Bob Dylan met Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican's Apostolic Palace dressed head to toe in black, with his hood up and his gloves on, according to the Daily Mail.
The 85-year-old singer-songwriter wore a black coat, black gloves and a black hooded sweatshirt for the private audience. The 71-year-old pontiff wore his customary white cassock.
The Vatican described the meeting as brief, consisting of greetings and a few lighthearted exchanges. Leo gave Dylan a rosary, and Dylan presented the pope with a copy of his autobiography, "Chronicles: Volume One."
Jesuit priest Antonio Spadaro, a and Vatican official known for building ties with the entertainment world, said on Instagram that he had helped arrange the visit. "It was hard not to feel the emotion of being part of an encounter that had a real sense of history about it," he wrote.
The Vatican's newspaper said Leo had "received in private audience Mr Robert Allen Zimmerman," using Dylan's birth name. Dylan was born in Duluth, Minnesota, not far from the Chicago-born pope's Midwestern roots.
Leo is a known Dylan fan. In the preface to his book "Disarmed and Disarming: Peace Is a Gift," he quoted Dylan's unrecorded 1963 anti-nuclear song "Go Away You Bomb."
Dylan, a Nobel laureate in literature, made the visit during a break in the Italian leg of his "Rough and Rowdy Ways" tour. The tour includes a concert at Rome's Palazzo dello Sport, along with stops in Milan and Bologna.
The meeting came weeks after Leo underwent lung surgery at Rome's Gemelli hospital on Oct. 13. Surgeons removed the lower lobe of his right lung, and tests confirmed adenocarcinoma, a common form of lung cancer.
The Vatican later said the cancer was localized and that no further treatment was needed. Leo has since resumed his schedule, and the Vatican has confirmed his planned trip to Uruguay, Argentina and Peru.
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