New exhibit for Polish pope museum

A replica of the room at the Gemelli clinic in Rome where Pope John Paul II was treated after the assassination attempt on his life 35 years ago has opened at the St. John Paul Museum in Wadowice, southern Poland, the birthplace of the former Polish pontiff.

It is on view in a house close to the main premises of the museum. A gift from the Gemelli clinic, the new section contains a hospital bed with a mattress and linen bearing the clinic’s coat-of-arms, a bedside cabinet, a glass cabinet for medicines and a set of chairs. The core exhibition at the museum contains the gun from which Ali Agca fired at the pope and the blood-stained suit of the pontiff’s bodyguard, Francesco Pasanisi.

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There is also a photo exhibition documenting the assassination attempt on 13 May 1981. The Wadowice museum is located in a house in which the future pope’s family rented a two-room flat in 1919. It has attracted half a million visitors from 134 countries since it was given a thorough facelift two years ago.