August 8, 2023 • 49 mins
Despite the name, Vatican City is an independent, sovereign nation -- and its history may surprise you. In today's episode, Ben, Noel and Max explore the story of the Vatican from its origins all the way to the modern day.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous Histories, a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to the
(00:27):
show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much for
tuning in. Let's give it up for the super producer
of this episode and our show, mister Max Williams.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
What to the what our personal.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Yeah, they call him il Papa. This is an interesting episode, GIRNL.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
I'm ben.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
We're talking about a something that has I think continually
fascinated all three of us, especially our research associate Jeff.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Micro nations right, not to be confused with Micronesia, which
is not a micronation.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
No, that's just a nation of very tiny island tiny people.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
You know.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
It's interesting because it's not that far away from the
part of the world where real life hobbits once existed,
the Shire Homo Ah, yes, of course, guys.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
I have a question. Let's try do this off memory.
What micronations have we done this for? So I'll start
off Andorra.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
And doors where they make all the mink coats. No,
that's Angora, sorry, Andre is a kind of coat, that's right.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Yeah, and doors where you go to buy cigarettes and
booze tax free.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
It's the duty free shop of the world. And uh,
it's San Marino. That was just seven hills.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Ye who live in the cave. That's yeah. I'm going
to be really great at this game. Ya, we're nailing it.
I think we got one more. We got Monaco.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Oh, I don't even Monaco. It's like a set dressing
for James bonsor.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
It really is. It is indeed, And if I could
use this an opportunity for a personal plug. This podcast
that I've been working on about the Rolling Stones Exile
on Main Street record, which they made in the South
of France, which is a very near Monico, has a
song on it called Tumbling Dice that is specifically a
reference to all of the debauched gambling hijinks that take
(02:17):
place in Monaco by the wealthy and powerful.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Now lest we sound like we're disparaging any of these
micro nations, we just want to shout out any tourism
board listening, we would love to go take us. We
will go to Monaco. Max Love's Dice, Noel, I don't
know if you and I are big gamblers.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
I got dice in my pocket right now. Oline. Check
this out? Whoa you think I'm played? My sides?
Speaker 1 (02:39):
You got? I've got my dungeons and dragons.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Yeah, you can hear them. You can hear them. Yeah,
tip you tap him. Let's see what we roll for now.
I can't. I can't. Okay, we're not. We're just gonna say,
all twenties, is that a skilled check? Is what you
call that? That's all I know. Obviously I am not
a D and D guy that I have been very
much enjoying the new Legend of Zelda game, Tears of
(03:02):
the Kingdom, which has some very Shire like locations in him.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
I'm excited for Balder's Gate three, Balderdash three, Balder's Gate.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Ah, okay, it's the It's it.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Has nothing to do with today's episode.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
But tell us what you think.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Vatican City, man, I've always wanted to go.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Well, Balder's Gate is believe centered around the infernal powers
of the damned.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
It's based on dungeons and dragons, right, yeah, right, evil stuff.
I've never played it, our pal Matt said the controls
on the other ones were a little clunky, but you
know me, man, I can only play like one game
at a time.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Yeah, it's like reading a book. Vatican City, though, is
in fact a bastion of defense against the infernal powers
of Balder's Gate and dungeons. What a segue, noll.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Yes, that's absolutely true. The Vatican has a distinct has
a distinction that not a lot of other religions get,
which is it is a country all its own. So
there's Italy, you know, Rome, Florence, et cetera, et cetera,
and then there's Vatican City, which is totally different. They
have their own passports, they get all the stuff you
(04:13):
would imagine country should have.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
And like there are regular civilians that live there somehow, right.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Interesting you say that because obviously most of their population
is Catholic clergy, but there are non clergy members who
live there.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
The Swiss guards, okay, only the Swiss guards, so no,
like janitorial staff like those those folks have to live
outside of the city, and then I guess they commute
in or do they have their own internal staff that
are actually holy the holy holy janitors. By the way,
I think we've mentioned this before on the show, but
the idea of the Holy See has always been very
fascinating and elusive to me because it's spelled see. I
(04:52):
think we talked about dead in San Marino. That's right.
I like it they give me for being redundant, but
that is a theme. I've always found that term to
be very interesting, and I think we got to the
bottom of it last time. But just as a refresher,
what is the Holy See and how does it figure
into what Vatican City is?
Speaker 1 (05:09):
The Holy See is put simply the jurisdiction of the Pope,
because the Pope is also the Bishop of Rome. And
the word the etymology is not as cool as I
had hoped, honestly, because c comes from the Latin set
as I want to say, sedes, which meant seat or
(05:30):
means seat, so basically it's they're saying a holy seat,
but it's fancy and confused.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Well, that makes perfect sense, right. So Vatican City, as
you mentioned, is in fact was set up as the
seat of the Catholic Church. And I guess the whole
is that the same as the Holy Roman Empire.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
It is not the same thing.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
It's not the same, Okay, forget I even said anything
seat of the Catholic Church, the Catholic faith. And it
was in fact initiated with the construction of what is
called a basilica, which I guess kind of a fancy mausoleum.
Or at the very least, it's like a fancy structure
meant to house the bones of Saint Peter.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Yeah, yeah, upon whom this rock was founded, right, the
rock of the church, the like founding the church. So
his grave, like you said, Noles in Rome, the basilicas
made in the fourth century CE or AD, whichever you prefer.
