When did the Vatican become an independent city-state?
Vatican City
Vatican City State, created in 1929 by the Lateran Pacts, provides the Holy See with a temporal jurisdiction and independence within a small territory. It is distinct from the Holy See. The state can thus be deemed a significant but not essential instrument of the Holy See. The Holy See itself has existed continuously as a juridical entity since Roman Imperial times and has been internationally recognized as a powerful and independent sovereign entity since Late Antiquity to the present, without interruption even at times when it was deprived of territory (e.g. 1870 to 1929). The Holy See has the oldest active continuous diplomatic service in the world, dating back to at least AD 325 with its legation to the Council of Nicea.
Vaticanology
Vaticanology is term coined in the 20th century to describe the field of journalism and research studying and reporting about how the Holy See and the Roman Catholic Church operate. It is named after the Vatican City, the Holy See's sovereign territory enclaved with in Rome, Italy. Particular emphasis tend to be placed on the selection and appointment mechanisms by which the Church's leadership emerges.
Geography of Vatican City
The geography of Vatican City is unique due to the country's position as an urban, landlocked enclave of Rome, Italy. With an area of , it is the world's smallest independent state. Outside the Vatican City, thirteen buildings in Rome and Castel Gandolfo (the pope's summer residence) enjoy extraterritorial rights. (One building, the Paul VI Audience Hall, straddles the border, but its Italian portion has extraterritorial rights.) The country contains no major natural resources, and no known natural hazards other than those that affect Rome in general, such as earthquakes.
World War II by country
Vatican City, the smallest autonomous country in the world at 0.44 km (0.16 sq mi), remained unoccupied throughout the war and its small military did not engage in combat. Though Pope Pius XII allegedly supported resistance efforts in secret, issued public statements against racism, and attempted to broker peace before the outbreak of total war; as Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, he signed the very first treaty negotiated by Nazi Germany when it came to power in 1933, the Reichskonkordat, on behalf of Pope Pius XI (a treaty that remains in force today). The Vatican City was also bound by the Lateran Treaty with Italy, requiring the Vatican and the Holy See to remain political neutral, which Pius XII successfully sought to maintain throughout the war.
Pope
In 1929, the Lateran Treaty between the Kingdom of Italy and the Holy See established Vatican City as an independent city-state, guaranteeing papal independence from secular rule.
Free City of Frankfurt
With the Weimar Constitution religion and state were finally separated again on a nationwide scope. So the consistorial district convened a church assembly in 1921 which passed the new church constitution on 13 December 1923, assuming independence of the consistorial district and transforming it into "Evangelische Landeskirche Frankfurt am Main" (i.e. Protestant State Church of Frankfurt upon Main).
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington
On July 22, 1939, Pope Pius XII separated the cities of Washington and Baltimore, creating two archdioceses (Baltimore and Washington), under the oversight of one archbishop "in persona episcopi". This process of separation was officially concluded on November 15, 1947, with the appointment of Washington's first residential archbishop. The Archdiocese of Washington became a metropolitan see on October 12, 1965, when the Diocese of Saint Thomas became its first (and, so far, only) suffragan see.
Governor of Vatican City
The post of Governor of Vatican City (Governatore dello Stato della Città del Vaticano in Italian) was held by Marchese Camillo Serafini from the foundation of the state in 1929 until his death in 1952. No successor was appointed, and the post itself was not mentioned in the Fundamental Law of Vatican City State issued by Pope John Paul II on 26 November 2000, which entered into force on 22 February 2001.
City-state
The impasse was resolved in 1929 by the Lateran Treaties negotiated by the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini between King Victor Emmanuel III and Pope Pius XI. Under this treaty, the Vatican was recognized as an independent state, with the Pope as its head. The Vatican City State has its own citizenship, diplomatic corps, flag, and postage stamps. With a population of less than 1,000 (mostly clergymen), it is by far the smallest sovereign country in the world.
Vatican City
On 22 February 2011, Pope Benedict XVI promulgated a new "Law concerning citizenship, residency and access" to Vatican City, which became effective on 1 March. It replaced the 1929 "Law concerning citizenship and residence". There are 16 articles in the new law, whereas the old law had 33 articles. It updated the old law by incorporating changes made after 1929, such as the 1940 granting of Vatican City citizenship, "durante munere", to the members of the Holy See's diplomatic service. It also created a new category, that of official Vatican "residents", i.e., people living in Vatican City; these are not necessarily Vatican citizens.
Pope Pius XI
Pope Pius XI, () born Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti (; 31 May 1857 – 10 February 1939), was head of the Catholic Church from 6 February 1922 to his death in 1939. He was the first sovereign of Vatican City from its creation as an independent state on 11 February 1929. He took as his papal motto, "Pax Christi in Regno Christi," translated "The Peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ."
Papal States
Over several campaigns in the mid-10th century, the German ruler Otto I conquered northern Italy; Pope John XII crowned him emperor (the first so crowned in more than forty years) and the two of them ratified the Diploma Ottonianum, by which the emperor became the guarantor of the independence of the Papal States. Yet over the next two centuries, popes and emperors squabbled over a variety of issues, and the German rulers routinely treated the Papal States as part of their realms on those occasions when they projected power into Italy. As the Gregorian Reform worked to free the administration of the church from imperial interference, the independence of the Papal States increased in importance. After the extinction of the Hohenstaufen dynasty, the German emperors rarely interfered in Italian affairs. In response to the struggle between the Guelphs and Ghibellines, the Treaty of Venice made official the independence of Papal States from the Holy Roman Empire in 1177. By 1300, the Papal States, along with the rest of the Italian principalities, were effectively independent.
Rome
Among the global cities, Rome is unique in having two sovereign entities located entirely within its city limits, the Holy See, represented by the Vatican City State, and the territorially smaller Sovereign Military Order of Malta. The Vatican is an enclave of the Italian capital city and a sovereign possession of the Holy See, which is the Diocese of Rome and the supreme government of the Roman Catholic Church. Rome therefore hosts foreign embassies to the Italian government, to the Holy See, to the Order of Malta and to certain international organizations. Several international Roman Colleges and Pontifical Universities are located in Rome.
Coats of arms of the Holy See and Vatican City
The coat of arms of Vatican City State, a sovereign entity established by the Lateran Treaty of 11 February 1929, was adopted by the Fundamental Law of the new state on 7 June 1929, and has its coat of arms defined by law as having the silver key in bend and the gold key in bend sinister.
Postage stamps and postal history of Vatican City
The postal history of Vatican City begins shortly after its official foundation on 11 February 1929. Two days later, the Vatican post office began operating with supplies and equipment donated by the Italian government. Vatican City became a member of the Universal Postal Union on 1 June, and then on 29 July Vatican City and Italy signed a postal agreement, going into effect on 1 August, providing for the routing of its mail through Rome.
