There are several people alive that can personally attest to being eyewitnesses of the Vatican possessing Temple vessels, including the Menorah candelabra.
If you were the pope living in the 14th century and could verify this fact, would you not ask yourself how indeed such Jewish artifacts had come to your residence in the first place?
After some digging around (no pun intended), you would have found that your new Vatican residence was actually built over sections of Caesar’s Palace – the Vatican, including St. Peter’s Basilica, was constructed over Emperor Vespasian’s Roman palace approximately 200 years after the sacking of Rome in 455 AD. Indeed, there are excavations going on there right now, even as you read this magazine.
What this means is that the vandals and the Visigoths passed over, or simply didn’t find, the select treasures secreted away in that palace, and instead took with them the many items on public display in the Temple, located not far away.