The area became a really popular tourist site, well pilgrimage site,
but you see what we're saying, And eventually it was
(06:33):
abandoned for a time because the papal court had what
we in production call.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
A company move.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
They relocated to France in thirteen oh nine.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Yeah, interesting choice. But then eventually in thirteen seventy seven
the church did return and several other very important historical
landmarks were constructed, including the Sistine Chapel we know about
that one, very fancy ceiling there we'll get into, and
the Apostolic Palace, as well as don't call it a comeback,
(07:04):
the new Saint Peter's Basilica. These were all constructed within
the bounds of Vatican City and the current form what
we know Vatican City as today. Being a sovereign nation,
a micronation actually was established in nineteen twenty nine, super
relatively recently, with the signing of something called the Latan Pacts.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
Yes, hopefully everybody listening is going, ah, yes, the Pacts,
because I don't think either of us were aware of
that at first. This is coming to us from a
Great History dot Com article, which is basically there. It's
like their dictionary entry on Vatican City.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Pretty cool too. If you look at sort of this,
I guess the city square really more of a circle
kind of, you know, it looks like what do you
call this the parentheses, you know, where there's a giant
sort of obelisk in the middle, and I guess what
is the building that is of the feature that sort
of looks like the state capitol, the capital of the
United States with a dome.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
Oh, that's that's the cost code.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Okay, cool. Yeah, they definitely styled on it. It's got
a really you know, it's sort of like when you're
in New York City and you see you know, a
city bank or a freaking you know, a CVS and
it looks like some kind of like crazy old columns,
you know, for art. It's theayne reed. It is, in
fact not the cost code, is not. They don't have
room Saint Peter's Dome. I believe this has what it's
(08:30):
referred to as Saint Peter's Basilica. The feature that I'm
describing is in fact Saint Peter's Dome. But this is
where you know, the masses, these pilgrims that you're talking
about will come to you know, see uh an appearance
by the Pope where he'll come out on some kind
of little balcony and hold up his little two fingers
a little peace sign and make some sort of holy declaration,
and it's you know, it absolutely gets jammed. You know.
(08:52):
The image on History dot COM's article shows an absolutely
packed house.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
And if you go to travel guides like row Wise
shout out to Alisa Bernard and Alessandro bisaically you can
you can see really cool stuff you can do in
the city.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
I did not know this.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
You can climb the dome of Saint Peter's Basilica.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Oh awesome. If I wasn't afraid of heights, I would
do that.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Well, what if we take a hot air balloon and
you a rope ladder?
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Know you in for this? Absolutely great?
Speaker 3 (09:25):
No, you're supposed to be You're supposed to be on
my side when it comes to heights stuff.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
No, No, I'm okay. I'm relatively okay with Hestevan. You know,
I love a heist, so I'll be the bag man
and you can shame me me up well on the face.
So I have to be somewhere else. Anyways. How's your Italian? Oh? Perfect?
Oh great? Cool.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
I'm persuaded by the way you answered in English, so
from the don't feel bad by it.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
It's terrible.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
I'm actually, as you guys know, I'm spending some time
in Italy pretty soon.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
I didn't know that.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Yeah, I'm not going to be at the Yeah, I
didn't know that either. I'm not going to be at
Vatican City.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Okay, no, we can, we can. We can chat about
this offline. The founding of Rome round eight hundred BCE
through the very end of what is known as the
Roman Republic forty four BCE, the name of the area
that is now referred to as Vatican City was Ager
or Ager Vaticanas, which is located on a hill on
(10:22):
the west bank of the Tiber River. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
And if you go to Vatican City now, of course,
for Catholics and non Catholics alike, this is one of
the world's most popular, most prestigious tourist destinations. Just it's
simply the seat of so much history. It might surprise
some of us to learn that this wasn't always the case.
(10:47):
It was kind of a dull neighborhood for a while
because it was close to another city, an Etruscan city
named They, and it also had some geographical problems. The
thing about rivers like the Tiber is they flood.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Right, you'd want to get flood insurance, or if that
was a thing back then, someone would be trying to
sell it to you. The Tiber River, as you said,
the banks would overflow and those waters would flood the city.
But after first century AD, Vaticanus became the term to
describe this area. It referred to the area that today
(11:23):
is the site of Saint Peter's Square. We described with
all the you know, lookie Louse and Vatican Hill, and
also an area known as a Via della consilazione. I
hope I did that relative justice.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
Oh we are not obviously native Italian speakers, folks, Thank you,
We're doing our best.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
We mean no offense. Quock question, do you have to
show your Catholic credentials? Your bona fides no to be allowed,
not like Mecca. Okay, yeah, well that's the thing in
Mecca there are.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
You cannot enter. You're not supposed to enter Mecca if
you are not of the Muslim faith.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Okay, So they relatively speaking, welcome secular tourism.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
Yes, yeah, yeah, of course. I mean think about all
the reporters who come there from around the world all
the time.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
Very right point. But i'd imagine, you know, given it
being the seat of the Catholic Church and so many
Catholic officials of the highest order, security is probably pretty tight.
So tight.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Yes, this is a well the best way to put it,
and this is kind of an ugly thing, but we
have to admit it is that there are a lot
of people who, for one reason or another, will attempt
acts of violence against it. You know, we can't forget
that the Catholic Church, however imperfect, it's been as a
(12:45):
political entity as a lot of ongoing problems. It also
people of the Catholic faith have been targeted before in
the past, you know, so because the pope is an
historic world leader, there are assassination So you're making a
great point about security.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Again, this wasn't always the way.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
If it wasn't for this historical figure, Agrippina the Elder,
then it may well have just stayed a marsh.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Yeah it's sank into the swamp. Yeah yeah, yeah, great
big tracks of land. I'm sorry, I'm being a Monty
Python Nord. That's true. Agrippina the Elder, which is a
baller name, had this kind of you know, swampy marshland
(13:33):
drained and had it landscaped beautifully, you know, with gardens.
And then her son a fellow. You might have heard
of a little guy by the name of Caligula. Oh yeah, yeah, real, real,
stand up, fella. Watch the movie. It's basically pornography. It was,
I believe, if I'm not mistaken, produced by the publisher
(13:55):
of Penthouse magazine or one of the highly X rated
you know, sub playboy Nudi mags of the time. I
forget the guy's name, but there are serious acts portrayed
in this film. And also portrayed in the film is
and Ber Caligula, of course, played by Malcolm McDowell. It's
(14:15):
a very interesting film. It is an artifact of the time.