Holy See
Although the Holy See is closely associated with the Vatican City, the independent territory over which the Holy See is sovereign, the two entities are separate and distinct. After the Italian seizure of the Papal States in 1870, the Holy See had no territorial sovereignty. In spite of some uncertainty among jurists as to whether it could continue to act as an independent personality in international matters, the Holy See continued in fact to exercise the right to send and receive diplomatic representatives, maintaining relations with states that included the major powers Russia, Prussia and Austria-Hungary. Where, in accordance with the decision of the 1815 Congress of Vienna, the Nuncio was not only a member of the Diplomatic Corps but its dean, this arrangement continued to be accepted by the other ambassadors. In the course of the 59 years during which the Holy See held no territorial sovereignty, the number of states that had diplomatic relations with it, which had been reduced to 16, actually increased to 29.
Leonine City
The Leonine Wall, which defines Leonine City, was constructed by Pope Leo IV following the sacking by Muslim raiders of Old St. Peter's Basilica in 846. Built from 848 to 852 as the only extension ever made to the walls of Rome, this three-kilometre wall completely encircled the Vatican Hill for the first time in its history. An abortive start had been made by Leo III, but disturbances in the city had suspended work, and the Romans dismantled the sections that had been begun and used them in private constructions. Pope Leo IV used his estate workers, inhabitants from the surrounding countryside, Saracens captured after the sea battle of Ostia in 849 and funding from an imperial Frankish donation, to construct the wall, which ran in an enclosing U-shape from the riverbank at Hadrian's Mausoleum, soon to be known as the Castel Sant'Angelo, up the slopes of the Vatican Hill encircling the basilica and descending again to the river. The walling was constructed of tuff and tiling, forty feet high, with 44 strong towers at bowshot intervals. The massive round corner tower that still crowns the Vatican hill has its origins in this construction campaign.
History of Malta
The year 1828 saw the revocation of the right of sanctuary, following the Vatican Church-State proclamation. Three years later, the See of Malta was made independent of the See of Palermo. In 1839, press censorship was abolished, and the construction of St. Paul's Anglican Cathedral began.
City-state
After a prolonged period where the city of Fiume enjoyed considerable autonomy under Habsburg rule (see Corpus separatum (Fiume)), The Free State of Fiume was proclaimed as a fully independent free state which existed between 1920 and 1924. Its territory of 28 km (11 sq mi) comprised the city of Fiume (now in Croatia and, since the end of World War II, known as Rijeka) and rural areas to its north, with a corridor to its west connecting it to Italy.
Autocephaly
Following the Congress of Berlin (1878), which established Serbia's political independence, full ecclesiastical independence for the Metropolitanate of Belgrade was negotiated and recognized by the Ecumenical Patriarchate in 1879. Additionally, in the course of the 1848 revolution, following the proclamation of the Serbian Vojvodina ("Serbian Duchy") within the Austrian Empire in May 1848, the autocephalous Patriarchate of Karlovci was instituted by the Austrian government to be abolished in 1920, shortly after the dissolution of the Austria-Hungary in 1918 and Vojvodina being incorporated into the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. The Patriarchate of Karlovci was merged into the newly united Serbian Orthodox Church under Patriarch Dimitrije residing in Belgrade, the capital of the new country that comprised all the Serb-populated lands. The united Serbian Church also incorporated the hitherto autonomous Church in Montenegro whose independence was formally abolished by Regent Alexander's decree in June 1920.
Nobility of Italy
Modern Italy became a nation-state during the Risorgimento on 17 March 1861, when most of the states of the peninsula and Kingdom of the Two Sicilies were united under King Victor Emmanuel II of the Savoy dynasty, hitherto monarch of the Kingdom of Sardinia, a realm that included Piedmont. The architect of Italian unification was Count Camillo Benso di Cavour, the Chief Minister of Victor Emmanuel. Rome itself remained for a further decade under the Papacy, and became part of the Kingdom of Italy only in 1870. In September of that year, invading Italian troops entered the city, and the ensuing occupation forced Pope Pius IX to his palace where he declared himself a prisoner in the Vatican, as did his successors, until the Lateran Pacts of 1929.
Papal States under Pope Pius IX
This event, described in Italian history books as a liberation, was taken very bitterly by the Pope. The Italian government had offered to allow the Pope to retain control of the Leonine City on the west bank of the Tiber, but Pius rejected the overture. Early the following year, the capital of Italy was moved from Florence to Rome. The Pope, whose previous residence, the Quirinal Palace, had become the royal palace of the Kings of Italy, withdrew in protest into the Vatican, where he lived as a self-proclaimed "prisoner", refusing to leave or to set foot in St. Peter's Square, and forbidding (Non Expedit) Catholics on pain of excommunication to participate in elections in the new Italian state, an action which effectively guaranteed that only persons hostile to the Catholic Church would be involved in the new government.
Ages of consent in Europe
When the Vatican City was first formed, it adopted the then-Italian age of consent of 12 as per the Lateran Treaty of 1929. Until July 2013 it had the lowest age of consent in Europe, but after that month, when the Pope made his decree, it became the highest.
Prince-bishop
The ultimate prince-bishop is the Bishop of Rome, i.e. the Pope, universal head (Supreme Pontiff) of the Roman Catholic Church. His claims to territorial power were bolstered by the forged early-medieval document "Donation of Constantine", and the authentic "Donation of Pepin", establishing the Patrimonium Petri which was further extended as the powerful Papal States. Pope Pius IX was the last of the true, sovereign prince-bishops, divested of territorial powers when the Papacy was forced to surrender the rule of Rome in 1870 to the united Kingdom of Italy, which was supported by liberal-nationalists. The pope however re-gained sovereign power over Vatican City in 1929 after successful negotiations with the Italian government under Benito Mussolini, leading to the Lateran Treaties.
Microstates and the European Union
There are a number of microstates in Europe. While there is no clear consensus on which political units qualify as "microstates", most scholars view Andorra, Liechtenstein, Monaco, San Marino and the Vatican City as examples of such states. At the same time, some academics dispute even qualifying Vatican as a state arguing that it does not meet the "traditional criteria of statehood" and that the "special status of the Vatican City is probably best regarded as a means of ensuring that the Pope can freely exercise his spiritual functions, and in this respect is loosely analogous to that of the headquarters of international organisations." According to the qualitative definition of microstates suggested by Dumienski (2014), microstates can also be viewed as "modern protected states, i.e. sovereign states that have been able to unilaterally depute certain attributes of sovereignty to larger powers in exchange for benign protection of their political and economic viability against their geographic or demographic constraints." And indeed, all of the European microstates are sovereign states that function in a close (and voluntary) association with their respective larger neighbour. Currently, all of the European microstates have some form of relations with the European Union.
Vatican during the Savoyard era (1870–1929)
Rome was declared Capital of Italy in March 1861, when the first Italian Parliament met in the kingdom's old capital Turin in Piemonte. However, the Italian Government could not take possession of its capital because Napoleon III kept a French garrison in Rome protecting Pope Pius IX. The opportunity to eliminate the last vestige of the Papal States came when the Franco-Prussian War began in July 1870. Emperor Napoleon III had to recall his garrison from Rome for France's own defence and could no longer protect the pope. Following the collapse of the Second French Empire at the battle of Sedan, widespread public demonstrations demanded that the Italian Government take Rome. King Victor Emmanuel II sent Count Gustavo Ponza di San Martino to Pius IX with a personal letter offering a face-saving proposal that would have allowed the peaceful entry of the Italian Army into Rome, under the guise of offering protection to the pope.
