From spartan surroundings to the lap of luxury

THE conclave will be the most physically comfortable in history. For centuries, the cardinals - almost all men over 60 years old - had to sleep on iron cots scattered in small rooms near the Sistine Chapel, off the Vatican Museum.

Some rated small offices with windows. Others slept in very grand, but windowless, rooms with 40-foot ceilings decorated with murals by masters such as Raphael or paintings by Goya.

In 1958, in the conclave that elected Pope John XXIII, some cardinals had only curtains for privacy around their iron beds in hallways. Others had cots under stairways.