The Roman Republic was a state declared on February 9, 1849, when the government of Papal States was temporarily replaced by a republican government due to Pope Pius IX's flight to Gaeta. The republic was led by Carlo Armellini, Giuseppe Mazzini and Aurelio Saffi. Together they formed a triumvirate, a reflection of a form of government seen in the ancient Roman Republic.
One of the major innovations the Republic hoped to achieve was enshrined in its constitution: all religions could be practiced freely and the pope was guaranteed the right to govern the Catholic Church. These religious freedoms were quite different from the situation under the preceding government, which allowed only Catholicism and Judaism to be practiced by citizens. The Constitution of the Roman Republic was the first in the world to abolish capital punishment in its constitutional law.
Famous quotes containing the words roman and/or republic:
“Uprises there
A mother’s form upon my ken,
Guiding my infant steps, as when
We walked that ancient, thoroughfare,
The Roman Road.”
—Thomas Hardy (1840–1928)
“I date the end of the old republic and the birth of the empire to the invention, in the late thirties, of air conditioning. Before air conditioning, Washington was deserted from mid-June to September.... But after air conditioning and the Second World War arrived, more or less at the same time, Congress sits and sits while the presidents—or at least their staffs—never stop making mischief.”
—Gore Vidal (b. 1925)