City-state
Until September 1870, the city of Rome had been controlled by the pope as part of his Papal States. When King Victor Emmanuel II seized the city in 1870, Pope Pius IX refused to recognize the newly formed Kingdom of Italy.
Roman Question
Despite the Italian state's repeated assurances of the Pope's absolute liberty of movement within Italy and abroad, the popes refused to set foot outside the walls of the Vatican and thereby put themselves under the protection of the Italian forces of law and order, an implicit recognition of the changed situation. Consequently, the description "prisoners of the Vatican" was applied to them, until the Lateran Treaty of 1929 settled the Roman Question by establishing Vatican City as an independent state.
Vatican during the Savoyard era (1870–1929)
Vatican during the Savoyard Era 1870-1929 describes the relation of the Vatican to Italy, after 1870, which marked the end of the Papal State and 1929, when the papacy regained autonomy in the Lateran Treaty, a period dominated by the Roman Question.
Postage stamps and postal history of Vatican City
The Vatican post office has operated its own postal service and issued its own postage stamps since 1929.
Pontifical Anthem
On October 16, 1949, Pope Pius XII declared it the papal anthem, replacing Viktorin Hallmayer's "Marcia trionfale" (1857), which, being still the papal anthem when the Vatican City State was founded in 1929, had been treated also as the new state's anthem. Gounod's "Marche Pontificale" was first performed in this new role during a ceremony on Christmas Eve of 1949, one day before the opening of the Holy Year 1950. The old state anthem too was played for a last time, almost as a token of respect.
Vatican during the Savoyard era (1870–1929)
Rome was unusual among capital cities only in that it contained the power of the Pope and a small parcel of land (Vatican City) beyond national control. This anomaly was not formally resolved until the Lateran pacts of 1929.
Independent Catholicism
The sharing of apostolic succession in the west outside the Catholic Church was largely confined to the Church of Utrecht for over a century. After the (First) Vatican Council in 1870, many Austro-Hungarian, German and Swiss Catholics rejected the declaration of papal infallibility, and their bishops, inspired by earlier acts in Utrecht, decided to leave the Catholic Church to form their own churches, independent of the  Catholic Church. Now independent of the pope, these bishops were sometimes referred to as autocephalous (or self-governing) bishops or "episcopi vaganti" (wandering bishops). These validly-consecrated bishops enjoyed apostolic succession, and they continued to share that apostolic succession with the priests and deacons they ordained. In 1889, they formally united as part of the Utrecht Union of Churches (UU).
Military in Vatican City
The Pontifical Swiss Guard () was formed in 1506 by Pope Julius II. The unit was formed as the personal bodyguard of the Pope. At various points in its history the Swiss Guard has seen active service, but following the 1870 abolition of the Papal States it returned to its chief role as a bodyguard, with a limited ceremonial role, and survived into the period of the Vatican City State, as a "de facto" Vatican military unit from 1929.
Vatican City in World War II
The Lateran Treaty of 1929 with Italy recognized the sovereignty of Vatican City. It declared Vatican City a neutral country in international relations, and required the Pope to abstain from mediation unless requested by all parties. In 1939, the city state was recognized by thirty-eight nations, with a diplomatic corps of thirteen full ambassadors and twenty-five ministers.
Music of Vatican City
After the end of the Papal States the Popes' ability to sponsor composers and musicians waned. However it did not end entirely nor did interest in the subject. Pope Pius X and Pope Pius XII both wrote on the subject. In modern times John Harbison and Gilbert Levine have composed or conducted for the Vatican. Although not of the Vatican a Christmas concert where popular musicians performed had been held at the Vatican for thirteen years until ending in 2006. Notable performers at it included José Feliciano, Whitney Houston, Dionne Warwick, Gloria Gaynor, and B. B. King. The concert created controversy in 2003 due to statements by Lauryn Hill who used the opportunity to criticize the Vatican over Roman Catholic sex abuse cases.
Lateran Treaty
The Lateran Treaty (; ) was one of the Lateran Pacts of 1929 or Lateran Accords, agreements made in 1929 between the Kingdom of Italy and the Holy See, settling the "Roman Question". They are named after the Lateran Palace, where they were signed on 11 February 1929. The Italian parliament ratified them on 7 June 1929. It recognized Vatican City as an independent state, with the Italian government, at the time led by Benito Mussolini as prime minister, agreeing to give the Roman Catholic Church financial compensation for the loss of the Papal States. In 1947, the Lateran Treaty was recognized in the Constitution of Italy as regulating the relations between the state and the Catholic Church.
Papal States under Pope Pius IX
Rome was declared the capital of Italy in March 1861, when the first Italian Parliament met in the kingdom's old capital Turin in Piedmont. However, the Italian Government could not take possession of its capital, because Napoleon III kept a French garrison in Rome protecting Pope Pius IX. By the September Convention of 1864, Napoleon III agreed to withdraw French forces from Rome in return for Italy respecting the borders of the rump Papal States. French forces were withdrawn by 1866, but their absence encouraged Garibaldi to launch a renewed attempt to take Rome and French troops returned, defeating Garibaldi's expedition at the Battle of Mentana The opportunity to eliminate the last vestige of the Papal States came when the Franco-Prussian War began in July 1870. Emperor Napoleon III had to recall his garrison from Rome for France's own defence and could no longer protect the pope. Following the collapse of the Second French Empire at the battle of Sedan.
Vatican during the Savoyard era (1870–1929)
In October, a plebiscite in Rome and the surrounding Campagna resulted in a vote for union with the kingdom of Italy. Pius IX refused to accept this act of force majeure. He remained in his palace, describing himself as a prisoner in the Vatican. However the new Italian control of Rome did not wither, nor did the Catholic world come to the Pope's aid, as Pius IX had expected.
The provisional capital of Italy had been Florence since 1865. In 1871, the Italian government moved to the banks of the Tiber. Victor Emmanuel installed himself in the Quirinale Palace. Rome became once again, for the first time in thirteen centuries, the capital city of a united Italy.
Anti-Protestantism
In 1870 the newly formed Kingdom of Italy annexed the remaining Papal States, depriving the Pope of his temporal power. However, Papal rule over Italy was later restored by the Italian Fascist régime (albeit on a greatly diminished scale) in 1929 as head of the Vatican City state; under Mussolini's dictatorship, Roman Catholicism became the State religion of Fascist Italy.
Vatican City
In 1984, a new concordat between the Holy See and Italy modified certain provisions of the earlier treaty, including the position of Catholicism as the Italian state religion, a position given to it by a statute of the Kingdom of Sardinia of 1848.
Pope
While his office is called the papacy, the episcopal see and ecclesiastical jurisdiction is called the Holy See. It is the Holy See that is the sovereign entity of international law headquartered in the distinctively independent Vatican City State, established by the Lateran Treaty in 1929 between Italy and the Holy See to ensure its temporal, diplomatic, and spiritual independence. The primacy of the Bishop of Rome is largely derived from his role as the apostolic successor to Saint Peter, to whom primacy was conferred by Jesus, giving him the Keys of Heaven and the powers of "binding and loosing", naming him as the "rock" upon which the church would be built.
