Bixio was a colorful, swashbuckling, but also rather troubled figure. Born in Genoa in 1821, he had been the uncontrollable son of a wealthy father, his mother having died when he was young. Not knowing what to do with the willful child, his father sent him off into the merchant marine at the age of thirteen, and while still a youth he had suffered a shipwreck and imprisonment in the West Indies. In 1847, already a devout republican, Bixio met Mazzini and joined the revolts of 1848. Fighting alongside Garibaldi, he was wounded defending the Roman Republic in 1849. Ten years later, as Garibaldi's right-hand man, he accompanied the hero through Tuscany and Romagna before being given command of one of the two ships that carried Garibaldi's "thousand" volunteers to Sicily in 1860. He was far from loved by his men, who feared his violent temper.
Cadorna had never liked Bixio, whom he saw as more suited for the role of leader of the revolutionary rabble than a proper military officer, but Bixio had been the beneficiary of the policy that brought Garibaldi's irregulars into the official Italian army a decade earlier. Addressing parliament in the 1860s, the flamboyant Bixio had proposed his own solution to the Roman question: the matter was simple, he said. Just throw the pope and all of his cardinals into the Tiber.11
By 6 A.M., only an hour after the first sounds of battle were heard, members of the diplomatic corps began to arrive at the Vatican to be with the pope on what they knew would be a historic day. Wearing their finest uniforms and riding in their best carriages, eleven foreign envoys made their way in, including the ambassadors of Prussia, Austria, and France. At seven-thirty the pope, as was his habit, entered his private chapel, along with Antonelli and other members of his entourage. There the diplomats had the strange experience of hearing the pope say mass to the sounds of the cannons.
The pope then assembled the diplomats in his library, where he launched into a long monologue. Those who reported on the meeting observed that the pope seemed oddly impervious to what was going on outside. After thanking them for their presence on this sad occasion, he appeared to lose himself in memories of years past, dwelling on the pleasant times he had had as a young man, in 1823, when he sailed to South America as a member of the papal diplomatic corps. In the midst of these reveries, he was interrupted by the arrival of Count Carpegna, Kanzler's chief of staff, who brought news of the opening of a breach in the walls at Porta Pia. The pope hurried out, with Antonelli at his side, as they prepared Kanzler's final orders. It took little time for the terms of the surrender to be drafted by General Cadorna and signed by Kanzler. All of Rome, excluding the Leonine city, was nowceded to the army of His Majesty the king of Italy. The defeated papal troops were escorted back to St. Peter's Square, protected from the jeering Romans by troops bearing the Italian tricolored flag. 12
The dream of a unified Italy had come to pass. Uncensored newspapers could now appear. One of the first, on September 23, captured the delirious mood:
After fifteen centuries of darkness, of mourning, of misery and pain, Rome, once the queen of all the world, has again become the metropolis of a great State. Today, for us Romans, is a day of indescribable joy. Today in Rome freedom of thought is no longer a crime, and free speech can be heard within its walls without fear of the Inquisition, of burnings at the stake, of the gallows. The light of civil liberty that, arising in France in 1789, has brightened all Europe now shines as well on the eternal city. For Rome it is only today that the Middle Ages are over.13
The mood of the pope's defenders was glum. Yet they were not without their own hopes for the future, drawing comfort from the knowledge that Rome had been overrun by invaders many times before. In each case God had made sure that the Holy City was restored to its divinely ordained owners, its enemies—His enemies—brought low.14
5. The Leonine City
TWO MONTHS AFTER the Holy City was taken, an Italian government envoy went to see Bishop Giovanni Simeoni, secretary of the Vatican's Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, the body in charge of the Church's missions overseas. He wanted to sound the bishop out on ways that the government might cooperate with the Catholic missions abroad to their mutual benefit, but the bishop would hear none of it. The Holy See could not have any dealings with a government that had usurped the pope of his rightful earthly kingdom, said the bishop, and, in any case, he believed, the days of the new regime were numbered. "It is for us just a matter of time," he predicted. "When it will be, I don't know. It might be postponed a bit, but someday I will have the pleasure of writing you that the Restoration has come." Like others around the pope, Simeoni made no distinction between the restoration of the pope's rule in Rome itself and the restoration of the entire Papal States, for they were one and the same. Nor was this illusion shared only by prelates in Rome. In this sense, the letter that Archbishop Martin Spalding of Baltimore sent in early October 1870 was typical. "Our most beloved Father should be consoled," he wrote, for "such an abnormal state of affairs certainly cannot last very long. Divine providence will soon bring the needed remedy. I couldn't be more convinced of it."1
The leaders of the Italian government, meanwhile, had other ideas. In his early September letter to the pope, the king had specifically promised him full sovereignty over the right bank of the Tiber, intend ing that Rome would be forever divided between its secular left bank, over which he would preside, and the sacred domain of the Church on the right. This view is reflected in the September 23 comments of one of Italy's most prominent statesmen, Marco Minghetti, the former prime minister who was then serving as Italian ambassador to Vienna. "Italian troops will not enter the Leonine city," he wrote to Lord Acton that day. 2 What he did not realize was that the soldiers were already there.
