More than 150,000 people from all over the world have viewed Pope Francis's body as the Vatican makes the final preparations for his funeral today (Saturday), reports agencies.
The event will be attended by 50 heads of state and 10 monarchs.
St Peter's Basilica closed at 2.30am on Friday and reopened three hours later to accommodate the last of the huge crowds of mourners who had waited patiently to pay their respects to Francis, who died at the age of 88 on Monday after a stroke.
The basilica is scheduled to close at 7pm and the pope's coffin will be sealed at 8pm in a private ceremony attended by senior cardinals.
Many of the funeral guests, including the US president, Donald Trump, and his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, will arrive in Rome on Friday.
Trump and his wife, Melania, are due to arrive on Air Force One at Fiumicino airport at 10.50pm local time.
Joe Biden will also attend, a spokesperson for the former US president said on Friday. Biden met Francis on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Italy last June.
At least 130 foreign delegations will be heading to the Italian capital, including Argentina's president, Javier Milei, the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and the Prince of Wales.
Seated in the front row at the funeral will be leaders from Francis's home country of Argentina, with Italian leaders in the second row, and other heads of state and royals in the third.
The funeral requires a huge and complex security operation in the Vatican and Rome involving thousands of Italian police and military, as well the Vatican's Swiss Guards, the smallest army in the world. Soldiers in St Peter's Square have been equipped with guns that shoot down drones, while rooftop snipers and fighter jets are on standby.
Following Pope Francis's death, the next Pope will be chosen by the College of Cardinals, who will gather for a tradition known as the conclave.
There are currently 252 cardinals and while all can take part in the debate about who should be chosen, the voting age restriction means only the 135 who are under 80 can vote.
The conclave, which traditionally starts after a two-week mourning period, sees the College of Cardinals gather in the Vatican's Sistine Chapel to cast a series of votes to choose the next pope.
Cardinal Vincent Nichols will vote with more than 100 others, but almost missed out, as he is only a few months off his 80th birthday, the age limit for voting rights.
The Merseyside-born Archbishop of Westminster said he thought it would "pass me by" until he heard the Pope was seriously ill and thought: "Oh Lord, this is going to come my way."
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