Vatican City
The Vatican City is an ecclesiastical or sacerdotal-monarchical state (a type of theocracy) ruled by the pope who is, religiously speaking, the bishop of Rome and head of the Catholic Church. The highest state functionaries are all Catholic clergy of various national origins. Since the return of the popes from Avignon in 1377, they have generally resided at the Apostolic Palace within what is now Vatican City, although at times residing instead in the Quirinal Palace in Rome or elsewhere.
Vatican City
The name "Vatican" predates Christianity and comes from the Latin "", meaning Vatican Mount. The territory of Vatican City is part of the "Mons Vaticanus", and of the adjacent former Vatican Fields. It is in this territory that St. Peter's Basilica, the Apostolic Palace, the Sistine Chapel, and museums were built, along with various other buildings. The area was part of the Roman "rione" of Borgo until 1929. Being separated from the city, on the west bank of the river Tiber, the area was an outcrop of the city that was protected by being included within the walls of Leo IV (847–855), and later expanded by the current fortification walls, built under Paul III (1534–1549), Pius IV (1559–1565) and Urban VIII (1623–1644).
When the Lateran Treaty of 1929 that gave the state its form was being prepared, the boundaries of the proposed territory were influenced by the fact that much of it was all but enclosed by this loop. For some tracts of the frontier, there was no wall, but the line of certain buildings supplied part of the boundary, and for a small part of the frontier a modern wall was constructed.
1934 Italian general election
In 1929, a concordat with the Vatican was signed, ending decades of struggle between the Italian state and the Papacy that dated back to the 1870 takeover of the Papal States by the House of Savoy during the unification of Italy. The Lateran treaties, by which the Italian state was at last recognized by the Roman Catholic Church, and the independence of Vatican City was recognized by the Italian state, was so much appreciated by the ecclesiastic hierarchy that Pope Pius XI acclaimed Mussolini as "the Man of Providence".
Italian city-states
During the 11th century in northern Italy a new political and social structure emerged: the city-state or commune. The civic culture which arose from this "urbs" was remarkable. In some places where communes arose (e.g. Britain and France), they were absorbed by the monarchical state as it emerged. They survived in northern and central Italy as in a handful of other regions throughout Europe to become independent and powerful city-states. In Italy the breakaway from their feudal overlords occurred in the late 12th century and 13th century, during the Investiture Controversy between the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor: Milan led the Lombard cities against the Holy Roman Emperors and defeated them, gaining independence (battles of Legnano, 1176, and Parma, 1248; see Lombard League).
Vatican City
As the Vatican City is an enclave within Italy, its military defence is provided by the Italian Armed Forces. However, there is no formal defence treaty with Italy, as the Vatican City is a neutral state. Vatican City has no armed forces of its own, although the Swiss Guard is a military corps of the Holy See responsible for the personal security of the Pope, and resident in the state. Soldiers of the Swiss Guard are entitled to hold Vatican City State passports and nationality. Swiss mercenaries were historically recruited by Popes as part of an army for the Papal States, and the Pontifical Swiss Guard was founded by Pope Julius II on 22 January 1506 as the pope's personal bodyguard and continues to fulfill that function. It is listed in the Annuario Pontificio under "Holy See", not under "State of Vatican City". At the end of 2005, the Guard had 134 members. Recruitment is arranged by a special agreement between the Holy See and Switzerland. All recruits must be Catholic, unmarried males with Swiss citizenship who have completed their basic training with the Swiss Armed Forces with certificates of good conduct, be between the ages of 19 and 30, and be at least in height. Members are equipped with small arms and the traditional halberd (also called the Swiss voulge), and trained in bodyguarding tactics. The Palatine Guard and the Noble Guard, the last armed forces of the Vatican City State, were disbanded by Pope Paul VI in 1970. As Vatican City has listed every building in its territory on the International Register of Cultural Property under Special Protection, the Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict theoretically renders it immune to armed attack.
Military in Vatican City
The Vatican City State is a neutral nation, which has not engaged in any war since its formation in 1929 by the Lateran Treaty. It has no formal military compact or agreement with neighbouring Italy, although responsibility for defending the Vatican City from an international aggressor is likely to lie primarily with the Italian Armed Forces. Although the Vatican City State has never been at war, its forces were exposed to military aggression when it was bombed during World War II, and whilst defending Vatican property in Rome during the same conflict.
Vatican City
The government of Vatican City has a unique structure. The pope is the sovereign of the state. Legislative authority is vested in the Pontifical Commission for Vatican City State, a body of cardinals appointed by the pope for five-year periods. Executive power is in the hands of the President of that commission, assisted by the general secretary and deputy general secretary. The state's foreign relations are entrusted to the Holy See's Secretariat of State and diplomatic service. Nevertheless, the pope has absolute power in the executive, legislative and judicial branches over Vatican City. He is currently the only absolute monarch in Europe.
Pope Pius XI
Pius XI aimed to end the long breach between the papacy and the Italian government and to gain recognition once more of the sovereign independence of the Holy See. Most of the Papal States had been seized by the forces of King Victor Emmanuel II of Italy (1861–1878) in 1860 at the foundation of the modern unified Italian state, and the rest, including Rome, in 1870. The Papacy and the Italian Government had been at loggerheads ever since: the Popes had refused to recognise the Italian state's seizure of the Papal States, instead withdrawing to become prisoners in the Vatican, and the Italian government's policies had always been anti-clerical. Now Pius XI thought a compromise would be the best solution.
Gibraltar-Vatican Joint Issue
The Vatican City State issued its first stamps in 1929, the same year that it was established under the Lateran Treaties. It released its first joint issue in 1969. Joint issues of stamps by the Vatican and other countries were uncommon for most of the twentieth century. In 2000, the Vatican and Poland released a joint issue designed by Czeslaw Slania which commemorated the eightieth birthday of John Paul II. However, the early twenty-first century saw a substantial increase in joint issues. In 2003, a set released by the Vatican and Poland celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of John Paul II's pontificate. The following year, a joint issue of the same countries commemorated the pope's return visits to Poland. In 2005, five of the eleven stamp sets released by the Vatican were joint issues. There have also been joint issues with Germany since Benedict XVI became Pope. In 2011, the Vatican and Croatia released a joint issue which commemorated the tercentenary of the birth of Rugerius Boscovich (1711 – 1787).
Religion in Italy
During the Fascist regime, the Roman Question was settled through the Lateran Treaty, signed by the Holy See and the Kingdom of Italy in 1929. These gave birth to the State of Vatican City. Fascism persecuted religious minorities: on 9 April 1935, Guido Buffarini Guidi outlawed the Pentecostal faith, and during 1938-1939 Jews were targeted by the infamous racial laws and were victims of genocide in the context of the Holocaust.
Foreign relations of the Holy See
The Lateran Treaty of 1929 and the founding of the Vatican City State was not followed by any great immediate increase in the number of states with which the Holy See had official relations. This came later, especially after the Second World War.
Free City of Frankfurt
Due to its imperial significance, Frankfurt survived mediatisation in 1803. Following the collapse of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, Frankfurt fell to the rule of Napoleon I, who granted the city to Karl Theodor Anton Maria von Dalberg; the city became known as the Principality of Frankfurt. The Catholic clergy Dalberg emancipated the Catholics living with the city boundary. In 1810 Dalberg merged Frankfurt with the Principality of Aschaffenburg, the County of Wetzlar, Fulda, and Hanau to form the Grand Duchy of Frankfurt. After the defeat of Napoleon and the collapse of the Confederation of the Rhine, Frankfurt was returned to its pre-Napoleonic constitution via the Congress of Vienna of 1815 and became a sovereign city-state and a member of the German Confederation.
