Papal States

The Papal States (Gli Stati della Chiesa or Stati Pontificii, "States of the Church") was one of the major historical states of Italy before the boot-shaped peninsula was unified under the Piedmontese crown of Savoy (later a republic). The Papal States comprised those territories over which the Pope was the ruler in a civil as well as a spiritual sense before 1870. This governing power is commonly called the temporal power of the Pope, as opposed to his (unique and more essential) ecclestiastical primacy.

Institutions

• As the plural name Papal States indicates, the various regional components, usually former independent states, retained their identity under papal rule. The papal 'state' was represented in each(?) province by a governor, either styled papal legate, as in the former principality of Benevento, or papal delegate, as in the former duchy of Pontecorvo ?or otherwise
• The police force, known as sbirri ('cop' in modern Italian), was stationed in private houses (normally a practice of military occupation) and enforced order quite rigourously
• For the defence of the states an international catholic volunteer corps, called zouaves after a kind of French colonial infantry, was created.