The details of Pope Francis’ final resting place have been revealed, as some 400,000 mourners turned out for his Funeral in Rome on Saturday.

The Argentine pontiff, who died on Easter Monday, aged 88, wanted his grave to be within the church of Santa Maria Maggiore, four miles from the Vatican, and which is dedicated to the Virgin Mary.

His will said he wanted it to be ‘in the earth’ and with just a simple tombstone carrying his name in Latin, Franciscus and a black cross for decoration.

As the converted Popemobile hearse wound its way past the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, the Roman Forum and the Colosseum, thousands turned out to line the streets.

For one last time Pope Francis made his way from the Vatican, symbolically crossing the River Tiber, as he made the 30-minute journey to the church in the Esquilino district.

In his will, Pope Francis specifically asked that his final resting place be ‘in the niche of the side nave between the Cappella Paolina and the Capella Sforza’.

Above his is the marble memorial plaque of Paul V, who died in 1621 and who was Pope at the time of the Gunpowder Plot.

The Cappella Paolina holds the Salus Populi Romani icon, which according to tradition was painted by St Luke and shows the Virgin Mary holding the baby Christ, and which was also brought to the altar for his funeral yesterday.

Before each international trip Pope Francis would visit the chapel and spend time in quiet prayer and he is said to have visited the Basilica 100 times in 2023 alone.

Pope Francis is not the first Pope to be buried in Santa Maria Maggiore but he is the first to be buried outside the Vatican in more than 100 years.

The last Pope not to be buried in the traditional ‘papal cemetery’ under St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican was Leo XIII, who lies in in St John the Lateran church.

Several other Popes are buried at Santa Maria Maggiore and the last to be laid to rest there was Pope Clement IX who died in 1669.

In his autobiography Pope Francis wrote: ‘I’ve always had a great devotion to Santa Maria Maggiore, even before I became pope.’

He visited the church more than 120 times and returned there on his way back from the Gemelli hospital on March 23, after his 38-day stay, to lay flowers and he was there on April 12 to pray one final time.

The Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore is particularly significant to Catholic faithful this year as Pope Francis had decaled 2025 to be a Jubilee year.

According to tradition those that pass through the Basilica’s Porta Santa (Holy Door) on the left-hand side of the building, will have ‘redemption and forgiveness.’

Santa Maria Maggiore means St Mary Major in Italian, and the church is a spectacular building with a ceiling covered in gold, brought back by from the Americas by the explorer Christoper Colombus.

It is one of the oldest in the city of Rome and dates to AD358, where according to tradition the Virgin Mary told Pope Liberius in a dream to build a church where snow would fall.

Earlier on Saturday hundreds of thousands of mourners and world leaders including Donald Trump packed St Peter’s Square today for the funeral of Pope Francis.

Some waited overnight to get a seat for the ceremony, with final estimates stating some 400,000 people packed into the square and surrounding streets.

The crowds, packed with young people, applauded as the pope’s coffin was carried out of St Peter’s Basilica by white gloved pallbearers, accompanied by more than 200 red-robed cardinals.

Francis was ‘a pope among the people, with an open heart’, who strove for a more compassionate, open-minded Catholic Church, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re said in his funeral homily.

There was applause as he hailed the pope’s ‘conviction that the Church is a home for all, a home with its doors always open’.

Guests included Argentina’s President Javier Milei and Britain’s Prince William as well as Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy – who met with Trump shortly beforehand, their first encounter since February’s Oval Office clash.

Prince William was also seen arriving on Saturday, attending on behalf of King Charles III. His appearance continues a tradition set in 2005 when the then-Prince of Wales attended the funeral of Pope John Paul II on behalf of Queen Elizabeth II.

The British delegation included Sir Keir Starmer and his wife, as well as Foreign Secretary, David Lammy.

Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, dean of the College of Cardinals, led the service, addressing thousands gathered in St Peter’s Square.

But it will be prisoners and migrants who ultimately usher the pope into the basilica where he will be buried, reflecting his priorities as head of the Catholic Church.

Francis is breaking with tradition and will be buried in the St. Mary Major Basilica, where a simple underground tomb awaits him with just his name: Franciscus. 

Pope Francis died on Monday, aged 88, from a stroke and irreversible heart failure in his beloved Casa Santa Marta residence.

In his final hours, he had joined crowds for an Easter Sunday blessing at St Peter’s Square. The pontiff had only recently been discharged from hospital, after five weeks of treatment for an infection that led to double pneumonia.

Hundreds of thousands of people turned out in St Peter’s Square, joining world leaders and special guests to mourn and formally mark Francis’ passing.

Bells tolled as the last of leaders from more than 150 countries took their places on Saturday.

The massive crowd was largely silent, watching proceedings on several large screens around the square.

Applause then rang out at the start of the ceremony as 14 white-gloved pallbearers carried the coffin, inlaid with a large cross, out of St. Peter’s Basilica and into the square.

The pope’s casket was placed on a carpet in front of the altar, with the book of gospels laid on top, as the Vatican choirs sang. 

Choirs sang Latin hymns and prayers were recited in various languages, including Italian, Spanish, Chinese, Portuguese and Arabic, reflecting the global reach of the 1.4-billion-member Roman Catholic Church.

Massed ranks of red-robed cardinals sat to one side of the altar, facing rows of black-suited world leaders on the other side. 

In front of them were hundreds of priests in white vestments and then thousands of ordinary mourners.

‘I’m touched by how many people are here. It’s beautiful to see all these nationalities together,’ said Jeremie Metais, 29, from Grenoble, France, ahead of the ceremony.

‘It’s a bit like the centre of the world today.’

