Lateran Treaty
Negotiations for the settlement of the Roman Question began in 1926 between the government of Italy and the Holy See, and culminated in the agreements of the Lateran Pacts, signed—the Treaty says—for King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy by Benito Mussolini, Prime Minister and Head of Government, and for Pope Pius XI by Pietro Gasparri, Cardinal Secretary of State, on 11 February 1929. It was ratified on 7 June 1929. The agreements were signed in the Lateran Palace, hence the name by which they are known.
History of the Kingdom of Italy (1861–1946)
In 1929 Mussolini signed the Lateran Pacts with the Roman Catholic Church (with which Italy had been in conflict since the annexation of Rome in 1870), leading to the formation of the tiny independent state of Vatican City. He was initially on friendly terms with France and Britain, but the situation changed in 1935–36, when Italy invaded the Ethiopian Empire despite their opposition (Second Italo-Abyssinian War); because of this and of the ideological affinities with the Nazi party led by Hitler. It was a main part of the Axis Powers in World War II with allies being Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany as the "Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Axis".