Vatican workers have installed the simple stove in the Sistine Chapel where ballots will be burned during the upcoming conclave to elect a new pope.

In the jasmine-scented, tourist-thronged streets of Rome, a quiet drama unfolds behind closed doors. Cardinals, gathered to elect Pope Francis's successor, engage in a discreet dance of dinner parties,

At private dinners and at formal gatherings of cardinals, talk among church leaders of who will next lead the church has certainly already begun.