Vatican City

Long before any state existed, the Vatican Hill on the west bank of the Tiber held a circus and burial grounds. Christian tradition, reaching back to the second century, holds that the apostle Saint Peter was martyred during the persecution under the emperor Nero, who reigned from 54 to 68, and was buried in a grave dug on the southern slopes of the hill near the circus. About a century after his death a small funerary monument, later called the 'Trophy of Gaius' after the priest who recorded it, marked the burial place and became a focus of veneration for early Christians.

In the fourth century the emperor Constantine, who had legalised Christianity, chose this site to honour the apostle. Around 330 his builders cut into and filled the necropolis on the slope to create a level foundation, enclosing the supposed tomb of Peter, and raised over it a vast five-aisled church, the basilica now known as Old St Peter's. It stood for more than a thousand years and made the Vatican Hill the most important shrine of Western Christendom. The tomb believed to be Peter's still lies beneath the high altar of the present basilica, directly below the great dome.

Because the popes are reckoned the successors of Saint Peter as bishops of Rome, the church built over his tomb became bound up with the office of the papacy itself. In Roman Catholic teaching the doctrine of apostolic succession held that Christ had made Peter the leader of the church and that his authority passed to the bishops of Rome who followed him. Through the troubled centuries of the late Roman Empire and the rise of the popes as leaders of the city, the Vatican shrine and the papacy grew together, so that the site of a martyr's grave became, in time, the centre of a worldwide church and eventually of a sovereign state.

Turning points

1. c. 64Religion

   Martyrdom of Saint Peter

   According to tradition the apostle Peter was martyred in Rome during the persecution under Nero and buried on the Vatican Hill beside the circus, around 64 CE.

   [1] [3]

2. c. 2nd centuryReligion

   The Trophy of Gaius marks the grave

   About a century after Peter's death a small funerary monument, later known as the Trophy of Gaius, was built over the burial site and became a place of veneration.

   [1]

3. c. 330Religion

   Constantine builds Old St Peter's Basilica

   The emperor Constantine raised a great basilica over the traditional tomb of Peter on the Vatican Hill, enclosing the shrine and making the site the chief sanctuary of Western Christendom.

   [1] [2]

4. c. 1st–5th c.Religion

   The bishops of Rome and apostolic succession

   The popes were regarded as successors of Peter as bishops of Rome, a claim founded on the doctrine of apostolic succession that linked their authority to the apostle buried at the Vatican.

   [3] [4]

Figures of the era

As imperial authority faded in Italy, the bishops of Rome increasingly took on the defence and administration of the city and its surroundings. The decisive step toward temporal sovereignty came in the eighth century. When the Lombards threatened to overrun the whole peninsula in the 750s, Pope Stephen II appealed to the Frankish ruler Pepin the Short, who marched into Italy, forced the Lombard king to give up his conquests and 'restored' the lands of central Italy to the Roman see. This Donation of Pepin in 756 provided the basis for the papal claim to temporal power and created the Papal States.

For more than a thousand years, from 756 until 1870, the popes were sovereigns of these States of the Church, a belt of territory that at its height included the modern Italian regions of Lazio, Umbria and Marche and part of Emilia-Romagna, though the extent of the lands and the firmness of papal control varied greatly from age to age. The popes were thus at once the spiritual heads of the Western Church and temporal princes who waged war, made treaties and governed subjects, an entanglement of religion and statecraft that shaped the politics of medieval Italy.

The medieval papacy was not always seated securely in Rome. In 1309 the popes took up residence at Avignon in southern France, where seven popes ruled in succession during what became known as the Avignon papacy, until Gregory XI returned the papacy to Rome on 17 January 1377. His death the following year touched off the Western Schism, a forty-year split during which rival claimants in Rome and Avignon each claimed to be the true pope, until the Council of Constance restored a single papacy in 1417.

Turning points

1. 756Formation

   The Donation of Pepin creates the Papal States

   After Pepin the Short forced the Lombards to surrender their conquests, he restored the lands of central Italy to the pope, creating the Papal States and the basis of papal temporal power.

   [5] [6]

2. 1309–1377Religion

   The Avignon papacy

   The popes moved their residence to Avignon in France, where seven popes ruled for nearly seventy years away from Rome.

   [7]

3. 17 Jan 1377Religion

   Gregory XI returns the papacy to Rome

   Pope Gregory XI brought the papacy back to Rome from Avignon, against French opposition, ending the Avignon period.

   [8] [7]

4. 1378–1417Religion

   The Western Schism

   Rival popes in Rome and Avignon divided the Church for four decades until the Council of Constance restored a single papacy in 1417.