There's really nothing else quite like it. It's got some
really elaborate death scenes involving like weird contraptions that there's
a part where people are buried up to their necks
in the ground and then this like weird lawnmower buzzsaw
thing just chops all their heads off.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
There are multiple versions of that film because it was
so controversial. Yeah, Bob Gucciote, right, I.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Think that's right. But Caligula wanted to make this a
site for kind of chariot competitions in the garden, so
he actually built what's called a circus, like Circus Maximus,
right like that, which is really more just like a
hippodrome kind of situation.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
It's like a public venue for performance.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
Right.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
And so this work, this we results in the obelisk
that we mentioned earlier, The obelisk in Saint Peter's Square
was taken by Caligula from Egypt just to flex to
decorate the circus, and eventually Nero completes this huge public work.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Another great fellow, Oh yeah, class act, that great violinist too.
It turns out that's just the wind motivated the longest
stuff was burning. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
I still think we should do an episode on the
crazy eccentricities of Roman emperors. And how much of that
is fact and how much is fiction.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
We did one of ways back remember the little Nippers.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
Oh yeah, those kids swim and and.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Was that anyway we'll get we'll get back to it.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
But the point is this has a lot of history
even in its formation. That obelisk is from Egypt. Nero,
again being a super class act, doesn't have the idea.
Originally he completes the work and people start calling at
the circus of Nero. This becomes a martyrdom site for
(16:04):
a lot of Christians, including Saint Peter, and it's right,
and they're very very upfront about the history in that
regard to their credit. Like you can get we're getting
some of this information from the tourism site for the Vatican.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
Very similar to what you'll see if you go to
Berlin or other like German kind of museum cities. You know,
there are lots of references to the Holocaust, and they're
very open about you know, how many very very bad
people donated some very very important works of art, and
wings of museums and areas of cities were named after
(16:40):
you know, bona fide anti semis, you know, your high
ups in the Nazi party so I think it's always
interesting when a problematic culture does their very best to
own up to their problematic past. Absolutely, there's a why
this like clean, but it's it's a start. Can I
tell you something crazy before we move on? I had
a interesting conversation. I saw an interesting conversation with some
(17:03):
folks on Twitter or x whatever.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
Right, folks wore an audio podcasts should have seen the
headshakes we all made. But anyway, on that platform, someone
showed me that in reaction to the Oppenheimer film in Japan,
several Japanese meme posters will try to make yeah offensive
joke nine to eleven, and they didn't realize Americans will go,
(17:30):
well is it?
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Is it a funny joke? That's the memes that Americans
love you, and we already probably well ahead of them
in that particular game. You know it's been done. But
I mentioned Nero fiddling while Rome was burning, or at
least I alluded to that. That is an image that
is often conjured, you know, and referring to this individual
because it is said, or at least it is believed
(17:52):
by many that he himself started a massive fire in
sixty four CE that destroyed more than two thirds of
the city and then blamed it on the Christians.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
And his secret his conspiracy, according again to the story,
is that he did this so he could first get
rid of these pesky political activists, which is what Christians
were becoming in his mind, these dissidents, and then secondly,
so he could rebuild the city in his image. He
wanted to construct something called the domus Aria or Golden House,
(18:26):
and like you say, persecutes Christians as scapegoats. Again, according
to the legend, he has said to have ordered the
murder of Saint Peter. And it's true that after Rome
was leveled in this fire eighty sixty four, however it started,
Nero executed Saint Peter, along with many other members of
(18:47):
the Christian faith.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
But as we know, you can't really kill an idea,
and oftentimes when you kill someone that represents the heart
of an idea, you just serve to further bolster that idea.
It's sort of like the streisand effect we talk about
often the idea of the moment you start to try
to wipe something off the Internet that's in the Internet
really starts to dig in and like push that stuff
out even more.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
One hundred percent. Yeah, they rise again stronger. So something
interesting happens on the way to the present day.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Emperor.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Constantine the first converts to Christianity, and this is evidenced
by the Edict of Milan in three thirteen AD or
again CE and so he starts he's the one who
makes the Basilica. Like, after all these Christians get executed,
including Saint Peter, there's an acropolis at the base of
(19:40):
Vatican Hill, and Constantine is the one who orders the
construction of the basilica over the tomb in three twenty
four very old architecture.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
Yeah, it's true, and it's always so interesting. Man. Constantine
is such an important figure in all of this because,
I mean again, Romans were virilin the anti christian as
we've discussed, and then all of a sudden there's a
sea change, not a holy sea change, it's a regular
sea change spelled I believe s A in this case.
But that's all thanks to Constantine. And then all of
(20:11):
a sudden he's like flipping everybody. We're left and right,
you know, by edict to Christianity. And that is what
leads more or less to this area becoming this sort
of sanctified seat of the Catholic Faith, all based around
the supposed site of Saint Peter's burial.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Ding Ding Ding supposed believe that's right site. Yeah. The palace, conversely,
is constructed in the fifth century during the papacy of
Pope Samachus.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Sorry picture like him walking around slapping people in the face.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
I know his name, yeahs Smacus was here.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
In between three eighteen and three twenty two, the very
first church, Saint Old Peters Basilica, started in Earnest Again.
This became a site for Christian pilgrims, then became sort
of a housing situation for high level clergymen, and also
(21:13):
eventually they built a marketplace that was kind of a
really bustling side of trade, you know, for the region
known as the District of Borgo. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
And you know, when you get a lot of tourists,
sometimes you get crime. So pirates attacked damage Saint Peter's
in eight forty six. This caused Pope Leo the fourth
to say, build a wall. We got to build a
wall to keep the pirates out. We want to protect
our holy structures. And this was you know, at the time,
(21:51):
this was a pretty good and smart defensive.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Measure indeed, And I just want to make a quick,
a little behind the curtain thing. I sometimes listen to
research that we've on or that that our research associates
extraordinaries have done for these shows on a voice to
speech yeah, a way that I can kind of do
it in the card speech IFI. And we did one
recently on I forget exactly which episode it was, but
(22:14):
there was some reference to pornography in it and Triple X.
