The Room of Tears is the sacristy beside the Sistine Chapel where a newly elected pope goes to be robed. In its practical preparations for a successor, and in a dream in which the late Pope vanishes through its door, the chamber joins the public rite of election to the private burden of grief and uncertainty.

Setting and Preparation

The chamber is small, with a low vaulted ceiling and plain whitewashed walls. Its crowded furnishings include a table, three chairs, a couch, and a throne that will be carried out for the newly elected pope to receive the cardinal-electors’ obeisance. A clothes rail holds three white papal cassocks—small, medium, and large—wrapped in cellophane, along with three rochets and three mozzettas. Boxes contain papal shoes in assorted sizes.

Before the conclave, Jacopo Baldassare Lomeli examines a pair of plain red Morocco-leather slip-ons, still stuffed with tissue paper. He recalls that Pope John XXIII was too large for the biggest cassock: its front had to be buttoned and its back seam split, and the tailor reportedly sewed him into it. Lomeli returns the shoes to their box and crosses himself, praying for whoever will be called to wear them. The prepared garments and shoes make the room a staging place for an office whose next occupant remains unknown.

The Election’s Ritual Threshold

The Room of Tears stands just beyond a door to the left of the altar. The newly elected pope is expected to enter it immediately after the election and emerge robed for the formal reception of the electors. Its modest, crowded interior contrasts with the authority of the throne waiting inside and the ceremonial role awaiting its wearer.

The chamber is also adjacent to the machinery of the conclave. On leaving it, Lomeli and his companions return along the carpeted aisle and pass the paired stoves used for burning ballots and producing the black or white smoke that announces the result. The Room of Tears is therefore part of a sequence that moves from secret voting to the visible change of a man’s status: the closed chamber prepares the person who will appear as pope.

A Dream of Departure

The room acquires a more unsettling meaning in Lomeli’s dream. Asleep in his room, he imagines himself in the Sistine Chapel while the late Pope prays at the altar. Each time Lomeli tries to approach, the old man moves farther away. He eventually reaches the sacristy door, turns to smile at Lomeli, opens the door to the Room of Tears, and disappears from view.

Lomeli wakes with a cry and retains only the image of the late Pope plunging from sight; the dream’s other images dissolve as he tries to remember them. In this private vision, the Room of Tears is no longer simply where the next pope will be dressed. Its doorway marks the point at which the dead Pope becomes unreachable, countering the conclave’s preparations for succession with Lomeli’s unresolved sense of loss.