History
The pharmacy was founded in 1874, at the height of the "Roman Question", when Cardinal Secretary of State Giacomo Antonelli asked Eusebio Ludvig Fronmen, a Fatebenefratelli monk, who ran a nearby pharmacy, to take charge of supplying medicines for the pope and cardinals residing in the Vatican. Popes had been confined to the Vatican since an 1870 dispute with the Italian government, when Rome was annexed into the Kingdom of Italy.
The pharmacy remained only a storeroom until 1892, when a permanent office was established to offer health care services to the pope, cardinals, and bishops of the Vatican. In 1917, the pharmacy was moved to St. Anne's Gate, closer to the main entrance of the Vatican. At the time, the Vatican pharmacy was immensely popular for offering medicines which were otherwise unobtainable within Rome. Even today, due to the complicated bureaucratic drug approval process of the Italian government, the pharmacy often has medicines months to years before Italian pharmacies.
After the Lateran treaties of 1929, the pharmacy was moved to its current location in Palazzo Belvedere, behind the Vatican central post office and across from the Vatican supermarket. Unlike Italian pharmacies, the Vatican Pharmacy will fill foreign prescriptions.
Read more about this topic: Vatican Pharmacy
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