The
eighteenth century saw
the decline of the papacy as a
political force, a phenomenon
marked by the occupation of the
city in 1798 by Napoleon;
Pius
VI (1775-1800) was
unceremoniously sent off to France
as a prisoner, and Napoleon
declared another Roman republic,
with himself at its head, which
lasted until 1815, when papal rule
was restored under
Pius VII
(1800-23).
Thirty-four years later a
pro-Unification caucus under Mazzini
declared the city a republic but
was soon chased out, and Rome had
to wait until Garibaldi
stormed the walls in 1870 to join
the unified country - the last but
symbolically most important part
of the Italian peninsula to do so.
"Roma o morte",
Garibaldi had cried, and he wasted
no time in declaring the city the
capital of the new kingdom under
Vittorio Emanuele I, and confining
the by now quite powerless
pontiff, Pius IX (1846-78),
in the Vatican until agreement was
reached on a way to coexist.
As capital of a modern
European country, Rome was (some
would say still is) totally
ill-equipped, and the Piemontese
rulers of the new kingdom set
about building a city fit to
govern from, cutting new streets
through Rome's central core (Via
Nazionale, Via del Tritone) and
constructing grandiose buildings
like the Altar of the Nation. Mussolini
took up residence in Rome in 1922,
and in 1929 signed the Lateran
Pact with Pope Pius XI
(1922-39), a compromise which
forced the Vatican to accept the
new Italian state and in return
recognized the Vatican City as
sovereign territory, independent
of Italy, together with the key
basilicas and papal palaces in
Rome, which remain technically
independent of Italy to this day.
Mussolini's motivations weren't
dissimilar to the popes, however,
when he bulldozed his way through
the Roman Forum and began work on
the futuristic, self-publicizing
planned extension to the city
known as EUR. Rome was declared an
"open city" during World
War II , and as such emerged
from the war relatively unscathed.
However, after Mussolini's death,
and the end of the war, the
Italian king, Vittorio Emanuele
III, was forced to abdicate and
Italy was declared a republic -
still, however, with its capital
in Rome.
