 | McLae´s guide to The Vatican City |  |
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The Vatican City Internet country code: .va International telephone prefix: +379  Pope John Paul II The Vatican City - formally State of the Vatican City, or Vatican City State - is a tiny sovereign state whose territory consists of a landlocked enclave within the city of Rome, Italy. The entire state is about 44 Hectares (108.7 acres) and thus is a European microstate. It is the smallest independent nation in the world. Since it is governed by the Bishop of Rome (the Pope), its government can be described as ecclesiastical and the highest state functionaries are in fact clergymen. It is the sovereign territory of the Holy See (Latin:Sancta Sedes) and the location of the Apostolic Palace - the Pope's official residence - and the Roman Curia. Thus, although the principal ecclesiastical seat of the Holy See (Basilica of St. John Lateran) is located in Rome itself, the Vatican City can be said to be the governmental capital of the Roman Catholic Church of both East and West. Eating and Drinking: The Vatican Museums have a reasonable cafeteria style restaurant, a bar, and a pizzeria all of which are open during museum opening hours, and until about one hour after closing. Thats it ! Mail: Since Vatican City is a separate country, it also has its own postal system, which is generally considered to be a bit more reliable than that of Italy. Send a postcard to your friends and it will be postmarked from Vatican City. Population: Although 900 people live within the Vatican city, many dignitaries, priests, nuns, guards, and 3,000 lay workers live outside the Vatican. History: It is supposed that this originally uninhabited part of Rome (the ager vaticanus) had long been considered sacred, or at least not available for habitation, even before the arrival of Christianity. In 326 the first church, Constantine's basilica, was built over the site that later Roman Catholic apologists argue was the tomb of Saint Peter, buried in a common cemetery on the spot; from then on the area started to become more populated, but mostly only by dwelling houses connected with the activity of St Peter's. Popes in their secular role gradually came to govern neighbouring regions and, through the Papal States, ruled a large portion of the Italian peninsula for more than a thousand years until the mid 19th century, when most of the territory of the Papal States was seized by the newly created Kingdom of Italy. For much of this time the Vatican was not the habitual residence of the Popes, but rather the Lateran Palace, and in recent centuries, the Quirinal Palace, while the residence from 1309-1377 was at Avignon in France. In 1870, the Pope's holdings were left in an uncertain situation when Rome itself was annexed by the Piedmontese after a nominal resistance of the papal forces. The popes were left between 1870 and 1929 in a situation somewhat like that of the last emperor of China, undisturbed in their palace, but with no official status recognized by the Italian State. Other states maintained international recognition of the Holy See as a sovereign entity, and in practice Italy made no attempt to interfere with the Holy See. During this period it became fashionable to speak of the Pope as a "prisoner". This situation was resolved on February 11, 1929 under the premiership of Mussolini by the three Lateran treaties, which established the independent State of the Vatican City and granted Catholicism special status in Italy. The cathedra (official seat) of the Bishop of Rome, the Pope, is in the Lateran basilica, Rome's cathedral. The Lateran is on one of the seven hills of Rome, the Caelian. In 1984, a new concordat between the Holy See and Italy modified certain provisions of the earlier treaty, including the position of Catholicism as the Italian |
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