Papal States

Papal States, territory of Italy formerly under direct temporal rule of the pope. They were also known as the States of the Church or Pontifical States. The popes became de facto rulers of the city of Rome and the surrounding area by the 6th century ad. This territory was formally granted to Pope Stephen II by Pepin the Short, king of the Franks, in 754. Additions were made by gifts, purchases, and conquests until the Papal States included nearly the whole of central Italy, reaching their greatest extent in the 16th century. The acquisitions of the papacy were for the most part retained until 1797, when French forces under Napoleon Bonaparte seized much of the territory. In 1801 Pope Pius VII regained some power, and in 1815 the Congress of Vienna restored nearly all the territory of the states, placing them under Austrian protection.

The final dissolution of the Papal States came in 1870, when nearly all the territory, including Rome, was annexed to a united Italy by its king, Victor Emmanuel II. The jurisdiction of the pope was confined to the Vatican, in which, as a protest against the Italian occupation, each succeeding pope remained a voluntary prisoner until 1929, when the Lateran Treaty recognized the full and independent sovereignty of the Holy See in Vatican City.