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.

Italian nationalism and the end of the Papal States

Italian nationalism had been stoked during the Napoleonic period but dashed by the settlement of the Congress of Vienna, which left Italy divided and largely under Austrian domination. In 1848, nationalist and liberal revolutions began to break out across Europe; in 1849, a Roman Republic was declared and the pope fled the city. Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, recently elected president of the newly declared French Second Republic, saw an opportunity to assuage conservative Catholic opinion in France, and in cooperation with Austria sent troops to restore Papal rule in Rome. After some hard fighting (in which Giuseppe Garibaldi distinguished himself on the Italian side), Pius was returned to Rome, and, repenting of his previous liberal tendencies, pursued a harsh, conservative policy even more repressive than that of his predecessors.

Related Topics:
Nationalism - Congress of Vienna - Austria - 1848 - 1849 - Roman Republic - Louis Napoleon Bonaparte - French Second Republic - Giuseppe Garibaldi

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In the years that followed, Italian nationalists–both those who wished to unify the country under the Kingdom of Sardinia and its ruling House of Savoy and those who favored a republican solution–saw the Papal States as the chief obstacle to Italian unity. Louis Napoleon, who had now seized control of France as Emperor Napoleon III, tried to play a double game, simultaneously forming an alliance with Sardinia and playing on his famous uncle's nationalist credentials on the one hand and maintaining French troops in Rome to protect the Pope's rights on the other.

Related Topics:
Kingdom of Sardinia - House of Savoy - Emperor Napoleon III

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After the Austro-Sardinian War, much of northern Italy was unified under the House of Savoy's government; in the aftermath, Garibaldi led a revolution that overthrow the Bourbon monarchy in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Afraid that Garibaldi would set up a republican government in the south, the Sardinians petitioned Napoleon for permission to send troops through the Papal States to gain control of the Two Sicilies, which was granted on the condition that Rome was left undisturbed. In 1860, with much of the region already in rebellion against Papal rule, Sardinia conquered the eastern two-thirds of the Papal States and cemented its hold on the south. Bologna, Ferrara, Umbria, the Marches, Benevento, and Pontecorvo were all formally annexed by November of the same year, and a unified Kingdom of Italy was declared. The Papal States were reduced to Latium, the immediate neighborhood of Rome.

Related Topics:
Austro-Sardinian War - Bourbon - Kingdom of the Two Sicilies - 1860 - Italy

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Many Italians still believed that Rome ought by right to be the capital of the new state. The opportunity to eliminate the last vestige of the Papal States came at the beginning of September 1870, when, in the aftermath of France's disastrous defeat at the Battle of Sedan, the French garrison in Rome was withdrawn to defend France against the Prussians. On September 10, Italy declared war on the Papal States, and on September 20, Italian forces reached Rome. Though everyone involved knew that the Pope's tiny army was incapable of defending the city, Pius ordered it to put up at least a token resistance to emphasize that Italy was acquiring Rome by force and not consent. After a cannonade of three hours, the Italians entered Rome and the Papal States ceased to exist.

Related Topics:
1870 - Battle of Sedan - Prussia

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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 ordering Catholics on pain of excommunication not to participate in elections in the new Italian state.

Related Topics:
Leonine City - Tiber - Quirinal Palace - Self-proclaimed "prisoner" - St. Peter's Square - Excommunication

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However the new Italian control of Rome did not wither, nor did the Catholic world come to the Pope's aid, as Pius IX expected. In the 1920s, the papacy abandoned its demand for a return of the Papal States and signed the Lateran Treaty (or Concordat with Rome) of 1929, which created the State of the Vatican City, forming the secular territory of the Holy See. Vatican City can be seen as the modern descendent of the Papal States.

Related Topics:
1920s - Lateran Treaty - 1929 - State of the Vatican City - Holy See

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