Papal States - Italian Nationalism and The End of The Papal States

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 (1814–15), which left Italy divided: with Sardinia-Piedmont, Tuscany and the other northern states under the rule of junior cadet branches of the Habsburgs and in the south the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies was under Bourbon rule. In 1848, nationalist and liberal revolutions began to break out across Europe; in 1849, a Roman Republic was declared and Pope Pius IX fled the city.

A view of the Papal States from the perspective of the mid 19th century is readily available.

After the Austro-Sardinian War of 1859, much of northern Italy was unified under the House of Savoy, and Giuseppe Garibaldi led a revolution that overthrew 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 Emperor Napoleon III of France 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-Piedmont 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 neighbourhood of Rome, which was declared Capital of Italy in March 1861, when the first Italian Parliament met in the Piedmontese kingdom's old capital, Turin. However, the Italian Government could not take possession of its capital because Napoleon III kept a French garrison in Rome in order to protect Pope Pius IX. The opportunity to eliminate the Papal States came when the Franco-Prussian War began in July 1870, and Napoleon III had to recall his garrison from Rome. 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.

On September 10, 1870, Italy declared war on the Papal States, and the Italian Army, commanded by General Raffaele Cadorna, crossed the frontier of the then remaining papal territory on September 11 and advanced slowly toward Rome. The Italian Army reached the Aurelian Walls on September 19 and placed Rome under a state of siege. Although the pope's tiny army was incapable of defending the city, Pius IX ordered it to put up at least a token resistance to emphasize that Italy was acquiring Rome by force and not consent. This incidentally served the purposes of the Italian State and gave rise to the myth of the Breach of Porta Pia, in reality a tame affair involving a cannonade at close range that demolished without much fuss a 1600-year-old wall in poor repair. The city was captured on September 20, 1870. Rome and Latium were annexed to the Kingdom of Italy as a result of a plebiscite the following October.

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 (or Concordat) with Italy 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.