The speech to voice robot reads that as thirty every time,
because that's the Roman numeral triple another sex phone? Which
one is that one? That's the hip hop episode? That's right, Yeah,
Triple X. The idea of of you know, censorship and
(22:35):
all that and the X rating and then triple X
ray and the fact that it wasn't actually really a thing.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
No pornography studios created that to make it look like
they were.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
Even so hardcore. Yeah, but sorry, I just just had
to do a little aside on Roman rated thirty rated
thirty exactly. All right.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
Well, let's like, you know again, say yelling that you
want to build a wall kind of has a bad
connotation for a lot of us here in twenty twenty three,
but back then, Pope Leo, he had his head in
the right place. They did build the wall thirty nine
feet tall, so they're not playing around. It's not like
a decorative picket fence. And when this enclosed the whole area.
(23:17):
When the wall was complete, they called it Leo nine city.
Get it, Pope Leo is a cavalcade of humble dudes
things after themselves.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
No, it's true, and that was wrapped up in around
eighteen fifty two. And yeah, it really was designed to,
you know, keep the folks inside in and the folks
outside out. Yeah, right, exactly like a wall is meant
to do. I'm sorry, I'm stating the obvious here.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
Right, there is a small shrine that, according to according
to the believers, holds the bones of the real Saint Peter,
and they top it with a canopy that has four
twisted columns from the second century. I am adin, We're
(24:01):
not architecture experts, so I imagine it's like taking a
column and just twisting your hands in opposite direction.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
I think that's right in that description. There's not an image,
but that description. I haven't been to Vatican City, so I, Kevin,
see a lot of this stuff. Personally. But that description
comes from an article by A. Lisa Bernard from romewise
dot com Your Guide to Rome. Yeah, if you want.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
To there, we go Rome around the world, and Rome
and the Vatican did indeed spread around the world. Okay,
some other things you need to know. People started donating
lands to the Catholic Church. It eventually becomes one of
the largest landholders in.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
All of Europe.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
And with that power, you know, like like Little Kim said, money,
power respect. You get the money, get the power, and
then people respect you. I'm sure she's referencing the growth
of Vatican City in those lyrics. Big Day, December twenty fifth,
eight hundred CE. A guy that may also be familiar
to you. Charlemagne, not our co worker.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
The God, not the God. This is just regular art.
He probably thought of himself as a bit of a
gods should imagine.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
Right, especially on this day when he was officially crowned
Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Leo the Third.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
This took place on this big, big circular stone, and
you can see the stone right at the entrance of
Saint Peter's Basilica. When you visit today, you are walking
through history. When you were in this town.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
Incredible. That's the beautiful thing about so many parts of
Europe is like it's a park, but there are like
sculptures and topieris and things that have been maintained for
hundreds of years.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
You're in a bar and you look around and you go, hey,
how old is this bar? And they're like, well, that's
sixteen fifteen hundred.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
Is that the shroud of turn over? There? Yes, as
a bar, wipe down cloth.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
Yeah, don't bring it up there, don't bring it up.
But yeah, what's that old saying. I'm sure a lot
of our ridiculous historyans are thinking this already. In Europe,
two hundred miles is a long way. In the United States,
two hundred years is a long time.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
That's very true. So, as you said, Charlemagne is crowned
on the eve of December twenty fifth, eight hundred, thee
crowned Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Leo the Third, and
eventually the popes start to have a very similar type
and amount of power as an emperor.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
My yeah, yeah, they start governing neighboring regions, they become
the state authority, and up until about the mid eighteen
hundreds they ruled a large piece of the Italian peninsula,
and these came to be these areas came to be
collectively referred to as the papal states. These popes would
(26:54):
live at the Litterian Palace, and then later they would
live at the Querarinal Palace coronel.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
You know, like you.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
Or if you're British, your hinal right right, aluminium and
so on.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
And that's between thirteen oh nine and thirteen seventy seven,
when the papal residence was actually in France, as we
referred to earlier in Avignon.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
Avignon, Yes, yes, sir, and their dalliance their company moved
to France. Didn't last too long. Actually, in the great
scheme of things, the church returned to Italy in thirteen
seventy seven, and this is where they begin building things
like the Cistine Chapel, the new Saint Peter's Basilica.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
And the old Apostolic Palace was actually leveled, and then
they built a new one for the pope to live,
and that's Pope Nicholas the Fifth. This was kind of
the beginning of the new and improved Vatican City that
is largely what we know today.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
Yeah, yeah, and it happens because our pal Pope Nicholas
the fifth decides to live permanently within the bounds of
the city. And to the fast forward toward the end
of the fourteen hundreds, Pope Julius the second is saying,
it's time to think of the future. It's time to
preserve our legacy. The Basilica is twelve hundred years old.
(28:22):
Now we should probably look into some maintenance. And sadly
this idea came a little too late. Imagine a huge
building like this, it's leading to one side. It's not
big enough to hold the huge tomb that Pope Julius
the Second had asked Michelangelo to design for him.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
That's right, always stay humble. And this was a big
deal because all of this stuff, you know, the whole
origin of this area was connected directly to Saint Peter's martyrdom,
you know, under the Romans, and so it was kind
of very unpopular, at the very least divisive to consider
(29:06):
overhauling it, you know, or or almost like bordering on
sacrilege to the faithful.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
Yeah, absolutely, but they had to deal with reality. It
would be virtually impossible to repair this structure. So they said,
we're going to preserve Saint Peter's tomb, and we're going
to make something even bigger, bolder, better and more holy
around it. Pope Julius passes away in fifteen thirteen, and
(29:36):
subsequent popes after him consult so many architects to try
to figure out what this new basilica will look like.
How will it not be sacrilegious, How will it be
more of the stuff you liked already but even better,
and how will it be an appropriately dignified structure for
one of the most important figures in all of Catholic history.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
So I know we're jumping around in history a little bit,
as we are wont to do, but let's jump if
we may to May the sixth of fifteen twenty seven,
when troops, under acting under orders from Charles the Fifth,
the Holy Roman emperor at the time, rose up because
they hadn't been getting paid. Good reason to rise it is, Yeah,
for sure, labor rights very important concept. So a lot
(30:23):
of these foreign soldiers they didn't just attack Rome, or
as the popular militaristic term would be of the time,
sack Rome, but in fact they pretty much annihilated it.
