Her name has been floated before for this position — and she’s also been mentioned as a contender to the serve at the Court of St. James, as her grandfather did — but there seems to be new life in this old story:

A longtime John Kerry supporter is about to land the prized position of U.S. ambassador to Italy, and Caroline Kennedy may join him nearby as ambassador to the Vatican, an Italian news magazine has claimed.

In an April 2 article in Panorama, journalist Carlo Rossella predicted that 60-year-old David Thorne, a donor to the Obama campaign and brother-in-law of former presidential candidate John Kerry, will be given the post, per the request of Kerry himself.

And in a report that will drop like a bombshell among Vatican watchers, Rosella also asserted that Caroline Kennedy – her own hopes to rise to the U.S. Senate dashed for now – has been suggested as the Obama administration’s ambassador to the Holy See.

It’s an ironic tangle of State Department, campaign and even marriage connections that only adds fuel to speculation over who will represent the United States in two of the State Department’s most high-profile posts.

Thorne, a founder of Adviser Investments, is a longtime close friend of Kerry, having attended college and served in the Vietnam War with the now-Massachusetts senator. Even after Kerry divorced Thorne’s sister in 1988, the two men remained close.

Describing him as “elegant,” and “very sociable,” Rosella wrote that, like Kerry, Thorne “has always loved ‘beautiful people,’ the ‘bella vita’, European taste.”

After being passed over in favor of Sen. Hillary Clinton for the position of Secretary of State, Rosella wrote, Kerry asked two favors of President Obama: first, to name Thorne as the State Department’s ambassador in Rome. Second, Kerry asked that Kennedy – herself aspiring to Clinton’s vacated Senate seat – be made the administration’s Vatican ambassador.

After a short and heavily-criticized attempt to win the appointment to the Senate, Kennedy withdrew her name “for personal reasons” from New York Governor David Patterson’s consideration.

At the time, Kerry said while he was sorry she withdrew, he supported her decision and had been in contact with her.

“I think she really was put in a very difficult position, almost impossible one,” Kerry said, “but she’ll go on to do terrific things.”

Of course, whether Kerry was alluding to a State Department post at Vatican City is up for speculation, and Rosella did not offer further details.

UPDATE: This report in the Washington Times indicates several candidates have already been rejected by the Vatican. This could get interesting. Stay tuned.