Noble Guard (Vatican) of Hereditary Standard-Bearer, who was responsible for carrying the standard of the Catholic Church. After 1870, the Noble Guard, now reduced to a force of fewer than 70 men, performed mainly ceremonial duties as an honor guard. Guardsmen most commonly appeared in public when the pope presided over ceremonies in Saint Peter's Basilica. When the pope was carried in the sedia gestatoria, Noble Guards walked alongside the papal chair. During the hours reserved for papal audiences, guardsmen also stood in the antechamber of the papal apartments and, on formal occasions, on either side of the papal throne. During the Second
Ekaterina Sedia currently teaches plant ecology and botany at Stockton College and lives with her husband Christopher Sedia and their cats. In her spare time, she blogs about fashion, food, cats, books, television, and feminism. Ekaterina Sedia attended Moscow State University. She then moved to Boston and worked at MIT’s department of brain and cognitive sciences as a research assistant. After that she moved to New Jersey and went to graduate school at Rutgers University-Camden, which is where she got her degree in ecology and evolution in 2001. Today she works at Stockton University teaching plant ecology and evolution. In this story