Prisoner of the Vatican

by David I. Kertzer

  In late 1867, after the sorry spectacle of the king's secret encouragement of Garibaldi's expedition on Rome and his subsequent denial of his involvement, the British foreign secretary reported on his recent visit to Florence. Italian government ministers, he wrote, found the king to be "an intriguer whom no honest man could serve without damage to his own reputation." The picture got even worse: "There is universal agreement that Vittorio Emanuele is an imbecile; he is a dishonest man who tells lies to everyone." In return, the king had no more positive view of the political class than they did of him. Nor did he have a particularly positive view of his subjects. There were only two ways of governing Italians, he told another British visitor, "by bayonets and bribery." Italians, the king firmly believed, were totally unfit for a parliamentary system.4

  The king's credentials as leader of the unified Italian state were tarnished, not only by his disinclination to speak Italian, but also by his antipathy toward the southern half of his new country. He was known to complain that he had never wanted southern Italy to become part of his kingdom, and he also had mixed feelings about having taken Rome; he was intoxicated by the glory of it all but uneasy about living in the pope's shadow.

  Victor Emmanuel had little interest in religion and even less regard for priests. Yet, although Pius IX had excommunicated him for having seized much of the Papal States in 1859–1860, he always had a soft spot for the pope, whom he affectionately called "that poor devil of a holy father." 5 When the king fell ill in 1869, he desperately sought release from the pope's excommunication decree so that he could receive last rites. Told that this would be done only if he regularized his long-standing union with a plebian woman—his wife having died many years earlier—the king hastily arranged a wedding at his sickbed. When the pope insisted that he add a written apology for his role in despoiling the Papal States, Victor Emmanuel balked. But a compromise was hastily reached: the king apologized verbally to his confessor and pledged that if he recovered, he would never again do anything to harm the Holy See. Last rites were then administered. As fate—or God—would have it, the king soon recovered and before long sent his army to conquer what little remained of the pope's lands.

  Once Rome had been taken by the royal troops, the king found himself in an uncomfortable position. The proud scion of a French-speaking Savoyard dynasty, Victor Emmanuel viewed Rome as a foreign city inextricably linked to the pope and the Curia. Although proud to be seen as the king who unified the Italian peninsula, he had no desire to spend time in Rome and would never feel at ease there. Had there been any way for him to avoid moving to Rome, he would have been relieved.

  The problem was that the king's vision of Italy did not coincide with that of his subjects. Ironically, both the Catholics and the Italian nationalists were of like mind in seeing Rome as the natural capital of the peninsula. Earlier in the century, when an influential group of Catholics searched for a way to reconcile the papacy with Italian unification, they proposed creating an Italian federation of states over which the pope would, in some fashion, preside. In this vision, Rome was the natural capital of Italy; they could imagine no other city in its stead. For Mazzini and other antipapal Italian nationalists, on the other hand, Rome was the spiritual center of quite another vision of the country. Unification meant the rise of the third great Rome, after the ancient empire that had once ruled much of the world and then the Rome of the popes, the city again a center of worldwide importance. Even beyond this feeling, given the papacy's claims as the rightful ruler of Rome, the failure to make Rome Italy's capital risked ceding the Holy City to the pope, making it a foreign center at the heart of the new Italian state.6

  Yet many of Rome's new rulers had mixed feelings about the city, which few of them knew well. Cavour, the architect of Italian unity, had never set foot in Rome. Its new governor, La Marmora, regarded the city as a political and cultural backwater overrun by priests. "Moving the seat of government to Rome," he argued, "is an error that may cost Italy dearly, for Rome is not suitable either morally or materially." Like other nationalist conservatives, La Marmora's reservations were mixed with fear at the prospect of an Italian king sharing the same city with the pope. La Marmora proposed what came to be known as the Russian solution, with Rome, like Moscow, as the holy city and Florence, like St. Petersburg, as the seat of government. His proposal did not get far.7