Coats of arms of the Holy See and Vatican City
The coat of arms of Vatican City State is officially described, under the heading "Annex B. Official coat of arms of Vatican City State", in article 20 of the Fundamental Law of Vatican City State in force since 22 February 2001, which repeats the contents of article 19 of the original Fundamental Law of Vatican City State adopted on 7 June 1929 with immediate effect. Each of these official documents includes an illustration of the coat of arms of the state accompanied by the words "Chiavi decussate sormontate dal triregno in campo rosso" (Crossed keys beneath the papal tiara on a red field) and is accompanied by an illustration that depicts the keys as two in number, one white (argent) in bend and one golden (or) in bend sinister, interlaced at their intersection with a red (gules) cord. The tiara is represented as white with golden crowns.
Rome
Rome has been a major Christian pilgrimage site since the Middle Ages. People from all over the Christian world visit Vatican City, within the city of Rome, the seat of the papacy. The Pope was the most influential figure during the Middle Ages. The city became a major pilgrimage site during the Middle Ages and the focus of struggles between the Papacy and the Holy Roman Empire starting with Charlemagne, who was crowned its first emperor in Rome in 800 by Pope Leo III. Apart from brief periods as an independent city during the Middle Ages, Rome kept its status as Papal capital and "holy city" for centuries, even when the Papacy briefly relocated to Avignon (1309–1377). Catholics believe that the Vatican is the last resting place of St. Peter.
History of the Kingdom of Italy (1861–1946)
The Holy See (State of the Vatican City) since 1929 has been an independent enclave surrounded by Rome, Italy.
Vatican City in World War II
The Allies liberated Rome on 4–5 June 1944.. During the liberation, many Catholic Allied troops visited the Vatican for Mass and to hear the Pope speak, including some who drove tanks into St. Peter's Square.
Politics of Vatican City
The pope delegates legislative authority for the state to the unicameral Pontifical Commission for Vatican City State. This commission was established in 1939 by Pope Pius XII. It consists of seven Cardinals appointed by the pope for five-year terms. Laws passed by the Commission must be approved by the pope through the Secretariat of State prior to being published and taking effect.
Leonine City
In 1870, when the military forces of the Kingdom of Italy captured Rome, overthrowing what was left of the Papal States, the Italian government intended to allow the pope to keep the Leonine City as a small remnant Papal State. However, Pope Pius IX would not agree to that arrangement, and thus there was a 59-year standoff, when the Popes were a "prisoner in the Vatican", settled in 1929 by the Lateran Treaty, which recognized the sovereignty and independence of Vatican City.
List of ambassadors of the United States to the Holy See
The United States had diplomatic relations with the Papal States from 1797 to 1867. The Papal States ceased to exist in 1870, when its last territory (the city of Rome) was lost to the Kingdom of Italy. After that, the international status of the Papacy was controversial until 1929, when the Italian government agreed to the establishment of Vatican City as a sovereign city-state.
Throne
In the Roman Catholic Church, the Pope is an elected monarch, both under canon law as supreme head of the church, and under international law as the head of state -styled "sovereign pontiff"- of the Vatican City State (the sovereign state within the city of Rome established by the 1929 Lateran Treaty). Until 1870, the Pope was the elected monarch of the Papal States, which for centuries constituted one of the largest political powers on the divided Italian peninsula. To this day, the Holy See maintains officially recognised diplomatic status, and papal nuncios and legates are deputed on diplomatic missions throughout the world.
Vatican City
The official Italian name of the city is ' or, more formally, ', meaning "Vatican City State". Although the Holy See (which is distinct from the Vatican City) and the Catholic Church use Ecclesiastical Latin in official documents, the Vatican City officially uses Italian. The Latin name is ""; this is used in official documents by not just the Holy See, but in most official Church and Papal documents.
Prisoner in the Vatican
The stand-off was ended on 11 February 1929, when the Lateran Pacts created a new microstate, that of Vatican City, and opened the way for diplomatic relations between Italy and the Holy See. The Holy See in turn recognized the Kingdom of Italy, with Rome as its capital, thus ending the situation whereby the popes had felt constrained to remain within the Vatican. Subsequently, the popes resumed visiting their cathedral, the Basilica of St. John Lateran, situated on the opposite side of the city of Rome, and to travel regularly to their summer residence at Castel Gandolfo, from Rome.
Italy
The Holy See, the episcopal jurisdiction of Rome, contains the central government of the Roman Catholic Church. It is recognised by other subjects of international law as a sovereign entity, headed by the Pope, who is also the Bishop of Rome, with which diplomatic relations can be maintained. Often incorrectly referred to as "the Vatican", the Holy See is not the same entity as the Vatican City State, which came into existence only in 1929.
Languages of Vatican City
Vatican City is a city state that came into existence in 1929. It is therefore to be clearly distinguished from the Holy See, which already was in existence for many centuries before that date.
Religion in Rome
Rome became the pre-eminent Christian city (vis-a-vis Antioch and Alexandria, and later Constantinople and Jerusalem) based on the tradition that Saint Peter and Saint Paul were martyred in the city during the 1st century, coupled with the city's political importance. The Bishop of Rome, later known as the Pope, claimed primacy over all Bishops and therefore all Christians on the basis that he is the successor of Saint Peter, upon whom Jesus built his Church; his prestige had been enhanced since 313 through donations by Roman emperors and patricians, including the Lateran Palace and patriarchal basilicas, as well as the obviously growing influence of the Church over the failing civil imperial authority. Papal authority has been exercised over the centuries with varying degrees of success, at times triggering divisions among Christians, until the present.
With the increasing chaos and disorder leading to the collapse of the Roman Empire in 476, the popes assumed more and more civil authority first in Rome and in the surrounding territories. Rome became the center of the Catholic Church and the capital city of the Papal States; consequently, a great number of churches, convents and other religious buildings were erected in the city, sometimes above the ruins of older pre-Christian sites of worship. Churches proliferated during the Renaissance, when the Rome's most notable churches were built (this includes St. Peter's basilica on the Vatican Hill (the largest church in the world) and the city cathedral of St. John at the Lateran. The Papacy established its residence first in the Lateran Palace, then in the Quirinal Palace. When Rome was annexed by force to the newly unified Kingdom of Italy In 1870, Pope Pius IX retired to the Vatican, proclaiming himself a prisoner of the Savoy monarchy and leading to decades of conflict between the neonate state and the Catholic Church. This was resolved in 1929, when the Lateran Treaty were signed in Rome, establishing the right for the Holy See to govern the Vatican City as an independent, sovereign state. The patron saints of Rome remain Saint Peter and Saint Paul (or, as they are collectively referred to in this context, "the most holy Saints Peter and Paul"), both celebrated on June 29.
