St Peter's Square was filled as usual with visitors today, but eyes were fixed not on the massive basilica but on a row of small windows behind which people feared Pope John Paul lay dying.
Some stood in silent contemplation, gazing up at the Pope's apartments from where he regularly blesses the crowds.
One or two Roman Catholics knelt in prayer on the square's cobblestones. Many read from prayer books, clutching rosaries.
Many tourists who had set out to visit Rome and the Vatican early in the morning were unaware of just how severe the Pope's condition had become and went sightseeing as normal.
But through the day a growing number of Italians and foreign nationals arrived after learning the Pope's health was failing and he had been given the "Holy Viaticum" communion, reserved for those near death.
A briefing by the Pope's spokesman saying he was conscious and lucid was taken by some to mean their prayers had been answered.
"It's certainly good news," said Catia Ceccarelli, a Roman housewife and mother who said she rushed to the Vatican when she woke to hear the news the Pope could be dying.
"We want this Pope to get better. We have never thought of another Pope that might follow him, he is so well loved," she said, a rosary in hand. "We are praying for a miracle."
Two Polish nuns read a prayer for God's mercy as they looked up at the apartment of their countryman.
Umberto Tari, a lawyer from Bari in southern Italy said: "This is a Pope who has always reached out to other religions for peace.
"He overcame the barrier between the West and the Soviet Union. The (Berlin) Wall was there to stop people talking. He was the Pope who spoke to people and said it is only through words that we can solve the world's problems."