  The anomaly of having the king and the pope in the same city, claimed by each as his capital, was keenly felt in other European capitals as well. Two days after the Italian troops pushed through Porta Pia and into Rome, the British ambassador to Italy advised London of the difficulty of having "a constitutional and excommunicated king by the side of an infallible pope; of a Representative Parliament by the side of an absolute authority; of a liberty of the press and freedom of discussion by the side of the Inquisition." He concluded that it would produce "a state of things which can hardly be expected to work harmoniously."8 Foreign ministers throughout Europe likewise voiced misgivings about Italy's rush to move its capital.9

  The conservatives in the Italian government were of two minds. To move the capital to Rome risked inflaming the conflict with the pope; not to move it risked energizing the left-wing forces and perhaps even threatening the monarchy. What was most remarkable at the moment, reported Italy's foreign minister, was the depth of popular antipathy in Rome against "the government of the priests." The Romans feared that the king's government—which they viewed as a foreign body of Piedmontese—was planning to work out a deal with the pope at their expense. They wanted the capital to be moved immediately and the monasteries and convents that dominated the city abolished at once. But what was the government to do, asked Visconti in late October, "if while the king entered by one gate the pope left by the other?" The king would certainly not be received by the pope, and the sight of the new ruler marching in triumph through the Holy City in the face of an overthrown pontiff seemed more fitting for a revolutionary rabble rouser than for a royal sovereign. "The king feels this keenly," Visconti reported, and the prospect of going to Rome under such conditions "produces in him the greatest repugnance." 10

  Time was growing short. Among the most pressing problems was finding suitable royal quarters in Rome. The most splendid choice, and the one identified with political rule in Rome, was the Quirinal Palace, the huge complex at the top of the Quirinal hill in the center of the city. But the Quirinal was closely identified with the papacy. For the king to move into the palace would be rubbing salt into Pius's wounds.

  In the early years of Christian Rome, in late antiquity, the pope had made his residence at his cathedral, the Lateran, on the left bank of the Tiber. While the Lateran continued to be the pope's seat as bishop of Rome, a new papal residence was ultimately built at the Vatican, with the more or less permanent shift coming in the twelfth century. In the second half of the sixteenth century the Quirinal Palace was constructed, its elevation offering some relief from the heat for the popes in summer. By the nineteenth century it was so central to the papacy that the conclaves selecting new popes were moved there, including the one in 1846 that elected Pius IX himself.

  Despite all the worries and warnings, in late October the government decided not only that the capital should be speedily moved from Florence to Rome, but that the king's new home must be the Quirinal Palace. In sending the news to La Marmora, Lanza admitted that the decision would lead to a new volley of denunciations from the Vatican, but, he predicted, other countries would soon realize that the move was inevitable.11 In fact, Lanza's greater immediate problem lay not with the pope but with the king. As he reported, "The king finds the idea of residing in a palace contested by the pope to be truly repugnant, and he says that, coming to Rome, he would rather bring his hunting tents with him to live in. He is joking here, but what is serious is his marked repugnance to the idea of moving into the Quirinal, especially if the pope decides to remain in Rome." The king had told Lanza to see whether there wasn't some other palace in Rome he could
have, but, the prime minister observed, there was not only the practical problem of finding other quarters fit for a king but the symbolic problem, which was even greater, "for Roman opinion considers the Quirinal to be the true royal court."12

  La Marmora urged Lanza to reconsider. True, he wrote, many Romans view the Quirinal as Rome's royal residence and would be upset if the king refused to live there. But it was also true that "not a few Romans, and many people abroad, would appreciate the king's regard for the pope's feelings" were he to decide to live elsewhere. As a compromise, La Marmora suggested at least waiting until Pius IX died before having the king move into the Quirinal. But, in his view, it would be better still if the capital were not moved at all. "In this great impatience in the Country for moving the Capital immediately to Rome," wrote the general, "I see a great deal of deception and very few serious reasons." 13