Pietro Gasparri
Gasparri managed to conclude a concordat with Lithuania. The relations with Russia changed drastically for a second reason. The Baltic states and Poland gained their independence from Russia after World War I, thus enabling a relatively free Church life in those former Russian countries. Estonia was the first country to look for Vatican ties. On 11 April 1919 Secretary of State Pietro Gasparri informed the Estonian authorities that the Vatican would agree to have diplomatic relations. A concordat was agreed upon in principle a year later, June 1920. It was signed on 30 May 1922. It guarantees freedom for the Catholic Church, establishes an archdiocese, liberates clergy from military service, allows the creation of seminaries and catholic schools, describes church property rights and immunity. The Archbishop swears alliance to Estonia.
Benito Mussolini
Another important constituent of the Fascist cultural policy was Roman Catholicism. In 1929, a concordat with the Vatican was signed, ending decades of struggle between the Italian state and the Papacy that dated back to the 1870 takeover of the Papal States by the House of Savoy during the unification of Italy. The Lateran treaties, by which the Italian state was at last recognized by the Roman Catholic Church, and the independence of Vatican City was recognized by the Italian state, were so much appreciated by the ecclesiastic hierarchy that Pope Pius XI acclaimed Mussolini as "the Man of Providence".
Francesco Pacelli
Francesco Pacelli was dean of the lawyers of the Rota and legal advisor to Pope Pius XI. In this role, he was instrumental in negotiating this Lateran Treaty in 1929, which reaffirmed the independence of the Papacy with the formation of Vatican City as a sovereign entity. Francesco Pacelli described in his "Diario della Conciliazione " details and difficulties of these negotiations from a Vatican perspective. Pope Pius XI and Pietro Gasparri had entrusted to him the daily negotiations for the Lateran Treaty. Pacelli had over two-hundred protracted audiences with Pius XI over twenty different draft versions of the final treaty.
Coats of arms of the Holy See and Vatican City
The arms of the Papal States differed in having the umbraculum (the emblem of the Pope's temporal powers) in place of the tiara, and were incorporated as the first quartering of the royal coat of arms of the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy (1805–1814). This coat of arms was not resumed for the territory over which the Pope's temporal powers were restored in 1929 with the creation of Vatican City State.
Prisoner in the Vatican
As nationalism swept the Italian Peninsula in the 19th century, efforts to unify Italy were blocked in part by the Papal States, which ran through the middle of the peninsula and included the ancient capital of Rome. The Papal States were able to fend off efforts to conquer them largely through the pope's influence over the leaders of stronger European powers such as France and Austria. When Rome was eventually taken, the Italian government reportedly intended to let the pope keep the part of Rome west of the Tiber called the Leonine City as a small remaining Papal State, but Pius IX refused. One week after entering Rome, the Italian troops had taken the entire city save for the Apostolic Palace; the inhabitants of the city then voted to join Italy.
Papal States
Despite the fact that the traditionally Catholic powers did not come to the pope's aid, the papacy rejected any substantial accommodation with the Italian Kingdom, especially any proposal which required the pope to become an Italian subject. Instead the papacy confined itself (see Prisoner in the Vatican) to the Apostolic Palace and adjacent buildings in the loop of the ancient fortifications known as the Leonine City, on Vatican Hill. From there it maintained a number of features pertaining to sovereignty, such as diplomatic relations, since in canon law these were inherent in the papacy. In the 1920s, the papacy – then under Pius XI—renounced the bulk of the Papal States, and the Lateran Treaty with Italy (then ruled by the National Fascist Party under Benito Mussolini) was signed on February 11, 1929, creating the State of the Vatican City, forming the sovereign territory of the Holy See, which was also indemnified to some degree for loss of territory.
History of Rome
The interwar period saw a rapid growth in the city's population, that surpassed 1,000,000 inhabitants.
This Roman Question was finally resolved on 11 February 1929 between the Holy See and the Kingdom of Italy. The Lateran Treaty was signed by Benito Mussolini on behalf of King Victor Emmanuel III and by Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Gasparri for Pope Pius XI. The treaty, which became effective on 7 June 1929, and the Concordat established the independent State of the Vatican City and granted Roman Catholicism special status in Italy.
During World War II, Rome suffered few bombings (notably at San Lorenzo) and relatively little damage because none of the nations involved wanted to endanger the life of Pope Pius XII in Vatican City. There were some bitter fights between Italian and German troops in the south of the city and even in sight of the Colosseum, shortly after the armistice between Italy and Allied armed forces. On 4 June 1944 Rome became the first capital city of an Axis nation to fall to the Allies, but was relatively undamaged because on 14 August 1943, a day after the last allied bombing, the Germans declared it an "open city" and withdrew, meaning that the Allies did not have to fight their way in.
Leonine Prayers
In 1929, the state of Vatican City was created, resolving the troubled relationship between the Holy See and the Italian state, which had been the object of the Leonine Prayers, and thus removing their "raison d'être". But the following year, Pope Pius XI ordered that the Leonine Prayers should be offered "to permit tranquillity and freedom to profess the faith to be restored to the afflicted people of Russia".
Italian Fascism
In the 19th century, the forces of Risorgimento (1815–1871) had conquered Rome and taken control of it away from the Papacy, which saw itself henceforth as a prisoner in the Vatican. In February 1929, as Italian Head of Government, Mussolini concluded the unresolved Church–State conflict of the Roman Question ("La Questione romana") with the Lateran Treaty between the Kingdom of Italy and the Holy See, establishing the Vatican City microstate in Rome. Upon ratification of the Lateran Treaty, the papacy recognized the state of Italy in exchange for diplomatic recognition of the Vatican City, territorial compensations, introduction of religious education into all state funded schools in Italy and 50 million pounds sterling that were shifted from Italian bank shares into a Swiss company Profima SA. British wartime records from the "National Archives in Kew" also confirmed Profima SA as the Vatican's company which was accused during WW II of engaging in "activities contrary to Allied interests". Cambridge historian John F. Pollard wrote in his book that this financial settlement ensured the "papacy [...] would never be poor again".
Vatican City Championship
The Vatican City Championship () is the top men's association football league of Vatican City. Founded in 1972 as the Coppa Amicizia, teams are composed of workers representing various state departments. Teams are permitted to field an outside player from Italian amateur teams to play as goalkeeper. The league's best players are combined to form the Vatican City national team for rare friendly matches. The Vatican football association, Federazione Vaticanese Giuoco Calcio, is not a member of FIFA and is overseen by its president Domenico Ruggerio as of May 2014. All matches are played at the Associazione Sportivo La Salle complex in Western Rome, although the larger Campo Cardinale Francis Joseph Spellman served as home until recently. The league has amateur status with matches and training taking place outside of work hours. Matches take place on Mondays and Tuesdays. Equipment and uniforms are occasionally donated by organizations and benefactors with deficits being covered by the Vatican government. The league takes place between October and May each year with a two-month break in December and January.
Vatican City Championship
The first organized football took place in the Vatican in 1947 when a four-team league was staged. The final that year was contested between Pontifical Villas and Fabbrica di San Pietro. The league was suspended shortly after creation because of fierce competitiveness. Only friendly matches were allowed for the next two decades until another league was reformed in 1966. Seven teams competed during the first season with employees of L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, claiming the first championship. The current league was founded as the Coppa Amicizia, later renamed the Campionato della Citta Vaticano, by Sergio Valci who was former president of the FA and a Vatican healthcare employee until his death in 2012.
