In the country he rules with absolute power, Pope Francis has chosen for himself one of the worst views.
The pontiff's small suite of rooms in the Vatican's Santa Marta guest house looks out beyond the enclave's walls on to a small street and the rear of a petrol station.
By contrast, a retired Italian cardinal living nearby enjoys a top-floor apartment in an old building with a view out over the Vatican itself.
Documents leaked to reporters allege that a charitable foundation paid €200,000 (£140,000) to renovate the apartment that Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone is using as his retirement home.
The leaks reveal that the Pope has been unable to persuade many of his Vatican officials to follow his own frugal example.
The documents themselves come from the private records of a reform commission set up by the Pope four months into his reign in 2013.
The Vatican accuses two former commission members, 54-year-old Monsignor Lucio Angel Vallejo Balda and Italian laywoman Francesca Chaouqui, 33, of leaking the documents.
Over the weekend, the gendarmerie placed the pair under arrest. Ms Chaouqui has protested her innocence - "I am not a crow," she protested on Twitter.
Francesca Chaouqui and Monsignor Lucio Angel Vallejo Balda (file pic 2014)Image copyrightAFP
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Ms Chaouqui and Monsignor Vallejo Balda were detained at the weekend over the theft of papal documents
Two Italian journalists, Gianluigi Nuzzi and Emiliano Fittipaldi, received the leaked documents and have now published books about them.
Mr Nuzzi has made a habit of disclosing secret Vatican documents.
In 2012 he published His Holiness - a book based on records thought to have been supplied by Pope Benedict's butler. The documents depicted a church hierarchy weighed down by infighting. Mr Nuzzi finds that the current Pope struggles with the same bureaucracy.
"Pope Francis fills squares," he says, "but he is not much loved by all the high prelates. You can see that this in the book - in the letters and the documents. So when the Pope wants to carry out his reforms - they're slowed down. The bureaucracy at the Vatican is very powerful. It's able to block change."
Gianluigi Nuzzi and Emiliano Fittipaldi with their two books (composite image)Image copyrightEPA/AP
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Books by Gianluigi Nuzzi (L) and Emiliano Fittipaldi (R) are both published on Thursday
In his own book, titled Avaricia - or Greed - Emiliano Fittipaldi details episodes of misspending.
"The Vatican is still very far from what Francis wants the Church to be - a poor church for the poor," Mr Fittipaldi says.
"In fact, I write about a very rich Church that manages money in a very ambiguous way, very far from what Francis would like. The Pope is trying to succeed, but there's strong resistance to him.
"One thing is what the Pope and the media say, but behind him there is a Church that does not want to renounce its economic might and its handling of money. That's why the book is called Greed."
In his own words: Pope Francis on Vatican spending
Pope Francis addressing cardinals at the end of the synod on the family (25 October)Image copyrightReuters
"Without exaggerating we can say that a large part of our costs are out of control. That is a fact. Spending on staff has grown 30% in five years. This is not right.
"An official told me, 'But they come with a bill and we have to pay.' No, we don't pay. If something is done without a tender, without authorisation, it doesn't get paid ...
"Our suppliers must always be companies that guarantee honesty and offer fair market prices, for their products and services. And several of them do not guarantee this."
