Prisoner in the Vatican

The status claimed by popes who rejected Italy’s annexation of Rome in 1870 and remained within the Vatican until the Lateran Treaty of 1929 settled relations with Italy.

Capture of Rome: The Italian army’s entry into Rome on 20 September 1870, ending papal temporal rule over the city. Its seizure brought the popes’ territorial dispute with the new Italian state into the Vatican.
Law of Guarantees: An Italian law of 1871 that offered the pope personal protections and privileges after the annexation of Rome. It sought to resolve the conflict unilaterally, but the papacy rejected it as inadequate.
Roman Question: The dispute between the papacy and Italy over Rome’s status and the pope’s sovereignty from 1870 until 1929. The prisoner claim became the central symbol of this decades-long political conflict.
Papal sovereignty: The pope’s independent authority to govern the Catholic Church and, where applicable, a sovereign territory. The dispute centered on whether spiritual independence required territorial sovereignty.
Papal States: A succession of territories in central Italy ruled by the pope from the eighth century until 1870. Their annexation deprived the papacy of the lands whose loss it refused to accept.
Non expedit: A Vatican policy that discouraged or prohibited Italian Catholics from participating in national political elections. It translated the unresolved conflict with Italy into restrictions on Catholic political participation.
Lateran Treaty: A 1929 agreement between the Holy See and Italy that recognized Vatican City and settled the Roman Question. It ended the claimed confinement by establishing a sovereign territory for the Holy See.
Papal States (1870–1929): A historical label for the interval after the Papal States’ annexation and before the Lateran settlement, not a continuing territorial state. The papacy claimed confinement during this period, but no Papal States remained to confine it.
Risorgimento: The nineteenth-century movement that unified the Italian states into a single kingdom. Italian unification made Rome the kingdom’s capital and brought the papacy into conflict with Italy.
Holy See: The central governing authority of the Catholic Church, headed by the pope. The dispute concerned the Holy See’s independence, not merely the pope’s residence.

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Pope Pius IXBroader topic: Pius IX maintained this protest against Italy’s control of Rome.