When a pope lands in Madrid for the first time in fifteen years, it's not just a religious ceremony - it's a spectacle of power, protocol and symbols. The visit of Pope Leo XIV to the Spanish capital lasted several days and ended with a reception at the "Santiago Bernabeu" stadium before more than 80,000 people - a number many political rallies in the Balkans would dream of.

The Spanish royal family appeared in full: King Felipe VI, Queen Letizia, crown princess Leonor, the infanta Sofia and former queen Sofia. It was Queen Letizia who made a gesture rarely seen - she knelt on her left knee before the pope, an exception to the usual protocol between heads of state. In the Balkans we know well how much weight a symbolic bow carries; when and where you make it says more than any speech.

For young Leonor and her sister Sofia, this was the first formal curtsy before a foreign head, performed according to strict Vatican etiquette. Behind those bows stands a whole machinery of training and rehearsals - royal children don't improvise, they practise for years for a moment that lasts seconds.

The biggest record belongs to former queen Sofia. With her meeting with Leo XIV, she became the first Spanish queen to have met eight popes in her lifetime - from Pius XII, whom she met even before she married, to today's pontiff. Eight popes, one woman, and a whole century of history packed into a single handshake.

There were quiet symbols too, that few noticed. In the royal palace, for the first time in decades, the tapestries "Acts of the Apostles" were on display, made from Raphael's drawings, once commissioned by Pope Leo X for the Sistine Chapel. A pope named Leo comes to view art commissioned by another pope of the same name - history plays its own games with the dates.

The visit continues to Barcelona and the "Sagrada Familia" basilica, and ends on Tenerife in the company of King Felipe VI. Behind all the photographs and bows remains a question every state has asked itself for centuries: where does faith end and politics begin - and whether they were ever two different things at all.