On September 21, as General Cadorna stood at Porta San Pancrazio, south of the Leonine city, reviewing the foreign pontifical troops heading out of the country, he was surprised by the arrival of Count Harry von Arnim, the Prussian ambassador to the Holy See, who urgently sought his attention. Scuffling had broken out in the Leonine city between the papal gendarmes and the popolani, the lower classes, Arnim told him. The pope was upset, and those around him feared for his safety. Pius, according to Arnim, asked that Italian troops be sent in to preserve order.
Cadorna had told his troops not to enter the Leonine city, which he had defined very broadly to include not only the area within the old walls erected in the ninth century by Leo IV—containing the Vatican, the residential area between the Vatican and the Tiber (called the Borgo), and the Sant'Angelo Castle—but also the stretch of largely unoccupied land to the south going up the Gianiculum hill to the Porta San Pancrazio, where he now stood. Cadorna was not pleased by the pope's request. Certainly, he argued, Pius had sufficient forces left to maintain order, for he had Noble Guards, Palatine guards, Swiss guards, and gendarmes—only the papal army itself had been disbanded. But if, Cadorna told the Prussian ambassador, the pope still needed the Italian forces, he would have to put his request in writing and either sign it himself or have Antonelli or Kanzler do so.
While Arnim's carriage rattled over the cobblestone streets back to the Vatican, Cadorna sent orders for two of his battalions to move into position at the Sant'Angelo bridge, taking care to remain on the left bank. Arnim soon returned with a letter signed by Kanzler. "His Holiness has asked me to inform you," the general wrote, "that he wants you to take energetic and effective measures for the protection of the Vatican, for with all of his troops now dissolved, he lacks the means to prevent those who would disturb the peace—both immigrants and
others—from coming to cause disturbances and disorders under his sovereign residence." With this official request in hand, Cadorna ordered the two battalions to cross the bridge and take up positions in Sant'Angelo castle, in the square outside St. Peter's, and around the Vatican. He immediately telegraphed the news to the war minister, who by return wire gave his approval.3
In the wake of the violent seizure of Rome, Lanza, Visconti, and Italy's other leaders desperately wanted to show the world that the
Holy See could live in harmony with the enlarged Italian state. Nothing would be more valuable than some sign that the pope was willing to make peace with them. On September 22, Lanza sent instructions to Cadorna—now the military ruler of the occupied city—stressing that the pope should be treated with the utmost respect. "Look into whether a visit paying homage might not be displeasing to him, so that you can express these intentions face to face in the name of the King and his government."4 This idea, it turned out, was too much to hope for. The pope would not receive him or any other representative of the usurper king.
For Lanza and his colleagues, the pope's refusal to accept the Leonine city was a great embarrassment. The Italian diplomatic corps had trumpeted the king's offer to governments throughout Europe as evidence that king and pope could coexist peacefully. Papal refusal raised the specter of a battle to the death for Rome.
