Vatican City Became an Independent State
On this day · 7 June 1929
When the Lateran Treaty took effect, a 44-hectare patch of Rome became the world's smallest sovereign country.
For nearly 60 years the popes had been, in their own words, “prisoners in the Vatican.” When the Kingdom of Italy seized Rome in 1870, the papacy lost the last of its Papal States and refused to recognise the new Italian capital, leaving the Holy See without any sovereign territory.
That standoff, known as the Roman Question, ended with the Lateran Treaty, signed on 11 February 1929 by Benito Mussolini for King Victor Emmanuel III and by Cardinal Pietro Gasparri for Pope Pius XI. When the ratifications were exchanged on 7 June 1929, the treaty took effect and Vatican City was born as a fully independent, sovereign state under the rule of the Holy See.
A country smaller than many city parks gained every attribute of an independent nation.
Covering just 44 hectares inside Rome, the new state remains the smallest country on Earth by both area and population. Italy also paid the Church financial compensation for its 1870 losses, finally closing a dispute that had lasted three generations.
Sources & references
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