They did a nero. Yeah, they narrowed the heck out
of it, and it was absolutely brutal rape and pillage
(30:43):
style kind of behavior. And one hundred and eighty nine
Swiss guards in the palace. Total of that number, one
hundred and forty seven actually died right there in front
of Saint Peter's Basilica. These Swiss guards, by the way,
as you mentioned at the top of the show, also
housed in this part. Why are they called Swiss Guards?
Speaker 1 (31:04):
I'm so glad you asked. Okay, So they are kind
of a relatively new force at this time, because we
say fifteen twenty seven, so they well, they've been around
for a few decades. They start in the fourteen hundreds
and late fourteen hundreds. Because Pope Sixtus the Fourth, which
is confusing, wow, for the sixth threat, he can't be
(31:26):
Pope sixty four. Pope Sixtus the fourth made an alliance
with what was called the Swiss Confederacy. And he did
this because he thought, we need you know, we're a
state force. Now we need an army because the true
definition of any state is a monopoly on violence. And
(31:47):
they so he makes a pact and says, we're going
to agree with you. The Swiss Confederacy, a bunch of
really small independent states initially within the Holy Roman Empire.
We're gonna get your soldiers that are gonna work for us.
They don't have to become members of the clergy or
anything like that. So the Swiss Guard, which is around
(32:09):
today has its own storied history that would be a
lot of fun to talk about. They went through the fire,
Like you said, almost one hundred and fifty died. The
Pope Clement the seventh in this attack, he has to
go to ground.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
He's on the run, that's right, and he, along with
I think only around forty two of these Swiss Guard
members escape through a network of passageways on top of
that Leonine Wall that we mentioned, which is the walls
surrounding Vatican City, and that led to a fortress called
Castel San Angelo, and eventually Pope Clement the what is
(32:48):
it seventh, right, actually had to pay a quite sizeable
ransom and give up some of those papal states or
control of them to the Holy Roman Empire. It really
does get a little convoluted because I even was confused
with that right way is Holy Roman Empire are the
same as like the Seat of the Catholic Church. And
it's not because there was a time where they were
(33:10):
like at odds with each other, Oh for sure. I
mean because the power that Vatican City held largely was
due to the fact that they were gifted all of
this land and all of this property, and they were
just early to the game. So they eventually amassed enough
influence and you know cachet I guess, you know, actual
(33:30):
physical goods and lands that they were a rival to
the emperor, and that probably didn't go over particularly well.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
Yeah, and even the term Holy Roman Empire wasn't used
until the thirteenth century, I want to say. And the
idea was supposed to be that they got their authority
from God, right, so the pope would have to co
sign you as a monarch, which led to some very
sticky situations. Anyway, as you said, Pope Clement the seventh,
(34:03):
in the parlance of our times, he got got.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
He sure did so. In eighteen seventy the various states
that were contained within the Peninsula of Italy, the Italian
Peninsula became kind of unified, I guess under King Victor
(34:27):
Emmanuel the Second. This was also a time where the
pope's supremacy was beginning to wane a little bit because
he'd already the position rather right, had to give up
a lot of that control over these papal states and
of the influence they had. So it was a little
bit questionable between eighteen sixty one and nineteen twenty nine
(34:52):
as to what the pope even represented, you know, and
what kind of power that position would wield. Right.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
Yeah, And Italy, you're probably wondering the whole time what
was Italy doing? Uh, they were minding their own business.
Italy was not unified. There were a bunch of semi
autonomous different communities and states, and Italy would not interfere
(35:20):
with the Holy See within the Vatican, but outside of
the Vatican they would confiscate stuff pretty much whenever they can,
including the Coronal Palace, which was once again formerly the
pope's official homes.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
Right. And at that point the popes start to, you know,
kind of hole up within the walls of Vatican City
largely I would argue for their own protection. Yeah, and
and a lot of the I guess, let's call them
priorities of the popes were then recognized by something called
(35:59):
the Law of Guarantees, which included things like the right
to send and receive ambassadors and to maintain these ambassadorships.
But also the popes didn't recognize the supremacy of the
kings of Italy and their right to rule Rome. They
(36:19):
refused to get out of their Heidi hole behind those
walls in Vatican City. So it really did become kind
of like a bunker, like a compound where they were
able to kind of seek refuge, you know, and be
quite isolated.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
One hundred percent right again for their own safety, but
they became prisoners essentially out of necessity. Let's fast forward, max,
if we get the yeah, there we go, so perfect,
We're in nineteen twenty six. This is where Vatican City
begins to transform into an actual facts nation state as
our power, Volgelbaum would say. The negotiations for the settlement
(36:59):
of what became new as the Roman Question started in
nineteen twenty six. The government of Italy and the Holy
See again the jurisdiction of the Pope, they create these
things we mentioned earlier. The latter are in pacts. This
agreement gets signed off by a one of the only
bad bends in history, Benito Mussolini, prime minister at the time,
(37:21):
on behalf of King Victor Emanuel the third of Italy,
and then for the Vatican side, the packs are signed
by Cardinals Secretary of State Pietro Gaspari for Pope Pious
the Eleventh. This all goes down on February eleventh of
nineteen twenty nine, so it took three years for them
to negotiate this stuff, and it's a big win for
(37:46):
Vatican City.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
It's officially ratified on June seventh of nineteen twenty nine. Again,
much more recent history than we would typically think. You know,
you think of something like Vatican City, obviously the history
of it as a place much longer. But I think
for me, at least, I've always thought of it as
its own kind of you know, sovereign nation.
Speaker 1 (38:05):
Right right, It seems strange how close the history is here.
