«Yesterday morning I went to the Sistine Chapel to vote quietly. I would never have imagined what was about to happen»: these were the words of the newly elected John Paul I, in his first Angelus on Sunday, 27 August 1978, a pope for only 24 hours. Until the day before, he was "only" Cardinal Albino Luciani, Patriarch of Venice.

The election took place on 26 August, concluding with only 4 ballots the conclave that had opened the day before, following the death of Paul VI. The first post-council conclave was also the most numerous, with 111 cardinals, excluding the 3 absent and (for the first time) those over eighty. So numerous that for the first time in the Sistine Chapel, the usual little thrones surmounted by canopies could not be set up, which were then lowered in homage, except obviously for that of the elected. Excluded due to age were also the dean Carlo Confalonieri and the vice-dean Paolo Marella; the functions were carried out by Cardinal Jean-Marie Villot.

«As soon as the danger began for me», continues the account of the newly elected in his first Angelus, «the two colleagues who were near me whispered words of courage. (...) Then it was about the name, because they also ask what name you want to take and I had thought little about it». As is known, he chose the unprecedented double name in homage to the two immediate predecessors: John Paul. Not "the first", not yet: the numeral is not adopted as long as there is only one pope with a certain name (see the case of Francis or, going further back, Lando, Zachary, and others, including naturally Peter). Yet in announcing the Habemus papam, the protodeacon Pericle Felici said: «Ioannis Pauli primi». And in fact, John Paul remained technically "without a number" for a short time, the time of his very brief pontificate. Less than two months later came a new pope, again a John Paul. It was again Felici who announced the election of Wojtyla «qui sibi nomen imposuit Ioannis Pauli», but he did not add «secundi», which in that case was needed: an oversight perhaps due to the dismay of that second and unexpected Habemus papam.