Meanwhile, in keeping with the procedures it had followed in all the other lands annexed to the Savoyard monarchy, the government organized a popular plebiscite so that the Romans could vote on joining the Kingdom of Italy. It was crucial to show the world that the people of Rome were eager to be part of Italy.
At the time, Rome had a population of about 240,000, divided into fourteen rioni, or districts, and further divided into fifty-four parishes. Most Romans were illiterate and few spoke Italian, but in this respect they were no different from most Italians.5
As the October 2 date neared, the residents of Borgo, the rione in the middle of the Leonine city, were growing increasingly restive. They, too, they insisted, were part of Rome and the new Italian state, and they would never submit to a continued papal theocracy. They too wanted to cast their votes in the plebiscite, thereby posing a ticklish problem for the government. If they voted and overwhelmingly favored becoming part of Italy, how could they be left behind?
Albert Blanc, the secretary-general of the Italian Foreign Ministry, proposed a solution in a September 30 report to Visconti. The government, he urged, should expropriate all the land and buildings in Borgo, compensating their owners by using the proceeds from the sale of Church property seized elsewhere in Rome. The government should then give all of Borgo to the Holy See; any resident who preferred to live under Italian jurisdiction could move across the river. Such a plan would give the Holy See full sovereignty over a city that was large enough to accommodate 40,000 people and that could easily house all of the religious orders that were being evicted from their properties in other parts of the Roman provinces.6
The prime minister, eager to see this plan put into effect, telegraphed Cadorna the next day, the day before the plebiscite, with a warning: "It is important that the Government and the municipality take no action during the plebiscite that prejudices the question of the Leonine city, which must be considered as a Pontifical territory." The plebiscite, Lanza instructed, was not to be held in Borgo, and no political demonstration of any kind was to be allowed there.
Shortly before 2 A.M. on the eve of the plebiscite, Blanc telegraphed Visconti to reassure him: "All measures have been taken to prevent anything that might offend the pope. No ballot boxes will be located in the Papal City."7
But, apparently unknown to Blanc, earlier that same evening Cadorna had been besieged by the residents of Borgo, irate that they were to be prevented from voting. The general came up with a compromise. While, by government order, no votes could be cast in Borgo, a separate ballot box reserved for residents of the papal territory would be set up on the Campidoglio, the site of Rome's municipal government, for those who wanted to vote.
October 2 was a day of celebration in Rome. Bursting with patriotic fervor, people draped tapestries from their windows and pasted Si on their hats and on the ribbons that hung from their buttonholes. At the end of the day, to the noisy delight of those congregated at the city capital for the counting of the vote, a large delegation of Borgo's residents arrived wearing hats with Si on them. In their ballot box were the 1,566 Borgo votes, every one a yes.8
In all, the Romans that day voted 40,785 Si, 46 No, a tally so lopsided that it offered plenty of ammunition to the pope's defenders. At the polling place, the Jesuits of Civiltà Cattolica reported, the man incharge offered each voter a choice between taking a card that said yes and one that said no. Those who asked for the yes ballot were greeted by the applause of the surrounding crowd. Those who dared to ask for the no faced jeers and whistles. 9 While the vote may have been far from an accurate reflection of opinion in Rome, there is no doubt that on that day the vast majority of the Roman population was truly excited, happy to be released from papal rule and eager to be part of the new Italian state.
Blanc, in reporting the results, told Visconti that he did not know how Borgo's residents could be forced to live under papal rule. "But," he added, not without some contradiction, "this does not detract from the idea that leaving the Leonine city to the Pope remains practical, advantageous, and inevitable."10
A few days later, Blanc formulated what became the final government proposal for trying to reconcile the apparently irreconcilable: the ceding of the Leonine city to the pope while allowing its population to be citizens of Italy. In a letter to Visconti, Blanc sketched out the new plan. The pope would have sovereignty over the Leonine city. Not only would he enjoy immunity from the Italian government, but so too would the Vatican palaces and all the headquarters of the Church hierarchy and members of the Vatican offices, the cardinals and bishops, and the central offices of the religious orders. The Holy See would have the right to expropriate any other property in the Leonine city that it deemed desirable for ecclesiastical use. The Italian government would provide a large annual subsidy to the Holy See to cover the expenses of all of its offices, in addition to the sum annually assigned to the pope himself. At the same time, the inhabitants of the Leonine city would enjoy the civil and political rights of Italian citizens—with certain exceptions in keeping with the pope's sovereignty. No newspaper, book, pamphlet, or other written material could be sold or posted without papal approval, nor would any theatrical performance, public speech, demonstration, or other such public activity be allowed without pontifical authorization. All artisans and professionals would require Vatican approval in order to conduct business there.11
Plans so complicated had no chance of being put into practice unless the pope was willing to negotiate. And, as Antonelli made clear in a letter he sent on October 10 to the papal nuncio in Vienna, Pius was in no mood for compromise.