Vatican City
In 1870, the Pope's holdings were left in an uncertain situation when Rome itself was annexed by the Piedmont-led forces which had united the rest of Italy, after a nominal resistance by the papal forces. Between 1861 and 1929 the status of the Pope was referred to as the "Roman Question".
City-state
After the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, citiesthen members of different confederaciesofficially became sovereign city-states such as the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (1806–11 and again 1813–71), the Free City of Frankfurt upon Main (1815–66), the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (1806–11 and again 1814–71), the Free and Hanseatic City of Lübeck (1806–11 and again 1813–71), and the Free City of Kraków (1815–1846). Under Habsburg rule the city of Fiume had the status of a corpus separatum, which – while falling short of an independent sovereignty – had many attributes of a city state.
Pope Benedict XV
The relations with Russia changed drastically for a second reason. The Baltic states and Poland gained their independence from Russia after World War I, thus enabling a relatively free Church life in those former Russia-controlled countries. Estonia was the first country to look for Vatican ties. On 11 April 1919, Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Gasparri informed the Estonian authorities that the Vatican would agree to have diplomatic relations. A concordat was agreed upon in principle a year later in June 1920. It was signed on 30 May 1922. It guaranteed freedom for the Catholic Church, established archdioceses, liberated clergy from military service, allowed the creation of seminaries and Catholic schools, and enshrined church property rights and immunity. The Archbishop swore alliance to Estonia.
Vatican lira
The Papal States, by then reduced to a smaller area close to Rome, used its own lira between 1866 and 1870, after which it ceased to exist. In 1929, the Lateran Treaty established the State of the Vatican City and, according with the terms of the Treaty, a distinct coinage was introduced, denominated in centesimi and lire, on par with the Italian lira. Italian coins and banknotes were legal tender in the Vatican City. The Vatican coins were minted in Rome and were also legal tender in Italy and San Marino.
Pontifical Swiss Guard
The foundation of Vatican City as a modern sovereign state was negotiated in the Lateran Treaty of 1929. 
The duties of protecting public order and security in the Vatican lay with the Papal Gendarmerie Corps, while the Swiss Guard, the Palatine Guard and the Noble Guard served mostly ceremonial functions. 
The Palatine and Noble Guards were disbanded by Paul VI in 1970, leaving the Swiss Guard as the only ceremonial guard unit of the Vatican.
At the same time, the Gendarmerie Corps was transformed into a Central Security Office, with the duties of protecting the Pope, defending Vatican City, and providing police and security services within its territory, while the Swiss Guard continued to serve ceremonial functions only.
Paul VI in a decree of 28 June 1976 defined the nominal size of the corps at 90 men. This was increased to 100 men by John Paul II on 5 April 1979. As of 2010 the guard numbered 107 halberdiers divided into three squads, plus five officers.
Military in Vatican City
Upon the 1929 formation of the Vatican City State, a unique form of sovereignty was defined. Under this agreement sovereignty is vested in the much more ancient Holy See, which is an ecclesiastical jurisdiction; but that sovereignty is exercised over the actual nation state of the Vatican City, an area of 110 acres defined in a map appended to the treaty, together with certain other properties formally located within the Italian state, but granted extraterritoriality.
Christianity in Italy
Before the unification of Italy, a large part of the Italian peninsula was part of the Papal states. However, even after the unification (1861), thanks to French aid, the Pope maintained the supremacy over the city of Rome. This ended on 20 September 1870, shortly after the defeat of Napoleon III. The Kingdom of Italy moved its capital to Rome and the Catholic Church lost any remaining temporal power.
History of Rome
In practice Italy made no attempt to interfere with the Holy See within the Vatican walls. However, they confiscated church property in many other places, including the Quirinal Palace, formerly the pope's official residence. Pope Pius IX (1846–78), the last ruler of the Papal States, claimed that after Rome was annexed he was a "Prisoner in the Vatican".
Vatican City officially pursued a policy of neutrality during World War II, under the leadership of Pope Pius XII. Although the city of Rome was occupied by Germany from 1943 and the Allies from 1944, Vatican City itself was not occupied. One of Pius XII's main diplomatic priorities was to prevent the bombing of Rome; so sensitive was the pontiff that he protested even the British air dropping of pamphlets over Rome, claiming that the few landing within the city-state violated the Vatican's neutrality. Before the American entry into the war, there was little impetus for such a bombing, as the British saw little strategic value in it.
Sovereign Military Order of Malta
The headquarters of the Order of Saint John had been located in Malta from 1530 until 1798. It was technically a vassal of the kingdom of Sicily, holding Malta in exchange for a nominal fee, but it declared independence in 1753.
It was expelled from Malta under French occupation in 1798, and during 1805–1812, much of its possessions in Protestant Europe were confiscated, resulting in the fragmentation of the order into a number of Protestant branches, since 1961 united under the umbrella of the Alliance of the Orders of Saint John of Jerusalem.
The Congress of Vienna of 1815 confirmed the loss of Malta, but the Congress of Verona in 1822 guaranteed the continued existence of the Catholic order as a sovereign entity. The seat of the order was moved to Ferrara in 1826 and to Rome in 1834, the interior of Palazzo Malta being considered sovereign territory of the order. The grand priories of Lombardy-Venetia and of Sicily were restored in 1839/41. The office of Grand Master was restored by Pope Leo XIII in 1879, after a vacancy of 75 years, confirming Giovanni Battista Ceschi a Santa Croce as the first Grand Master of the restored Order of Malta.
The Holy See was established as a subject of international law in the Lateran Treaty of 1929. In the following decades, the connection between the Holy See and the Order of Malta was seen as so close as to call into question the actual sovereignty of the order as a separate entity. This has prompted constitutional changes on the part of the Order, which were implemented in 1997. Since then, the Order has been widely recognized as a sovereign subject of international law in its own right. 
It maintains diplomatic relations with 107 states. It has United Nations permanent observer status, enters into treaties, and issues its own passports, coins, and postage stamps. Its two headquarters buildings in Rome enjoy extraterritoriality, similar to embassies, and it maintains embassies in other countries. The three principal officers are counted as citizens.
History of the Catholic Church
Pope Pius XI aimed to end the long breach between the papacy and the Italian government and to gain recognition once more of the sovereign independence of the Holy See. Most of the Papal States had been seized by the armies of King Victor Emmanuel II of Italy (1861–1878) in 1860 seeking Italian unification. Rome itself was seized by force in 1870 and the pope became the "prisoner in the Vatican." The Italian government's policies had always been anti-clerical until the First World War, when some compromises were reached.
To bolster his own dictatorial Fascist regime, Benito Mussolini was also eager for an agreement. Agreement was reached in 1929 with the Lateran Treaties, which helped both sides. According to the terms of the first treaty, Vatican City was given sovereignty as an independent nation in return for the Vatican relinquishing its claim to the former territories of the Papal States. Pius XI thus became a head of a tiny state with its own territory, army, radio station, and diplomatic representation. The Concordat of 1929 made Catholicism the sole religion of Italy (although other religions were tolerated), paid salaries to priests and bishops, recognized church marriages (previously couples had to have a civil ceremony), and brought religious instruction into the public schools. In turn the bishops swore allegiance to the Italian state, which had a veto power over their selection. The Church was not officially obligated to support the Fascist regime; the strong differences remained but the seething hostility ended. The Church especially endorsed foreign policies such as support for the anti-Communist side in the Spanish Civil War, and support for the conquest of Ethiopia. Friction continued over the Catholic Action youth network, which Mussolini wanted to merge into his Fascist youth group. A compromise was reached with only the Fascists allowed to sponsor sports teams.
