On 11 February 1929, in the Lateran Palace in Rome, Cardinal Pietro Gasparri signed for Pius XI, and Benito Mussolini for King Victor Emmanuel III. The Lateran Pacts closed the Roman question, opened when Italy took Rome in 1870 and the pope considered himself a prisoner in the Vatican.

The political treaty recognises the sovereignty of the Holy See and creates the State of Vatican City. Article 1 restates the principle of the Albertine Statute of 1848: the Catholic, Apostolic and Roman religion is the only religion of the State. St Peter’s Square remains normally open to the public; Italian police stop at the basilica steps.

Italy paid, at the exchange of ratifications, 750 million lire and handed over one billion in 5 per cent consols. The sum was accepted as a settlement of claims after the loss of the Papal States. The Law of Guarantees of 1871, which offered the palaces without sovereignty and a yearly income, had been refused.

The concordat, 45 articles, regulated canonical marriage, schools and the appointment of bishops. The annexes mark the extraterritoriality of the Lateran, Santa Maria Maggiore, San Paolo, Castel Gandolfo and other pontifical palaces in Rome. The Holy See undertook to remain neutral in the temporal disputes of states.

Negotiations had begun in 1926, with Francesco Pacelli as the cardinal’s go-between. Ratifications were exchanged on 7 June 1929; the text appeared in Acta Apostolicae Sedis. Mussolini then commissioned Via della Conciliazione, the axis that links St Peter’s to the centre of Rome.

The 1948 constitution of the Italian Republic, article 7, keeps relations between State and Church on the Lateran treaties. The concordat was revised in 1984: Catholicism ceased to be the exclusive religion of the State; funding moved onto the otto per mille.

The Secretariat of State of the Vatican keeps the treaty, the concordat and the procès-verbal of the ratifications, drafted by Gasparri and Mussolini, on the Holy See’s official site.

Image: International Photo, signing of the papal-Italian accord, published in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 14 February 1929, public domain, Wikimedia Commons. Cropped to 16:9.

Source consulted: Lateran Treaty. Treaty text: Patti lateranensi, 11 febbraio 1929 — Segreteria di Stato, card. Pietro Gasparri.