I think a lot of us in the West, especially
if we are not of the Catholic faith, we assume
that since ancient times, Vatican City has been a distinct
nation stake.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
Yeah, and you know, fascists don't typically have a reputation for, like,
you know, being particularly agreeable or giving stuff up. But
the fascist Italian government does in fact agree to the
latter entreaty to the terms the latter entreaty, and the
Pope then is able to exercise sovereignty. After he is
elected as the head of the Roman Catholic Church, he
(38:46):
becomes an absolute monarch essentially, or let's call it. I
guess you know. Britannica dot com uses the term executive
in terms of his head of this mini government which
has an executive, legislative and judicial branch, the Pope being
the head of all of those, right, big man on campus.
Speaker 1 (39:05):
So one of my questions is, and I say this
with great, great respect, one of my questions is how
absolute is that in practice? Does that mean the Pope
can be walking by somewhere and point at someone now
say I don't like it, get it out?
Speaker 2 (39:19):
Or like he can can he? I'm sure he can.
Speaker 1 (39:23):
He's like he could be like a stand up comic
when they're doing a show. He can just walk by
and not likes someone and say get him out, get
him out of here. Now get his Swiss and the
Swiss autumn, Yeah, get the Swiss.
Speaker 2 (39:34):
And it's funny too because we well I've always thought
of the Swiss as being you know, a gentle, neutral,
milk chocolate loving people, but we as we know the
history of like the Swiss Guard and Swiss soldiers very
intense and brutal, you know, and really good at like
living rough and you know oftentimes you know, dealing with
(39:55):
very difficult climates and you know, kind of inventing eight knives.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
Yeah, they also they play a huge role. I'm more
and more convinced we need to do an episode on
the Swiss Guard. So another thing that fascist Italy does,
which it may surprise us given what we know about fascism,
They modernize a lot of the Vatican. They give them
a train station, telephone and telegraph office, a post office,
(40:24):
a radio station. They supply them with money and property
in other parts of Rome to kind of compensate in
their negotiations. And weirdly enough, despite all this, during World
War Two, the Vatican officially stays neutral.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
And both the Allied and Axis forces exercise some restraints.
And you have to argue, I think that reverence for religion,
you know, and the sanctity of Vatican City plays into
that much more than any kind of strategic planning.
Speaker 1 (41:02):
Yeah, no army in the Western world wants to be
the people responsible for bombing the pope. That's a hard one.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
To walk back backs. That's a straight ticket to h
double hockey stacks, right, it probably is.
Speaker 1 (41:15):
I think it's just implied. There's so reverence about this.
This centrality is taken so seriously that when the British
Air Force drops pamphlets over Rome and some of them
land in the bounds of the Vatican, the pontiff gets
super angry. And even when the US enters the war,
(41:39):
they oppose bombing Rome, and they exempt Catholic pilots and
crew from any air raids on Rome or other property
held by the Church unless they actively assertively said as
a Catholic, I'm cool with it.
Speaker 2 (41:57):
It just speaks to the power of faith, you know,
and can transcend and how that you know. Just again,
the Roman Catholic Church has such a foothold in Europe,
you know, and you know throughout the world in many ways,
but especially in Europe that even if you were like
a member of like the Church of England or something
like that, you still respected the papacy, you know, it
(42:20):
was something that you would dare not interfere with.
Speaker 1 (42:23):
And during the war, by the way, Pious the twelfth
didn't create any new cardinals, so they had a backlog
they have positions to fill. In nineteen forty six he
creates thirty two cardinals to fill all these vacant openings.
The funt difficult military corps except for the Swiss Guard,
gets disbanded. In nineteen seventy the gendame rays right, Yeah, okay,
(42:49):
they become civilian police.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
I'm gonna say gendermere Yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:53):
And nineteen eighty four, again very recent, the Holy See
in Italy modify parts of their earlier t but the
sovereignty sticks. And that is why you can visit the
Vatican today and you will be visiting a sovereign foreign country.
We didn't even talk about the size of the Vatican yet.
Speaker 2 (43:14):
Yeah, what are we talking here, Ben, It's again we're
talking about micronations, So it's got to be small, yeah,
sort of part of the criteria of this whole ongoing series. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (43:27):
It get this zero point one point nine square miles.
Speaker 2 (43:31):
Wow, only around one hundred and nine acres within yeah, exactly,
a roughly two mile square mile border, one hundred and
sixty acres of holdings, land holdings elsewhere. But most importantly,
it represents the spiritual home. Yeah, I mean, if not
physical to roughly one point two billion Catholics around the world.
(43:56):
One point two billion.
Speaker 1 (43:57):
Yeah, exactly that, and I guess what we should should
point that out too quick? Correction, it's it covers one
hundred and nine acres. You will see the estimates say
that it's zero point one nine square miles, but it's
got a two mile border.
Speaker 2 (44:14):
Oh excuse me, correct, I was thinking one point nine Yeah.
There's two different no, two different things. And yeah, only
around a thousand people actually live there. Remains an absolute
monarchy essentially. You know, we can about being with an
executive you know, someone in control of both the executive, judicial,
and legislative branches of government. That's an absolute monarchy and
(44:36):
an incredibly you know, potent historical site and continued uh
site for pilgrimages from people from around the world that
want to come and hang with the pope. And you know,
see what's the thing too, when they elect a new
pope the white smoke, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, the conflict
that's yeah, I kind of like a king's moot, you know, situation, Yeah,
(44:58):
it is. And the negotia ciations are fraught with political
intrigue within the Vatican, stuff that we not even non Catholics,
but non clergy members wouldn't understand the intrigue. And I
think we did an episode on stuff they don't want
you to know about secret museums and this idea that
there is some sort of secret cache of artifacts housed
(45:21):
within the Vatican that you don't get to see, no
know about. Now. By you, I mean all of you
and the royal you.
Speaker 1 (45:28):
Unless the cardinals and the Pope are listening now, But
I assume you guys are busy.
Speaker 2 (45:33):
Because think about the history, man, I mean, like all
of that, that time when Vatican City started to really
be on the rise because of all of these faithful
people of great power and influence just giving them stuff,
you know, gifting them lands.
