Talk:Swiss Guards

Does anyone know - Is the swiss guard the only protection the pope has, or is there any additional security? Jfeckstein 02:43, 6 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Removed ceremonial. The Swiss Guard is the pope's main bodyguard and so are not primarily ceremonial.

When visiting Rome in 1955, the priest we visited mentioned a time when 400 Swiss Guards died in battle. When did the limitation to 100 men occur?

JFeckstein: There is also the Vigilanza, or Vigilance Corps, the Vatican cops.

I, personally, am very very dubious on defining the Swiss Guard as a military; They really are at best an honor guard, and have no practical military capability at all. - Penta 20:05, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Agreed. More like a secret service type organization? Protection of the head of state is not nessecarially military. Nick Catalano (Talk) 12:21, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The Vigili Urbana or Corpo di Vigili are disbanded and re-established with alarming frenquency, the Swiss Guard once numbered in the thousands consisting of several regiments drawn from all over Switzerland. The current number is set due to Vatican security being guaranteed by both Italy (thanks to Mussolini) and Switzerland. While the guard is armed with medievel weaponary for its ceremonial duties, it does have access to small arms and other infantry weapons donated to it by other countries. And the troops themselves are trained by the Swiss military. The Italian Carabiniere provide the immediate back up force to the guard and are seen patrolling the more public areas of Vatican City.

Up till the 1930'2, the SG's had several thousand soldiers and other organizations also existed. --68.80.223.233 06:20, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

What happened in 1870?

When the Italian kingdom annexed what was left of the Papal States in 1870, what role, if any, did the Swiss Guard play? Michael Hardy 19:27, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Uniforms

Their uniforms are worth of mention I think. They were designed by Michelangelo.--Drozmight 11:30, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Unlikely--Vatican website says: "It is commonly thought that the uniform was designed by Michelangelo, but it would seem rather that he had nothing to do with it."

Date uniforms introduced? I changed this from 1915 to 1914 because National Geographic says 1914, and I can't find anything that says 1915.

Ahh... should there be something to debunk the misconception then? I'll add "It is widely believed that Michelangelo designed the uniforms still in use by the Swiss Guard today, however, according to the Vatican, it is likely he had nothing at all to do with it."--Drozmight 15:52, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Weapondry

I did some research on Google, and found that the Swiss Guards are armed with the Sig 75 9mm Pistol specifically. Any objection to adding this to the page where the Sig pistol is mentioned? Matt 10:15, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Tread lightly. I think expanding on their role in protecting the pope during a very volitile period (in the way of powerful weapons) is important and should be expanded on, but it should not be the focus of the article. Nick Catalano (Talk) 12:20, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- Couldn't tread much lighter than what I did :-) Matt 06:42, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  - Ahh. My mistake. You added it to the Sig page. not this page... my apologies... I thought it would be improper on the Swiss Guard page... Nick Catalano (Talk) 05:13, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)
    - No, I added the phrase "P 75" to this page, after the reference to them training with their issue Sig handguns. Just thought it might be useful to know what KIND of handguns were issued. I never thought to add it to the Sig page. Matt 09:00, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Official language

The page reports that German is the official language of the guard, and presents the oath in German. Besides the fact that it seems to me quite strange a police unit speaking a different language from the official one of its country, the oath is given in the guard language: this means that most of the guards speak in German, some in French, and a few in Italian. Would you please check this matter?--Panairjdde 09:07, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It is true that the official language of the Swiss Guard is German. More than half of the Swiss people have German as their native language, so it would be quite impractical to use one of the less common languages. Furthermore it is quite unrealistic that the Swiss Guard should speak the official language of the Vatican City, because that would be Latin. I assume that you meant the most commonly used language in their country: Italian. I think that the Guardians have to understand Italian at least, so that they can communicate with the other people in the Vatican City, but that's only speculation. 62.46.183.40

If you look at the Annual Report on the official website of the Swiss Guards, you will notice that they switch back-and-forth between the several languages with each page break. While each recruit takes the oath in his native tongue, I think it is safe to assume that they are in fact multi-lingual, as are most europeans. --StanZegel 22:06, 9 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The Swiss guard actually have to fluently speak at least 6 of the worlds main languages with four of these being - English, Italian, German, and French. (Vanessa Carter 30/10/05)

There is nothing about this in the conditions for admission, and I very much doubt that it is the case. It would be extremely hard to find 100 people in Switzerland who fit the condition of admission AND fluently speak 6 languages. Schutz 14:20, 23 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Estermann Murder Section

This section seems rather random. Should it have more preface and/or explanation within the paragraph? It seems like someone just copied the section from another article that had previously mentioned some issues that are unclear in this article. I don't know enough about the incident to revise it, but if someone else could fix it, I think the article would be better. Clarkefreak ∞ 02:08, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The Oath..

..is actually all German; there's not a single French or Italian word in it (OK, one or two are very obviously derived from Latin, but that's it, they're still German). Plus the translation of the part the recruits have to say is sort of faulty; "so wahr mir Gott und seine Heiligen helfen" means "may God and his saints help me".. 23:56, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Dates

In the article the Swiss Guard entered Vatican City on January 22nd, but according to the January 21st page, it happened on that date.

Moreover, we say the Swiss Guard started fighting in 15th century, but we only speak about 16th century or later events.

gala.martin