Why Another State is in Rome？
Rome, the capital of Italy. This city was the center of the ex-empire, and is also one of the most attractive places for tourist in the world. Rome has a unique feature. Another nation is in this city; Vatican, the smallest state in the world.
At present Italy is governed by the President and the Prime-Minister, however Vatican is governed by the Pape. Why was this state born? This is because Rome was the top of catholic and Italy was in pieces for a long time.
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Eternal City “Rome”
Before Christ was born, Rome developed as a city-state, eventually became a big empire surrounding Mediterranean Sea. Christianity was born at Israel under Roman Empire in AD 1th century, and spread to various places being persecuted.
At last Roman Emperor set Christianity as the state religion, and built base churches of this religion; one of them was naturally in Rome; “Roman Catholic Church” is. But Roman Empire was divided into East and West due to internal conflicts, and confused because of Germanic people’s invasion. West Roman Empire was broken down abdicating of the emperor in 476.
What should not be misunderstood here is that the city of Rome itself was not broken down as Roman Empire was. Churches and people maintained to live in this city. However, disappearing of the big empire lost social order, people’s life was unstable for a long time called The Dark Middle age.
Who supported people was Catholic church. Monks built and developed villages. The Bible supported to growing of conscience. Thus, the effect of church spread over the Europe, and the authority of Pope in Rome also increased.
The States of Papal
The long confusion ended when Kingdom of Frank, Germanic people, had power. This kingdom was governed today’s France, Germany and so on, the king joined hands with Roman Catholic to have the church’s support.
PippinⅢ, king of Frank in middle of 8th century, usurped the throne. So he wanted the Pope’s endorsement to justify his deed. In 756 he got territory of north Italy from his enemy and donated it to Pope. In short, he gave Pope the land as a present to get his endorsement.
Then Roman Pope has the territory to govern directly, and he became to be able to collect tax from there. The territory was called “Papal States” and it maintained to 19th century.
Charlemagne, son of PippinⅢ, conquered northern Italy. He was given the crown as the successor of Roman Empire from the Pope in 800. The kingdom of Frank was evolved into “Empire”. After that, Empire of Frank experienced breaking-up and reintegration, Holy Roman Empire was born in 962. The region was mainly at present Germany and northern Italy.
Who is the top of Christian?
Maybe you can image easily that the position of “Emperor” is higher than that of “King”. But in Europe (the world of Catholic), there was a “Pope” above the “Emperor”. The relationship between the “Emperor” and the “Pope” gradually turned into a rivalry, to catch the top of catholic. This conflict was called “Investiture Controversy”.
Rome was not governed by who called the Holy “Roman” Emperor but by the Pope, so the Emperor often intervened Italy. As the result northern Italy, such as Milan and Florence where are between Germany and Rome, was the disputed area by the Emperor and the Pope and gradually became independent.
The “Three Worlds” of Italy
In the northern Italy, many City-states were built and developed manufacture and trade. The Renaissance cultural movement also started in the northern Italy in 15th century. By those trades, various goods and new thoughts were flowing in from outside. The ideas inspired many artists, and rich nobility supported them, such as the movement occurred.
The Pope who governed the central of Italy won the Investiture Controversy, and let the kings of Europe on a Crusade. At last, however, Crusade had lost and the power of the Pope was also decreased.
In the Southern Italy, the Kingdom of Sicily was built in 12th century. This kingdom was influenced by France and Spain as the important place of the Mediterranean Sea.
Thus Italian Peninsula was divided to 3 areas; North: City-states, Center: Papal state, and South: Kingdom of Sicily. Each state followed its own history. But any states were not able to be a powerful country, foreign powers as Habsburg families or Napoleon and so on ruled Italy from 16th to 19th century.
Unifying of the three worlds
19th century after the downfall of Napoleon, Most of Northern Italy was under Habsburg’s Austria. Kingdom of Sardinia whose capital was Torino was out of Habsburg’s governance and began to build unified nation of Italian like that the surrounding countries were doing to. Middle 19th century the Kingdom annexed Milan, under Austria, and Tuscany which was governed by Habsburg family. (Exceptionally the small nation escaped annexation at that time was San-Marino.)
In the Southern Italy, King of Sicily, who had an absolute monarchy was pushed aside by Garibaldi. With the hope of Sicilian citizens, Kingdom of Sardinia was merged with Sicily. The name of this kingdom changed “Kingdom of Italy” in 1861.
However the Papal State still existed as an independent country in the central of Italian Peninsula. Kingdom of Italy forcibly annexed the State over the objections of the Pope. Then North area and South area were integrated, the region of Italy became similar to that of present day. But of course PiusⅨ, the Papal at that time, was angry very much. He severed diplomatic relations with the Kingdom of Italy and secluded himself in a corner of Rome.
With annexing the Papal State, Kingdom of Italy move the capital to Rome. This was because the city has good location of the geographical balance. In addition to that people can naturally image this city as The Capital of Roman Empire, so they consider that kingdom“full of patches” is legitimate state.
The birth of Vatican City State
The relation of Italy and Papal was still severance even the 20th century began. But they finally reconciled by “Lateran Treaty”in 1929. With this treaty, the Pope can govern only Vatican area. When the reconciliation was achieved, the prime minister of Italy was Mussolini.
Thus Vatican City State was built, and maintained to present day. Despite the smallest state in the world ( only 0.44㎢ ) , Vatican has great influence to the Catholic believer all over the world. This is also the features of Rome which has a long and unique history.
