King Charles and Queen Camilla arrived in Italy on Monday for a four-day state visit, during which the British monarch is set to address the Italian parliament in Rome.
This marks Charles’s 17th official visit to Italy and his first international trip of the year as he continues his cancer treatment.
The visit coincides with the couple’s 20th wedding anniversary, having married on April 9, 2005, just a day after attending the funeral of Pope John Paul II, an event Charles attended as the heir apparent.
As the British king and the supreme governor of the Church of England, Charles was also scheduled to meet with Pope Francis this week; however, that meeting was postponed in late March due to concerns regarding the pontiff’s health.
Pope Francis recently spent five weeks in the hospital recovering from double pneumonia but has since returned to the Vatican.
Charles has previously met with Pope Francis during his visits to Italy in 2017 and 2019, and he has also had audiences with Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI.
His mother, Queen Elizabeth, visited the Holy See in 2000 during the last Catholic Jubilee year.
During their visit, Charles and Camilla are set to meet with Italian President Sergio Mattarella on Tuesday and will tour the Colosseum.
On Wednesday, the king and queen will meet with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, after which Charles will make history by delivering a speech to a joint session of the Italian parliament—the first British monarch to do so.
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On Thursday, the couple will travel to Ravenna in the Emilia-Romagna region to participate in a ceremony commemorating the 80th anniversary of the city’s liberation from Nazi occupation by Allied forces during World War II.
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