If you've ever been to Rome or passed through the Vatican area, you've probably seen that calendar. Twelve photos. Twelve young faces with clerical collars. The famous Calendario Romano, one of the... remembrances One of the city's best-selling calendars, popularly known as the "hot priests" calendar. What you may not know is that the most famous face on the cover, for over twenty years, never belonged to a priest.
Giovanni Galizia He is 39 years old and works as a flight attendant instructor. This week, in an interview with the Italian newspaper... La RepubblicaHe revealed what many may have already suspected. "I was never a priest. I repeat: I never had a vocation," he stated.
How it all began
The story dates back to 2004 in Palermo, during a chance encounter with photographer Piero Pazzi, creator of... Roman calendar"We chatted for a while, and at one point he asked me if I'd like to participate. It was a joke; he already had all the material ready," Galizia told [the source]. La RepubblicaIt was Pazzi himself who placed the white collar traditionally worn by clergymen in the instructor's hands, and took the picture that would grace magazine covers for more than two decades.
He is not alone.
Galizia believes that others photographed in the calendar are also not members of the Catholic Church. "At least one more, for sure. Maybe he's not even Italian," he stated. Photographer Piero Pazzi, in turn, told the AP news agency that at least a third of those photographed in the 2027 edition are indeed priests, without giving further details about the others.
Nothing sensual, he assures.
When questioned about the appeal of the calendar, Galizia said she saw nothing seductive in her own image. “I see a close-up, there’s nothing sensual about it. No flirting. It’s just a pretty photo, of a clean face. An aesthetically pleasing shot. A beautiful, symmetrical, pleasant face,” she described.
Giovanni Galizia graces the cover of Rome's "handsome priests" calendar on February 25, 2013, days before Pope Benedict XVI left office | Photo: Oli Scarff/Getty Images
The experience, however, wasn't always a laughing matter. The instructor recounted that a Vatican news website used his photo to illustrate a report about a priest involved in drug trafficking. “I had to sue to get them to remove it. I can still hear my mother laughing,” he told La Repubblica.
When the reporter joked that he “never ages” in photos after more than twenty years on the cover, Galizia replied humorously: “On the contrary, time is democratic. It passes for everyone. I'm left with the memory of a good joke. A click. A few seconds.”
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