An Italian publisher has produced a scaled-down replica of the massive petition written by English lords in 1530 to try to persuade the pope to let Henry VIII get a divorce.
The Venice-based publisher, Scrinium, was given unprecedented access to the Causa Anglica letter which has been kept in the Vatican's secret archive for almost 500 years.
Scrinium's replica will be unveiled at Rome's Palazzo della Cancellertia, the former papal chancellery, on June 23 - the anniversary of the eve of Henry's incoronation on June 24, 1509.
The company used the skills of Venetian glass-workers to reproduce the 85 seals on the letter.
It noted that the Vatican's copy of the letter is better preserved than the original kept in the Royal Archives at Kew, which is damaged and has no seals.
Pope Clement VII's negative response to the Lords' appeal led Henry to break from Rome so he could divorce Catherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn in the hope of having a male heir.
The Anglican Schism led to the dissolution of the monasteries and hundreds of years of religious strife.
During the presentation of the replica at the Palazzo della Cancelleria, the original parchment, two metres long and one metre wide, will be on view in its special glass case.
Henry VIII divorce letter reproduced
