State visit to Italy will include meeting with Pope Francis in the Vatican.

King Charles and Queen Camilla are to undertake a state visit to Italy and the Holy See in early April, Buckingham Palace announced on Thursday, confirming earlier news reports.

King Charles, head of the Church of England, and Queen Camilla will visit Pope Francis in the Vatican as part of the upcoming royal tour.

Although Charles has met with the pontiff on previous occasions as Prince of Wales in 2017 and 2019, this will be his first visit to the Vatican since becoming king just over two years ago.

Jubilee Year

The visit to meet the Pope Francis comes during the Catholic Church's Jubilee Year, a holy event that occurs every quarter of a century and is set to attract more than 32 million visitors to Rome.

It will be the second time that Francis has met a British monarch, with the pontiff having hosted Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh in the Vatican in April 2014.

The visit of Charles and Camilla continues a tradition of royal participation in Vatican celebrations, following the visit of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip during Jubilee Year 2000.

Strong bilateral relationship 

The royal visit, which will include engagements in Rome and the northern city of Ravenna, will celebrate "the strong bilateral relationship between Italy and the United Kingdom", Buckingham Palace stated.

The exact dates of the King and Queen’s Italy trip have yet to be revealed however there is speculation that the visit could coincide with their 20th wedding anniversary on 9 April.

The king and queen are to host actor Stanley Tucci - who presented the Searching for Italy television programme - at a formal dinner on Friday to mark the confirmation of the upcoming state visit, the BBC reports.

Charles, 76, is still undergoing cancer treatment however he was said to have felt "lifted" by a recent royal tour of Australia and Samoa, according to British media reports, with the monarch reportedly keen to "make up for lost time" due to his health issues.

Previous royal visits

In October 2019, as Prince of Wales, Charles travelled to Rome to attend the canonisation ceremony of Blessed Cardinal John Henry Newman at the Vatican.

In April 2017 the then Prince Charles and Camilla Duchess of Cornwall paid an official visit to Italy during which they met then prime minister Paolo Gentiloni, president Sergio Mattarella, and Pope Francis.

The royal couple also visited Naples and Florence during that trip, with Charles travelling to Amatrice, the Lazio town devastated by an earthquake the previous year.

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