As the Vatican prepares to mark the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death with the first ever full-length performance of one of his plays, the Globe Theatre’s Hamlet, on its territory, Britain’s Ambassador to the Holy See, Nigel Baker, has recalled a faux pas involving a priceless First Folio.In November 1964 Pope Paul VI attended a performance at Palazzo Pio by the Royal Shakespeare Company. After the show the players produced the RSC’s own copy of the First Folio for His Holiness to bless. To the shock of those assembled, he graciously accepted the kind “gift” for the Apostolic Library.Writing in the Vatican’s daily newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, the ambassador surmises that his predecessor of the time, Sir Peter Scarlett, must have em