   [7]

Figures of the era

With the schism healed, the popes set about restoring Rome as a capital worthy of the Church, and the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries made the Vatican one of the supreme centres of European art and architecture. Pope Sixtus IV had a great chapel restored and built between 1477 and 1481, consecrated in 1483 and named the Sistine Chapel after him. It served from the start as the place where cardinals gathered in conclave to elect a new pope, a function it still performs, and its walls were frescoed by the leading painters of the age.

The old basilica of Constantine, by then more than eleven centuries old, was failing, and in 1506 Pope Julius II laid the first stone of a wholly new Saint Peter's. The greatest architects of the era worked on it in turn: Donato Bramante began it, and Michelangelo, who took charge in 1546, designed the soaring dome that crowns it. The building was not finished until 1626. Julius II also commissioned Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, completed between 1508 and 1512, and later Michelangelo added the immense 'Last Judgement' on the altar wall, finished in 1541; in the same years Raphael frescoed the papal apartments now known as the Raphael Rooms.

These commissions, together with the popes' avid collecting of classical sculpture, laid the foundations of the Vatican Museums, traditionally dated to 1506 when Julius II placed the newly unearthed 'Laocoon' on public display. Over the following centuries the popes added galleries of Egyptian, Etruscan and classical antiquities. The Renaissance papacy thus assembled, on the small hill across the Tiber, an artistic patrimony of unique richness, even as the wider Papal States were drawn into the wars and rivalries of early modern Italy and Europe.

Turning points

1. 1481–1483Culture & Ideas

   The Sistine Chapel completed

   Built under Pope Sixtus IV, the Sistine Chapel was consecrated in 1483; it became the place where cardinals meet in conclave to elect the pope.

   [9]

2. 18 Apr 1506Culture & Ideas

   First stone of the new Saint Peter's

   Pope Julius II laid the foundation stone of an entirely new Saint Peter's Basilica to replace the failing fourth-century church; it was completed in 1626.

   [2]

3. 1506Culture & Ideas

   Origins of the Vatican Museums

   The Vatican Museums trace their founding to 1506, when Julius II displayed the newly excavated ancient sculpture of the Laocoon, beginning the papal collections.

   [10]

4. 1508–1512Culture & Ideas

   Michelangelo paints the Sistine ceiling

   Commissioned by Julius II, Michelangelo painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel between 1508 and 1512, one of the supreme achievements of Renaissance art.

   [9] [2]

Figures of the era

Through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the Papal States remained a temporal monarchy in central Italy, but in the nineteenth century the rising movement for Italian unification, the Risorgimento, made them an obstacle to a united Italy. The new Kingdom of Italy, proclaimed in 1861, regarded Rome as its natural capital, while the city and a shrinking surround remained under the pope, protected for years by a French garrison. When the Franco-Prussian War forced France to withdraw its troops, the opportunity came.

On 20 September 1870 the army of the Kingdom of Italy breached the walls of Rome at the Porta Pia after token resistance and occupied the city, completing Italian unification and bringing to an end more than a thousand years of papal temporal rule. A plebiscite confirmed the annexation, and Rome was made the capital of Italy. Pope Pius IX refused to accept the seizure of Rome and the loss of the Papal States; rejecting the Italian state's authority, he withdrew into the Vatican palace and declared himself a 'prisoner', a stance his successors maintained for nearly sixty years.

The standoff that followed was known as the Roman Question: the popes would not recognise the legitimacy of the Italian state's occupation of Rome, and the Italian state could not obtain papal acceptance of the new order. Successive popes refused to leave the Vatican or to acknowledge the kingdom, and the dispute remained unresolved across the reigns of several popes. It would not be settled until 1929, when a new agreement between the Holy See and Italy at last reconciled the papacy to the existence of the Italian state and gave the popes a sovereign territory of their own.

Turning points

1. 1861Politics & Power

   The Kingdom of Italy claims Rome

   The new Kingdom of Italy, proclaimed in 1861, regarded Rome as its capital, leaving the pope's remaining territory protected only by a French garrison.

   [11]

2. 20 Sep 1870War & Rupture

   The capture of Rome

   Italian troops breached the walls at the Porta Pia and took Rome, ending more than a thousand years of papal temporal rule and completing the unification of Italy.

   ↗See the data

   [11] [12]

3. 1871Religion

   Pius IX, 'prisoner in the Vatican'

   Refusing to accept the loss of Rome, Pope Pius IX withdrew into the Vatican and declared himself a prisoner, a position his successors held until 1929.

   [12]

4. 1870–1929Politics & Power

   The Roman Question

   For nearly six decades the popes refused to recognise the Italian state's seizure of Rome, leaving the church-state dispute known as the Roman Question unresolved.

   [12] [13]

Figures of the era

The Roman Question was settled on 11 February 1929, when the Lateran Treaty was signed in Rome between the Holy See and the Kingdom of Italy. It was signed for the Italian government by the head of government, Benito Mussolini, and for the papacy by the cardinal secretary of state, Pietro Gasparri. By the treaty Italy recognised the full sovereignty of the Holy See and its possession of an independent territory, the State of Vatican City, a tiny enclave of about 44 hectares (109 acres), the smallest sovereign state in the world. The state formally came into existence when the ratifications were exchanged on 7 June 1929.

