The Queen has arrived in Italy for her first overseas visit in more than two years, a day-long trip that will see her meet Pope Francis for the first time.

Wearing lilac and looking relaxed, the Queen landed at Ciampino airport with the Duke of Edinburgh and was driven to the presidential palace of the Italian head of state, Giorgio Napolitano. The two heads of state are having a private lunch at the Quirinale before her private audience with the pope later on Thursday.

The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh will be received by the 77-year-old pope in a papal study rather than the lavish apostolic palace where Francis met Barack Obama last week. On this occasion, the Queen is not expected to wear black or a mantilla (lace veil).

It is the Queen's first foreign trip since she went to Australia in 2011, and the first meeting between the supreme governor of the Church of England and the head of the Roman Catholic church since 2010, when the then pope Benedict XVI made a state visit to Britain.

The Queen did not attend his Argentinian successor's inauguration last March, and was instead represented by the Duke of Gloucester. But she has a long history of papal meetings, having made her first visit to the Vatican as Princess Elizabeth in 1951, where she was received by Pius XII, and presided over an unprecedented thaw in relations between the UK and Holy See.

During her reign, the Queen has been received by a pope three times at the Vatican: by John XXIII in 1961, and by John Paul II in 1980 and again in 2000. The first encounter with the Polish pope marked the first time a British monarch had made a state visit to the Vatican, a landmark gesture reciprocated two years later when the pontiff made a pastoral visit to the UK.

The Queen's meeting with Francis, therefore, will be her seventh with a leader of the world's 1.2 billion Roman Catholics.

Nigel Baker, Britain's ambassador to the Holy See, described the visit as a "reaffirmation" of the ties between the Holy See and the UK, noting that it was taking place in the centenary year of the formal re-establishment of diplomatic relations between the two, which occurred in 1914.

However, the visit is not without its potential tensions. "Thursday's meeting comes at a time when, on the surface, relations between the Catholic church and the Church of England are at an all-time high. But dig a little deeper and issues arise," said Dr Rebecca Rist, papal expert from the University of Reading, who singled out the C of E's ordination of female priests and push for female bishops.

Another issue that some say could set the two heads of state on a collision course is the status of the Falkland Islands, the British territory in the South Atlantic over which Britain and Argentina went to war in 1982.

As cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, archbishop of Buenos Aires, Francis spoke out about the ongoing row in blunt terms in 2012, paying tribute to Argentine soldiers who had died in the conflict and accusing Britain of having "usurped" the islands.

But since becoming pope he has steered clear of such proclamations and diplomatic observers expect that approach to continue. "The Vatican has been very clear with us, including in the last week and at a very senior level, that that longstanding neutrality on the [Falklands] issue remains in force," said Baker.

Although the papal audience is likely to dominate the headlines, the Queen is in Rome at the invitation of the Italian president, Napolitano. The two veteran heads of state were supposed to see each other last spring before the widely respected former communist was due to finish his seven-year mandate, but the Queen had to cancel because of ill health. But as Napolitano was re-elected for a surprise second term, the two – who have already met four times in their current capacities – have another chance to catch up.

Napolitano, who is 88, holds the monarch in high regard, using a dinner in 2012 at the British ambassador's residence in Rome to praise her and express gratitude for the royal family's support for the Italian resistance movement during the second world war. The Queen acceded to the throne in 1952.