A very special meeting took place in Rome on Wednesday. Pope Leo XIV hosted music icon Bob Dylan at his official residence, the Apostolic Palace. The brief get-together happened during the singer's Italian tour stop, Vatican News reported.
Dylan, 85, arrived wearing an almost entirely black outfit with a pulled up hoodie, gloves and an umbrella. This was quite a visual contrast next to the Chicago-born Pope in his full white vestments. Both icons originally come from the US Midwest.
Gifts exchanged
The two exchanged meaningful gifts during the brief meeting. Leo gave the Nobel laureate a rosary. In return, Dylan presented the Pope with a copy of his autobiography, Chronicles: Volume One.
The private audience happened just ahead of Dylan's planned Thursday performance at the Palazzo dello Sport, which is part of his Rough and Rowdy Ways tour across Italy.
“I hate you cause yer man-made and man-owned, an' man-handled,”Bob Dylan, quoted by Pope Leo XIV in the book Disarmed and Disarming: Peace Is a Gift
A history with the Popes
This was not Leo's first connection to Dylan's art. The Pope previously cited Dylan's unreleased 1963 anti-nuclear track, Go Away You Bomb, in the preface to a book named Disarmed and Disarming: Peace Is a Gift. The lyrics were discovered and auctioned in 2013, according to the New York Times.
This visit also marks Dylan's second encounter with a Roman Catholic pontiff. In 1997, he was invited to sing before Pope John Paul II and around 300,000 young people at the 23rd National Eucharistic Congress in Bologna, where he performed four tracks including Knockin' on Heaven's Door.
