Why did Emanuela and her family live in the Vatican City before her disappearance?
Netflix's newest true crime series, Vatican Girl: The Disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi, comes from the producers of Don't F**k With Cats, and seeks to uncover the nearly 40-year-old case of Emanuela Orlandi, who disappeared in 1983.
Emanuela Orlandi was 15 years old when she went missing inside the walls of the Vatican City, where she lived with her family. The four-part documentary series digs into the various theories surrounding her disappearance.
Over the years there have been various theories as to what happened to Emanuela, including links to the Italian Mafia, the Russian Mafia, and the KGB. However, one of the biggest theories explored within the documentary is that the Vatican had something to do with her disappearance. The Vatican has always denied any accusations of a cover-up and in 2019 they opened up two tombs in the Vatican cemetery after the family received a tip-off claiming Emanuela's remains could be found there. However, the tombs were found to be empty of human remains.
Whilst the documentary series covers the theory surrounding the Vatican, it doesn't really go into detail about why Emanuela's family lived there and what her parents did for work for the church. This is everything you need to know about the family set-up in the Vatican City.
Why did Emanuela and her family live in the Vatican City?
At the beginning of Vatican Girl: The Disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi, Emanuela's family explain they grew up in an apartment in the Vatican City.
The Vatican City is the smallest country in the world, with a population of 453 as of 2019. It's where the pope lives and is set within Rome. There is no hospital in the Vatican City and so you cannot technically be born a citizen of the country.
Emanuela's father Ercole Orlandi worked as envoy or office clerk of the Prefecture of the Pontifical House.
As part of working for the Vatican, the family lived in an apartment paid for by the Vatican. At the time they were some of the only children to be given Vatican citizenship.
As children the Orlandi siblings including Emanuela, her older brother Pietro and their three sisters would be able to run around the gardens of the Vatican.
Pietro told the Guardian in 2019: "The Vatican gardens were available to us as if it was our own back garden. We felt we were in the safest place in the world."
During their childhood the Orlandi siblings met Pope John Paul II and there are pictures of the family together with him.
Emanuela's father passed away in 2004 without knowing what happened to her, and her mother still lives in the apartment within the Vatican City and still holds onto hope they will find out what happened to Emanuela.
Vatican Girl: The Disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi is available on Netflix now.
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