Rev. Bob Simon, a priest from Moscow, Pennsylvania, became the talk of the virtual world after his LEGO replica of the Vatican became viral. He was able to build it without using any adhesive. The LEGO Vatican also comes with small versions of the Pope as well as that of Swiss guards and tourists who are taking photos of and with the Vatican using their smartphones and tabs. It also features a nun holding a selfie stick. To make it complete, Simon also included a version of himself in his masterpiece.
'I think there's about half a million pieces in it,' he said. 'I'm not sure. I think there are about 44,000 cobblestones of the square, 6,000 round bricks that make up the colonnade and, under the little cobblestones, there's 12,000 two-by-two tiles that are under there. I knew if I was going to build the Vatican, it had to be big!'
According to reports, Rev. Bob only used YouTube videos of the Vatican as well as an image from a book to come up with his masterpiece. Of course, it didn't take overnight to build this replica. In fact, it took 10 months for Rev. Bob to finish the whole thing. He started building it on September of 2014.
'It was daunting,' Bob said. 'It was an exercise in patience, and I was thrilled with the way everything came out. 'I'm also not really great at math, so I was daunted by that as well,' he added.
However, the idea to build a LEGO Vatican was a long-time dream. It was a project he wished to fulfil since he was in the seventh grade - more than 35 years in the making. He had had attempts before, but according to him, it was nothing like the real one.
When asked why he chose to feature the Vatican, Rev Bob said in his interview with the USA Today: 'I wanted to show a lot of diversity. St. Peters Square is one of those places where people from all over the world come together.'
The LEGO Vatican is now in display at The Franklin Institute in Philadelphia and is part of an exhibition on the history of the Vatican.
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