‘We want to say goodbye because he (was a) living saint, very humble and simple,’ said Mary James, a Franciscan nun, who had stayed up overnight to guarantee a good place. 

‘You can feel a lot of energy, yes, a little bit of despair because we are tired, but ultimately we want to come and say ‘thank you’, thanks to Pope Francis for all he did for his church,’ said Eduardo Valencia, visiting from Mexico.

The crowd broke into applause when Italian Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re spoke of Francis’ care for immigrants, his constant pleas for peace, the need for negotiations to end wars and the importance of the climate.

‘Rich in human warmth and deeply sensitive to today’s challenges, Pope Francis truly shared the anxieties, sufferings and hopes of this time,’ Re said.

The open-air ceremony, which will be celebrated by 220 cardinals, 750 bishops and more than 4,000 other priests, was due to last 90 minutes.

Among the other heads of state who flew into Rome were the presidents of Argentina, France, Gabon, Germany, the Philippines and Poland, together with the prime ministers of Britain and New Zealand, and many royals, including the king and queen of Spain. 

The British Government delegation includes Sir Keir Starmer and his wife, Victoria, as well as Foreign Secretary David Lammy.

Prince William is also in attendance to represent King Charles III.

Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky arrived on Saturday morning and will attend with his wife Olena Zelenska, following uncertainty over where he could, after his travel plans were disrupted by air strikes in Kyiv.

A spokesperson said Zelenskyy had met with Trump in Rome, after the White House said Kyiv and Moscow were ‘very close to a deal’. 

‘The meeting took place and is already over,’ Zelenskyy’s spokesman Sergiy Nykyforov told journalists without elaborating. 

Trump also shook hands with EU chief Ursula von der Leyen at the funeral.

Former U.S. president Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, were also pictured arriving on Saturday, joining president Trump and his wife from the United States.

A seating order was published on the eve of the funeral, showing Francis’s birth country of Argentina, then Italy, take precedence.

Thereafter, leaders are seated ‘in alphabetical order’ in French – considered the language of diplomacy.

Ireland’s delegation comes ahead of both Prince William and the British Government delegation in the official order of precedence, because it is led by head of state Mr Higgins.

Haakon, the Crown Prince of Norway, and William follow soon after in a category set aside for crown princes.

The pope shunned much of the pomp and privilege usually associated with the papacy and will carry that desire for greater simplicity into his funeral, having rewritten the elaborate, book-long funeral rites used previously.

Francis also opted to forego a centuries-old practice of burying popes in three interlocking caskets made of cypress, lead and oak. Instead, he has been placed in a single, zinc-lined wooden coffin, which was sealed closed overnight.

The funeral sets off the first of nine days of official Vatican mourning for Francis, who took over following the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI in 2013.

After the mourning, cardinals will gather for the conclave to elect a new pope to lead the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics.

The Pope will be ushered into his final resting place by prisoners and migrants – in a nod to his focus on the needy and the poor during his time as leader of the Catholic church.

Scaffolding has been erected to provide international media with the best vantage points overlooking St Peter’s Square while there is a strong Italian police presence managing numbers and security.

The complex security operation, estimated to cost five million Euros (£4.3m), comprises 8,000 security staff members, including 2,000 uniformed police officers and 1,400 plainclothes officers. 

The Vatican has a small ceremonial army of Swiss Guards and there is also the Vatican Security Service, the Pope’s bodyguards.

But the main security will be provided by the Italian government and there will be thousands of police and soldiers in and around the Vatican and along the four-mile route from St Peter’s to the Santa Maria Maggiore Basilica where Francis will be buried.

Anti-drone technology is being deployed to jam any UAVs that attempt to film proceedings from above. 

The operation also includes special forces sharp-shooters on rooftops, undercover units, security teams on horseback, helicopter patrols and boats on the nearby River Tiber. 

Following the funeral, Francis will be taken through the streets of Rome in a break with tradition as he is carried to his final, unconventional resting place. 

Rather than in the Vatican, where popes are typically buried, Francis will be laid to rest in the church of Santa Maria Maggiore in the centre of Rome, where he regularly prayed before and after trips overseas.

Francis’ simple coffin will be entombed in an alcove that had previously been used to store candlestick holders. Per his request, it will not be decorated and will be inscribed only with his papal name in Latin, Franciscus.

It is another departure from tradition for the liberal Pope, who held progressive views on the rights of immigrants and LGBT rights, as well as climate change and the ethics of modern technology such as social media and artificial intelligence.

The last pope who asked to be buried outside of the Vatican was Pope Leo XIII, who died in 1903. 

And while today marks the first of nine days of mourning, speculation regarding the next pope is likely to begin shortly after the funeral.

Conclave, the secret meeting of cardinals to elect Francis’s successor, is thought likely to begin on May 5.

One Vatican expert has said she thinks it is ‘totally unpredictable’ at this point as to who the next pope might be.

UK theologian Professor Anna Rowlands said: ‘That’s partly because the process is genuinely both secret, so it happens in private, but also because the make-up of this College of Cardinals is very different from anyone that’s been here to elect a pope before.

‘It’s going to be, I think, a surprise conclave, that is totally unpredictable at this point, but I think will produce, potentially, a really interesting candidate who possibly none of us will know.’

Irish-born Cardinal Kevin Farrell – the camerlengo or senior Vatican official – has been responsible for carrying out the administrative and financial duties of the Holy See until a new pope takes over.

He had the role of announcing the Pope’s death on Easter Monday, coordinating meetings with the cardinals ahead of conclave and ensuring the Sistine Chapel is ready to accommodate them when that process begins in the coming weeks.