  Two days later, La Marmora met with Cardinal Di Pietro at the latter's request. The cardinal was apparently acting on behalf of Antonelli, who, along with Pius, would not receive the new governor of Rome himself. Di Pietro sought word on whether the king had decided to come to Rome, telling the general that such a move would gravely offend the pope. La Marmora tried to put the best face on the situation, telling the cardinal that he "hoped that the Holy Father recognized the fact that our Sovereign had so far resisted the chorus of demands that were coming in from all parts of the country insisting that he go to Rome, and was doing so out of personal regard for the Holy Father."14

  Despite La Marmora's objections, the government decided to move and ordered him to take possession of the Quirinal Palace. When first asked to hand over the keys to the building, Pius is said to have responded: "Who do these thieves think they are kidding asking for the keys to open the door? Let them knock it down if they like. Bonaparte's soldiers, when they wanted to seize Pius VII, came through the window, but even they did not have the effrontery to ask for the keys."

  Rebuffed by the pope, La Marmora found a locksmith, who on November 8 used a picklock to force open the massive front gates. In his account of the incident, Pius IX's biographer Bishop Pelczar noted—not without a certain satisfaction—that the locksmith was struck dead shortly thereafter.15

  As the pope saw it, such signs of God's wrath were everywhere, although none was more powerful than the flood that devastated Rome as the new year approached. The Romans were used to periodic flooding, so when the fall proved to be exceptionally rainy, they looked at the Tiber's rising waters with some concern. By Christmas the water level was several meters above normal, and soon the lands along the river were under water, the newly liberated Jewish ghetto first among them. Mail service from northern Italy was suspended as the Tiber's rising waters flooded the railroad tracks north of the city. 16

  Ugo Pesce, an Italian visitor to Rome at the time, offers a firsthand account of what happened. He was walking home after midnight on the twenty-eighth, he recalled, when he saw the waters from the river begin to pour through Rome's main street, the via del Corso. "The reflections from the reddish lanterns held aloft by members of the national guard flickered eerily from the water, which seemed to be as black as ink." Pesce's friend told him not to worry, that flooding right along the river was common. But when Pesce awoke the next morning, the water outside his door was so deep that he could not get out of his building. Jumping from roof to roof, he finally found a place where he could reach the ground. The rains began again, and the swollen Tiber became a frightening sight, huge trees sweeping by and Rome's side streets turning into streams deep enough for large boats to navigate. On the twenty-ninth the rains finally stopped. Women leaned from their upper-story windows, yelling for the loaves of bread that the national guardsmen were handing out from their boats. Store owners could still not get into their ruined shops.17

  For those in the Vatican, Rome's punishment showed God's hand. At the beginning of the new year, the cardinal vicar of Rome sent out a circular letter: "Such a great disaster, which in the eyes of the unbelievers seems to be nothing more than the result of random fate," he wrote, "must be recognized for what it is: the tremendous scourge of divine punishment."18

  By the time of the flood, the issue of how to coax the king to the Holy City had become a major problem for the government. The pope had made it known that he would not receive the king, the foreign ambassadors to Rome had said that they could not pay even courtesy visits to the king in the pope's city, and the king himself would rather have done almost anything than move to Rome, where the Church's opposition to his rule was so painfully clear.

  In sending the flood, God, it appeared, had not only answered the pope's prayers but the king's as well, for it gave him a way to visit the Holy City without the ostentatious display normally reserved for such a royal entry. As Visconti wrote to his brother, "I insisted that the king take advantage of the opportunity offered by the Roman flood to make the trip and to leave immediately. It is a way to avoid many difficulties—to handle the complex emotions that the trip would produce by portraying it as having a charitable purpose, and to avoid the celebrations and all the hullabaloo." The king agreed and left almost immediately, accompanied by Lanza, Visconti, and a bevy of retainers. 19

