#SHOWBIZ: Pope receives black-clad Bob Dylan

VATICAN CITY: Pope Leo XIV on Wednesday received Bob Dylan at the Vatican, where the US folk music legend wore a black hooded sweater.

The 85-year-old singer-songwriter, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, is currently in Italy on tour.

A report on the official Vatican News website said the meeting was "brief, consisting of greetings and a few lighthearted exchanges".

The pope gave Dylan a rosary, while the singer gifted the leader of the world's 1.4 billion Catholics his autobiography, the report said.

Leo, the first US pope, quoted a Bob Dylan lyric in the preface to a book about disarmament published earlier this year, according to Vatican News.

Leo, 71, has taken strongly anti-war positions and clashed with US President Donald Trump following his criticism of the Middle East war.

Leo is not the first pope Dylan has met.

He sang at a prayer vigil for young people in Bologna in 1997, hosted by John Paul II.

Dylan, who released his first album in 1963, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2016.