Theocracy
Following the Capture of Rome on 20 September 1870, the Papal States including Rome with the Vatican were annexed by the Kingdom of Italy. In 1929, with the Lateran Treaty signed with the Italian Government, the new state of Vatican City (population 842) – with no connection with the former Papal States – was formally created and recognized as an independent state. The head of state of the Vatican is the pope, elected by the College of Cardinals, an assembly of Senatorial-princes of the Church. They are usually clerics, appointed as Ordinaries, but in the past have also included men who were not bishops nor clerics. A pope is elected for life, and either dies or may resign. The cardinals are appointed by the popes, who therefore choose the electors of their successors.
Prisoner in the Vatican
A prisoner in the Vatican or prisoner of the Vatican (; ) is how Pope Pius IX was described following the capture of Rome by the armed forces of the Kingdom of Italy on 20 September 1870. Part of the process of Italian unification, the city's capture ended the millennial temporal rule of the popes over central Italy and allowed Rome to be designated the capital of the new nation. The appellation is also applied to Pius's successors through Pope Pius XI.
Politics of Vatican City
The Pope is "ex officio" sovereign of the Vatican City State since 1929. He delegates executive authority to the President of the Pontifical Commission for Vatican City State, who is "ex officio" President of the Governorate and head of government of Vatican. The president is appointed by the Pope for a five-year term, but may be removed at any time by the pope. The president reports all important matters to the Secretariat of State, the Pope's chief everyday advisory body, which is consulted on all matters, even if they belong to the specific competence of the Commission for Vatican City State or, for instance, that of the Congregation for Catholic Education. The Secretariat of State is not thereby considered to hold responsibility for such matters, and the Cardinal Secretary of State is not seen as heading the Vatican City State or the various departments of the Roman Curia, other than the Secretariat of State itself.
Vatican and Eastern Europe (1846–1958)
The relations with Russia changed drastically for a second reason. The Baltic states and Poland gained their independence from Russia after World War I, thus enabling a relatively free church life in those former Russian countries. Estonia was the first country to look for Vatican ties. On 11 April 1919, Secretary of State Pietro Gasparri informed the Estonian authorities that the Vatican would agree to have diplomatic relations. A concordat was agreed upon in principle a year later, in June 1920. Because of the small Catholic population in predominantly Protestant Estonia, the handful of Catholic priests there continued to be administered from Latvia until 1924. Development of an independent Catholic hierarchy for Estonia began late in that year with the formation of the Apostolic Administration of Estonia in November.
Vatican City
Vatican City has a reasonably well-developed transport network considering its size (consisting mostly of a piazza and walkways). A state that is long and wide, it has a small transportation system with no airports or highways. The only aviation facility in Vatican City is the Vatican City Heliport. Vatican City is one of the few independent countries without an airport, and is served by the airports that serve the city of Rome, Leonardo da Vinci-Fiumicino Airport, and to a lesser extent Ciampino Airport.
First Vatican Council
The First Vatican Council () was convoked by Pope Pius IX on 29 June 1868, after a period of planning and preparation that began on 6 December 1864. This, the twentieth ecumenical council of the Catholic Church, held three centuries after the Council of Trent, opened on 8 December 1869 and adjourned on 20 October 1870. Unlike the five earlier general councils held in Rome, which met in the Lateran Basilica and are known as Lateran councils, it met in the Vatican Basilica, hence its name. Its best-known decision is its definition of papal infallibility.
Italian city-states
Among the earliest city-states of Italy was the Duchy of Naples from 661 which, although nominally under Byzantine control, was effectively independent. Later, the Republic of Venice, which also "de facto" broke apart from the Byzantine Empire from 742 (when the Doge title was finally subtracted from the appointment of the Byzantine emperor), becoming also "de jure" independent in the following centuries.
Foreign relations of the Axis powers
The Roman Question was solved on February 11, 1929 between the Holy See and the Kingdom of Italy. The treaty was signed by Benito Mussolini and Pietro Cardinal Gasparri in behalf of King Victor Emmanuel III and Pope Pius XI (1922–1939), respectively. The Lateran Treaty and the Concordat established the independent State of the Vatican City and granted Catholicism a special status in Italy.
Neutral powers during World War II
The Lateran Treaty between Italy and the Vatican, signed in 1929, required that the Pope maintain "perpetual neutrality in international relations"—making the Vatican City a neutral state.
Law of Vatican City
On May 7, 2015, Pope Francis appointed as a Judge of the Ecclesiastical Court of Vatican City State, Lucio Banerjee, a cleric of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Treviso, in Treviso, Italy, and Paolo Scevola, of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Vigevano, to serve as Notary Actuary of the same court; they are officials of the General Affairs Section of the Secretariat of State of the Holy See. On September 30, 2017, Pope Francis named Denis Baudot, an official of the Apostolic Signatura and a clergy of the Archdiocese of Lyon in Lyon, France, Judicial Vicar of the Ecclesiastical Tribunal of Vatican City State.
Foreign relations of the Holy See
The Holy See, as a non-state sovereign entity and full subject of international law, started establishing diplomatic relations with sovereign states in the 15th century. It had the territory of the States of the Church under its direct sovereign rule since centuries before that time. Currently it has the territory of the State of the Vatican City under its direct sovereign rule. In the period of 1870-1929 between the annexation of Rome by the Kingdom of Italy and the ratification of the Lateran Treaty establishing the current Vatican City State, the Holy See was devoid of territory. In this period some states suspended their diplomatic relations, but others retained them (or established such relations for the first time or reestablished them after a break), so that the number of states that did have diplomatic relations with the Holy See almost doubled (from 16 to 27) in the period between 1871 and 1929.
Pope
International law treats the Holy See, essentially the central government of the Catholic Church, as the juridical equal of a state. It is distinct from the state of Vatican City, existing for many centuries before the foundation of the latter. (It is common for publications and news media to use "the Vatican", "Vatican City", and even "Rome" as metonyms for the Holy See.) Most countries of the world maintain the same form of diplomatic relations with the Holy See that they entertain with other states. Even countries without those diplomatic relations participate in international organizations of which the Holy See is a full member.
History of Rome
Rome became the focus of hopes of Italian reunification when the rest of Italy was reunited under the Kingdom of Italy with a temporary capital at Florence. In 1861, Rome was declared the capital of Italy even though it was still under the control of the Pope. During the 1860s, the last vestiges of the Papal States were under the French protection of Napoleon III. And it was only when this was lifted in 1870, owing to the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War, that Italian troops were able to capture Rome entering the city through a breach near Porta Pia. Afterwards, Pope Pius IX declared himself as prisoner in the Vatican, and in 1871 the capital of Italy was moved from Florence to Rome.