Papal States / Holy See

The Papal States were the temporal domain of the Pope, stretching across central Italy from the Tyrrhenian coast to the Adriatic, including Rome, Lazio, Umbria, the Marche, and (until 1860) Emilia-Romagna. Restored at the Congress of Vienna after Napoleon's dissolution of the earlier papal territories, they were a conservative theocratic state whose administration was widely regarded as inefficient and oppressive. The Revolutions of 1848 briefly expelled Pius IX from Rome, which was declared a republic before French troops restored him. The process of Italian unification systematically eroded the Papal States: Emilia-Romagna and Umbria were annexed by Piedmont in 1860 following plebiscites. Rome and Lazio — protected by French garrison troops — held out until September 1870, when Italian forces entered the city after France's defeat in the Franco-Prussian War. Pius IX refused to recognise Italian sovereignty and remained the 'Prisoner of the Vatican' until the Lateran Treaty of 1929.

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