VATICAN CITY (AP) — Firefighters on Saturday installed the top of the Sistine Chapel chimney that will signal to the world that a new pope has been elected, as the Vatican took measures to definitively end Benedict XVI's pontificate.

While construction workers prepared the interior of the frescoed Sistine Chapel for Tuesday's start of the conclave, officials elsewhere in the Apostolic Palace destroyed Benedict's fisherman's ring and the personal seals and stamps for official papers.

The act, coupled with Benedict's public resignation and pledge of obedience to the future pope, is designed to signal a definitive end of his papacy so there is no doubt in the church that a new pope is in charge.