The settlement carefully distinguished two things that are easily confused. The Holy See is the sovereign juridical entity of the universal Roman Catholic Church, headed by the pope; it conducts diplomatic relations and signs treaties as the equal of a state. Vatican City State is the small territory created in 1929 to give the Holy See a guaranteed, independent base, 'almost a pedestal' for the church's worldwide authority. Pope Pius XI, offered more land, deliberately accepted only the minimum needed to guarantee the papacy's independence; the pope holds within the territory absolute executive, legislative and judicial power.

The new state's neutrality was soon tested. During the Second World War Vatican City, under Pope Pius XII, maintained a policy of neutrality. Although Rome was occupied by Germany from 1943 and then taken by the Allies, who liberated the city on 4 June 1944, Vatican City itself was not occupied, and the Vatican organised extensive humanitarian relief. Pius XII's wartime conduct, in particular his caution in publicly condemning the Nazi extermination of Europe's Jews, has remained the subject of intense historical debate.

Turning points

1. 11 Feb 1929Formation

   Signing of the Lateran Treaty

   The Holy See and Italy signed the Lateran Treaty, signed by Mussolini for Italy and Cardinal Gasparri for the papacy, recognising the Holy See's sovereignty and creating the State of Vatican City.

   [13] [14]

2. 7 Jun 1929Formation

   The State of Vatican City comes into being

   With the exchange of ratifications on 7 June 1929 the State of Vatican City formally came into existence as an independent sovereign state of about 44 hectares.

   [13] [14]

3. 1929Politics & Power

   The Roman Question resolved

   The Lateran Treaty ended the nearly sixty-year dispute over the popes' loss of Rome, reconciling the papacy to the Italian state in return for a sovereign territory.

   [13] [12]

4. 4 Jun 1944War & Rupture

   Wartime neutrality and the liberation of Rome

   Vatican City kept to neutrality under Pius XII during the Second World War; though Rome was occupied and then liberated by the Allies on 4 June 1944, the Vatican itself was not occupied.

   ↗See the data

   [15]

Figures of the era

In the second half of the twentieth century the Vatican became the stage for the most far-reaching renewal of the Roman Catholic Church in modern times. On 11 October 1962 Pope John XXIII opened the Second Vatican Council in Saint Peter's Basilica; meeting over four sessions until 1965, and continued by his successor Paul VI, the council adopted sixteen documents that reformed the church's worship, its understanding of itself and its relations with other faiths, calling for an 'updating', or aggiornamento, to meet the modern age.

The Holy See's modern reach rests on a sharp distinction from the tiny state that houses it. As the sovereign entity of the universal Church, the Holy See maintains full diplomatic relations with most of the world's states and has been a permanent observer at the United Nations since 1964, a status it chose deliberately in order to preserve its neutrality in political disputes. The long pontificate of John Paul II from 1978, the first non-Italian pope in centuries, showed how a head of so small a state could exert a moral and political influence felt across the globe, not least in the collapse of communism in Europe.

Vatican City is also the custodian of one of the world's great concentrations of art and architecture. Its monuments, Saint Peter's Basilica, the Sistine Chapel and the Vatican Museums among them, led UNESCO to inscribe the whole of Vatican City as a World Heritage Site in 1984, an entire state listed as a single cultural property. The Holy See's extraterritorial properties in Rome are likewise part of the World Heritage site of the historic centre of Rome. Across more than nineteen centuries the Vatican Hill has thus passed from a martyr's grave to the seat of a temporal kingdom and, finally, to the smallest sovereign state on earth.

Turning points

1. 1962–1965Religion

   The Second Vatican Council

   Opened by John XXIII on 11 October 1962 in Saint Peter's and concluded under Paul VI in 1965, Vatican II reformed the worship, self-understanding and outward relations of the Roman Catholic Church.

   [16]

2. 1964Politics & Power

   The Holy See becomes a UN permanent observer

   The Holy See established a Permanent Observer Mission to the United Nations in 1964, choosing observer status to preserve its neutrality, distinct from the territory of Vatican City State.

   [17] [18]

3. 1984Culture & Ideas

   Vatican City inscribed as a World Heritage Site

   UNESCO inscribed the entire State of Vatican City as a World Heritage Site, recognising Saint Peter's, the Sistine Chapel and the Vatican Museums as a cultural patrimony of universal value.

   [19] [20]

4. 10 Jan 1984Politics & Power

   Diplomatic relations with the United States

   The United States and the Holy See established full diplomatic relations on 10 January 1984, more than a century after the loss of the Papal States had ended earlier ties.

   [21]

Figures of the era