Speaker 1 (45:48):
All that stuff like exists somewhere there. Yeah, it has
to go somewhere. Things don't simply cease to be. It
is still continually fascinating. This is the world's smallest state.
It's nuts how much younger it is than a lot
of people assume.
Speaker 2 (46:06):
And I would love to visit. I don't know, what
do you think, smallest state's largest church? Yeah, it's almost
like the whole me think about it. The whole city
was built around a church, so it totally makes sense
not to mention that it is this like spiritual you know,
seat for billion, this you know, over a billion people.
(46:27):
It's pretty fascinating.
Speaker 1 (46:28):
We get asks Max, so nol you're in Max, would
you go with us to the Vatican if it meant
if you didn't have to climb the dome shimming, get
in a balloon?
Speaker 2 (46:37):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (46:37):
Absolutely. The Vatican is just you know, I don't know,
it's it's it's the Vatican. It's one of the most
famous places on the earth. Also in agreement, I thought
this place is much older as a country than it
actually is.
Speaker 2 (46:49):
But yeah, I mean, this is like serious history. It's
just something that we have grown up knowing, and I think,
you know, sometimes individuals feeling like the main character in
their own story, we just kind of assume that the
things that we've always known have always been true since forever.
That's sort of the point of history, studying history, and
hopefully this podcast is to help sort of correct some
(47:10):
of those misconceptions as best we can.
Speaker 1 (47:12):
Yeah, and we also didn't even talk about the fact
that Vatican City has restaurants. Oh I'm sure they're delightful. Yeah,
I just didn't eat lunch yet so.
Speaker 2 (47:21):
That either, I'm sure you could get a really nice
catcho to pipe.
Speaker 3 (47:25):
Are they like good restaurants? Are they're like really cheesy
tourist trap restaurants?
Speaker 2 (47:29):
Oh, there has to be some good ones. I'm sure
there have one hundred percent. They probably have a food
court in Saint Peter's Basilica. I imagine I'm.
Speaker 3 (47:38):
Thinking of one of those really themed up like uh,
gift shop inside the restaurant, because you know, when we go, guys,
we gotta go fifty to fifty on that. We had
to do the most touristy one, the most legitimate.
Speaker 2 (47:50):
Yeah. I also put forth that we pool our resources
and start a restaurant in Vatican City called Body of Christ.
We only served wine and wine, yeah, with for dipping.
Speaker 1 (48:04):
I'm certain this is one of the best ideas we've
ever had, and the Pope is gonna love it. He's
gonna be like, shut you know, all we have to
do is come to the ribbon cutting. It's an absolute monarchy,
which means all we have to do is get one
guy on our side, one guy if we can convince him,
if we can pitch the Pope on Body of Christ,
the pop up restaurant or permanent pope up restaurant.
Speaker 2 (48:27):
Cool. It's needed really, like, way more progressive in the
last couple of months. Bro, We're about to see Yeah,
all right, holy see, Holy see, you're killing it. We're done.
Speaker 1 (48:37):
So thank you of course to UH Research Socio Jeff Bartlett.
Thank you, of course to the one and only mister
Max Williams, who elsh.
Speaker 2 (48:48):
Long may he reign as Pope of our hearts, of
the nero of our podcast That's fair. I was trying
to be nice this time, but he took it to
the right place, man. I like where your head's at,
like the cut of your gym Alex Williams to compose
our theme. Christ vraciotis here in spirit and you Ben
the Pope of my heart and also with you. Thank
you go in peace. We'll see you next time. Folks.
(49:19):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous Histories, a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to the
(00:27):
show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much for
tuning in. Let's give it up for the super producer
of this episode and our show, mister Max Williams.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
What to the what our personal.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Yeah, they call him il Papa. This is an interesting episode, GIRNL.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
I'm ben.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
We're talking about a something that has I think continually
fascinated all three of us, especially our research associate Jeff.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Micro nations right, not to be confused with Micronesia, which
is not a micronation.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
No, that's just a nation of very tiny island tiny people.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
You know.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
It's interesting because it's not that far away from the
part of the world where real life hobbits once existed,
the Shire Homo Ah, yes, of course, guys.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
I have a question. Let's try do this off memory.
What micronations have we done this for? So I'll start
off Andorra.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
And doors where they make all the mink coats. No,
that's Angora, sorry, Andre is a kind of coat, that's right.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Yeah, and doors where you go to buy cigarettes and
booze tax free.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
It's the duty free shop of the world. And uh,
it's San Marino. That was just seven hills.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Ye who live in the cave. That's yeah. I'm going
to be really great at this game. Ya, we're nailing it.
I think we got one more. We got Monaco.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Oh, I don't even Monaco. It's like a set dressing
for James bonsor.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
It really is. It is indeed, And if I could
use this an opportunity for a personal plug. This podcast
that I've been working on about the Rolling Stones Exile
on Main Street record, which they made in the South
of France, which is a very near Monico, has a
song on it called Tumbling Dice that is specifically a
reference to all of the debauched gambling hijinks that take
(02:17):
place in Monaco by the wealthy and powerful.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Now lest we sound like we're disparaging any of these
micro nations, we just want to shout out any tourism
board listening, we would love to go take us. We
will go to Monaco. Max Love's Dice, Noel, I don't
know if you and I are big gamblers.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
I got dice in my pocket right now. Oline. Check
this out? Whoa you think I'm played? My sides?
Speaker 1 (02:39):
You got? I've got my dungeons and dragons.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Yeah, you can hear them. You can hear them. Yeah,
tip you tap him. Let's see what we roll for now.
I can't. I can't. Okay, we're not. We're just gonna say,
all twenties, is that a skilled check? Is what you
call that? That's all I know. Obviously I am not
a D and D guy that I have been very
much enjoying the new Legend of Zelda game, Tears of
(03:02):
the Kingdom, which has some very Shire like locations in him.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
I'm excited for Balder's Gate three, Balderdash three, Balder's Gate.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Ah, okay, it's the It's it.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Has nothing to do with today's episode.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
But tell us what you think.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Vatican City, man, I've always wanted to go.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Well, Balder's Gate is believe centered around the infernal powers
of the damned.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
It's based on dungeons and dragons, right, yeah, right, evil stuff.