  The king's visit could hardly have been briefer, less than thirteen hours in all, during part of which he slept. Nor does it seem that he was met by great popular acclamation, although his announcement that he was giving the municipal government 200,000 lire to alleviate the suffering of the people did win him favor. According to the Dutch ambassador to Rome, the government was forced to secretly hire a hundred shills to surround the royal carriage and provide a satisfying chorus of "Long live the king." Victor Emmanuel took care to do nothing to offend the pope, staying clear of the Leonine city. His reaction when he at last set foot in his new residence, the Quirinal Palace, that day depends on whose account can be believed. According to one report, he turned to La Marmora and said, whether triumphally or simply with relief we do not know: "Finally, I'm here!" But partisans of the pope told a different story. As the king first stepped into his new palace, they said, he felt a horrifying chill. In the distance he could see St. Peter's and the Vatican. "Oh, what a shadow those buildings cast!" he is said to have moaned.20

  During his visit, the king sent the pope a brief letter. Dated Rome, December 31,1870, it read:

  Most Blessed Father

  I come to Rome at this time to aid, insofar as I can, those damaged by the extraordinary flooding. I stay only a few hours, and I seize this opportunity to offer my most obsequious respect to Your Holiness, for whom I have always had the greatest veneration and filial affection.

  Your Most Devoted son,

  Victor Emmanuel

  On the back of the pope's copy in the Vatican archives is the note: "No reply made." In fact, although the king and the pope would subsequently live just a mile apart, the pope would never meet him.21

  Leaving the Rome train station after his whirlwind tour, the king felt great relief. He had accomplished what was expected of him—staking a royal claim to the Holy City—in a way much easier than he could have hoped. While some remarked that the king seemed to have remarkably good fortune, always in the right place at the right time, he now mulled over a less appetizing interpretation of recent events. Could it be a coincidence that within three months of his troops' assault on the pope the Tiber had risen up and torn through the Holy City, causing cadavers to glide through the streets and houses to crumble? Superstitious by nature, the king had difficulty dismissing the thought, as he would forgetting something else, the prediction of Catholics that if he should occupy the Quirinal, he would meet an untimely death there. 22

  Meanwhile, in Florence, the Italian parliament debated the final bill authorizing the transfer of the capital. Although a few voices denounced the prospect of two sovereigns in one city, neither recognizing the legitimacy of the other, the bill was passed in January 1871 by a huge majority in the House of Deputies but, revealingly, by a much more modest margin in th
e Senate, whose members were closely identified with the king.

  The rush to move the capital was fueled by fears of what might happen when the Franco-Prussian War ended. What, Lanza and his colleagues wondered, would France do once it recovered from the Prussian assault? A London Times article in early January, datelined Florence, offered a frightening prospect: "A firm persuasion is ... gradually gaining ground day by day in this country that France will not fail to vent her resentment in a second Italian war as soon as she has sufficiently recovered her strength after peace has been signed to enable her to do so, and it will be her object this time to undo all that she did during the first war, and to restore the Papal Government."23 As it happened, on January 28, the day after the Italian parliament voted to move the capital, Paris capitulated to the Prussian army. The siege was over, but the truly fearful bloodbath was still months away.

  The leaders of the precarious new republic in France were themselves children of the Enlightenment, with little enthusiasm for restoring the pope's lands to ecclesiastical rule. Yet they were under pressure from France's Catholic right, for whom the papal cause was sacrosanct, and they were also eager to restore France's influence in European affairs after their disastrous defeat. When the pope pleaded for their help in stopping the Italians from moving their capital, he found a willing audience.

  In April, the French envoy to Florence met with Visconti, urging that he stop the transfer of the capital. But Visconti would not be swayed.24

  The French foreign minister, Jules Favre, then offered a solution that echoed the one La Marmora had earlier suggested: "If [Italy] would consent to view Florence as the seat of government, it would solve the Papal question. It would show great sense, and the political credit that it would thereby garner, as well as the honor, would offer a considerable advantage." He added: "Focus all of M. Visconti-Venosta's attention on this difficult topic. Rome, under royal rule—an integral part of the Italian nation, but remaining Holy or, better yet, the Dominant center in the domain of the faith—would lose none of its prestige and would redound to Italy's credit. And conciliation would then come about naturally, because the pope would become accustomed to seeing himself as living in his own home, not having the king around."