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Vatican Radio
Broadcast Center

Lou Giorgetti

Second Anniversary of Opening of the
Vatican Radio Broadcast Center at
Santa Maria di Galeria
Scott 262-263 (1959)
On October 27, 1959, Vatican City issued a two-stamp set to celebrate the second anniversary of the opening of the Vatican Radio Broadcast Center, located in Santa Maria di Galeria, a community north-west of the Vatican and downtown Rome.

Vatican Radio was established in 1931 and began broadcasting on February 12, 1931, opening with a message from Pope Pius XI. Also in attendance at the opening were Guglielmo Marconi, who worked to establish the station, and Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, who would become Pope Pius XII in 1939.

Since its inception, Vatican Radio has been maintained by the Jesuit order. It was able to continue its operations throughout the turmoil of the 1930's and 1940's, including the rise of the Fascist regime in Italy and World War II. Following the war, Vatican Radio's services expanded, and by 1948 was broadcasting in 18 languages. Due to space constraints, the Holy See sought new quarters for the Radio's operations and acquired a 400-hectare space in Santa Maria di Galeria (by contrast, a space four times the size of the Vatican City state). In 1952, the Italian Republic granted the site "extraterritorial status". Construction began in 1954, and in 1957 the new broadcasting center was placed in operation.

In 2015, Pope Francis issued an apostolic letter which established the Secretariat for Communications in the Roman Curia. Vatican Radio was absorbed into the Secretariat as of January 1, 2017, ending the organization's 85 years as an independent operation.

Today, Vatican Radio offers programming in 47 languages. In addition to traditional radio broadcasts, its programs can also be accessed on the Internet.

Earlier this summer, Pope Leo XIV visited the Vatican Radio transmission site, and met with the employees working there. The visit came almost one year after Pope Francis established a commission to develop a large solar-panel array on the property. The plan is to deploy solar panels on the 1,060-acre site (about 11 miles northwest of Rome) near Vatican Radio's shortwave transmitters and transmission center.

In addition to the stamps shown at the top of the page, Vatican City has issued other stamps and philatelic items illustrating Vatican Radio. These include Scott C48 and C51 (from 1967, featuring images of the Vatican Radio towers and the Archangel Gabriel, similar to Scott 262-263), Scott 681 to 684 and the 1981 aerogramme A19 (celebrating the 50th anniversary of Vatican Radio), postcard P161 (from 2006 for the 75th anniversary of Vatican Radio) and Scott 1765 (from 2021 honoring the 90th anniversary of Vatican Radio and the 160th anniversary of the newspaper L'Osservatore Romano ).