"The Holy Father," Antonelli wrote, "knowing he has right on his side and resolved to withstand all hardships in order to carry out His duties and live up to the pledge that He took, will never lower himself by entering into any dealings with the usurpers and will never enter into any negotiation that is not directed at restoring the fullness of His dominions and His Sovereign rights." The whole Catholic world should know with absolute certainty, Antonelli added, "that He will not yield, regardless of what the consequences may be." Although the king of Florence—as Antonelli called Victor Emmanuel II—wanted to give the Leonine city to the Holy Father, he wrote, "such a proposal, like any other of its kind, is not going to be and will never be accepted."12
The likelihood that Pius could be brought around to a realistic assessment of the new political situation was never very great, and hopes in the Italian cabinet were further diminished by reports that the trauma of losing Rome had increased the pontiff's otherworldly proclivities. On October 12, Blanc sent Visconti a disturbing report: "For some time the pope has been trying to bring about a miracle, during one of those times when he has the sensation of inexhaustible vitality, which he takes to be a visitation of the Holy Spirit." The pope had recently raised his arms and commanded a cripple: "Get up and walk." When the poor man collapsed in a failed effort, the Vatican had the episode hushed up.13
Eager to show the other European powers its great respect for the pope, the government decided to appoint Alfonso La Marmora, an army general and former prime minister, in charge of Rom
e. Widely known in European diplomatic circles as a prudent and conservative man eager to bring about the conciliation of church and state, close to the king and from an aristocratic family of Turin, La Marmora was viewed with disdain by the left, who angrily protested his appointment.14
If Lanza had any hopes that La Marmora's reputation as a friend of the Church would open up new possibilities for accord, they were soon dashed. On his arrival in Rome, La Marmora asked to be received at the Vatican so that he could pay homage to the pontiff. Neither Pius nor Antonelli would see him. Lanza tried to console the general: "Their resentment against the King's Government is still too fresh for them to want to establish a relationship immediately with the person who represents this Government." Yet Lanza expressed the wish that as time passed Pius would bow to the new reality. 15
La Marmora was quickly besieged by the residents of Borgo. A large, noisy delegation protested that they did not want to be separated from the rest of the city and would not remain subjects of the pope. They were to be disappointed. "As you can imagine," La Marmora reported to Lanza, "I was not moved, and rejecting their criticisms, their assertions, and their suspicions, I told them that the Government had already done more for the Romans than I had ever believed possible. As for what would happen, it was necessary to give the situation enough time and to observe the greatest prudence, otherwise we all ran the grave risk of ruining everything." La Marmora ended his letter with a plea to Lanza that a final decision on the fate of the Leonine city be made soon.16
The prime minister was fast losing hope. Pius, he was now convinced, would never recognize the legitimacy of the Italian state that had taken his lands. Oddly, less than two weeks after Lanza had tried to reassure the ruffled La Marmora that the pope would eventually come around, he wrote to him: "I do not believe, and I never believed in conciliation. If I were in the pope's or Antonelli's shoes, I would find it odd and personally insulting that someone who took something so large from me which I (let's leave aside whether rightly or wrongly) highly valued should come and ask me for conciliation without returning all or at least part of what he had taken from me. And so if I wanted to do to the pope what I would want done to me under similar circumstances, I would not torment him with proposals for a conciliation that is impossible."
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