BY Ian Dunn | April 3 | 
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Pope and Queen meet for the first time
The Queen met Pope Francis this afternoon for the first time during a one-day visit to Rome.
The Queen met Pope Francis this afternoon for the first time during a one-day visit to Rome.
The meeting in the Vatican was as a private one that lasted around 20 minutes. They exchanged gifts with the Pope giving the Queen a gift for Prince George: an orb of lapis lazuli with the Cross of St Edward the Confessor. In return the Queen presented the Holy Father with a gift basket containing ‘honey, juices, venison and whisky.’
Earlier the Queen and Prince Philip had lunch with the Italian President, Giorgio Napolitano, and his wife Clio at the Quirinal Palace. It is the Queen’s first foreign trip since her visit to Australia in 2011.
The Queen and Prince Philip had tea with the Pope in a suite of rooms in the Pope Paul VI Audience Hall, close to the Casa Santa Marta, the guest house in the Vatican where the Pope has chosen to live.
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