I've never played it, our pal Matt said the controls
on the other ones were a little clunky, but you
know me, man, I can only play like one game
at a time.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Yeah, it's like reading a book. Vatican City, though, is
in fact a bastion of defense against the infernal powers
of Balder's Gate and dungeons. What a segue, noll.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Yes, that's absolutely true. The Vatican has a distinct has
a distinction that not a lot of other religions get,
which is it is a country all its own. So
there's Italy, you know, Rome, Florence, et cetera, et cetera,
and then there's Vatican City, which is totally different. They
have their own passports, they get all the stuff you
(04:13):
would imagine country should have.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
And like there are regular civilians that live there somehow, right.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Interesting you say that because obviously most of their population
is Catholic clergy, but there are non clergy members who
live there.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
The Swiss guards, okay, only the Swiss guards, so no,
like janitorial staff like those those folks have to live
outside of the city, and then I guess they commute
in or do they have their own internal staff that
are actually holy the holy holy janitors. By the way,
I think we've mentioned this before on the show, but
the idea of the Holy See has always been very
fascinating and elusive to me because it's spelled see. I
(04:52):
think we talked about dead in San Marino. That's right.
I like it they give me for being redundant, but
that is a theme. I've always found that term to
be very interesting, and I think we got to the
bottom of it last time. But just as a refresher,
what is the Holy See and how does it figure
into what Vatican City is?
Speaker 1 (05:09):
The Holy See is put simply the jurisdiction of the Pope,
because the Pope is also the Bishop of Rome. And
the word the etymology is not as cool as I
had hoped, honestly, because c comes from the Latin set
as I want to say, sedes, which meant seat or
(05:30):
means seat, so basically it's they're saying a holy seat,
but it's fancy and confused.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Well, that makes perfect sense, right. So Vatican City, as
you mentioned, is in fact was set up as the
seat of the Catholic Church. And I guess the whole
is that the same as the Holy Roman Empire.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
It is not the same thing.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
It's not the same, Okay, forget I even said anything
seat of the Catholic Church, the Catholic faith. And it
was in fact initiated with the construction of what is
called a basilica, which I guess kind of a fancy mausoleum.
Or at the very least, it's like a fancy structure
meant to house the bones of Saint Peter.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Yeah, yeah, upon whom this rock was founded, right, the
rock of the church, the like founding the church. So
his grave, like you said, Noles in Rome, the basilicas
made in the fourth century CE or AD, whichever you prefer.
The area became a really popular tourist site, well pilgrimage site,
but you see what we're saying, And eventually it was
(06:33):
abandoned for a time because the papal court had what
we in production call.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
A company move.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
They relocated to France in thirteen oh nine.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Yeah, interesting choice. But then eventually in thirteen seventy seven
the church did return and several other very important historical
landmarks were constructed, including the Sistine Chapel we know about
that one, very fancy ceiling there we'll get into, and
the Apostolic Palace, as well as don't call it a comeback,
(07:04):
the new Saint Peter's Basilica. These were all constructed within
the bounds of Vatican City and the current form what
we know Vatican City as today. Being a sovereign nation,
a micronation actually was established in nineteen twenty nine, super
relatively recently, with the signing of something called the Latan Pacts.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
Yes, hopefully everybody listening is going, ah, yes, the Pacts,
because I don't think either of us were aware of
that at first. This is coming to us from a
Great History dot Com article, which is basically there. It's
like their dictionary entry on Vatican City.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Pretty cool too. If you look at sort of this,
I guess the city square really more of a circle
kind of, you know, it looks like what do you
call this the parentheses, you know, where there's a giant
sort of obelisk in the middle, and I guess what
is the building that is of the feature that sort
of looks like the state capitol, the capital of the
United States with a dome.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
Oh, that's that's the cost code.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Okay, cool. Yeah, they definitely styled on it. It's got
a really you know, it's sort of like when you're
in New York City and you see you know, a
city bank or a freaking you know, a CVS and
it looks like some kind of like crazy old columns,
you know, for art. It's theayne reed. It is, in
fact not the cost code, is not. They don't have
room Saint Peter's Dome. I believe this has what it's
(08:30):
referred to as Saint Peter's Basilica. The feature that I'm
describing is in fact Saint Peter's Dome. But this is
where you know, the masses, these pilgrims that you're talking
about will come to you know, see uh an appearance
by the Pope where he'll come out on some kind
of little balcony and hold up his little two fingers
a little peace sign and make some sort of holy declaration,
and it's you know, it absolutely gets jammed. You know.
(08:52):
The image on History dot COM's article shows an absolutely
packed house.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
And if you go to travel guides like row Wise
shout out to Alisa Bernard and Alessandro bisaically you can
you can see really cool stuff you can do in
the city.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
I did not know this.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
You can climb the dome of Saint Peter's Basilica.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Oh awesome. If I wasn't afraid of heights, I would
do that.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Well, what if we take a hot air balloon and
you a rope ladder?
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Know you in for this? Absolutely great?
Speaker 3 (09:25):
No, you're supposed to be You're supposed to be on
my side when it comes to heights stuff.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
No, No, I'm okay. I'm relatively okay with Hestevan. You know,
I love a heist, so I'll be the bag man
and you can shame me me up well on the face.
So I have to be somewhere else. Anyways. How's your Italian? Oh? Perfect?
Oh great? Cool.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
I'm persuaded by the way you answered in English, so
from the don't feel bad by it.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
It's terrible.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
I'm actually, as you guys know, I'm spending some time
in Italy pretty soon.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
I didn't know that.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Yeah, I'm not going to be at the Yeah, I
didn't know that either. I'm not going to be at
Vatican City.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Okay, no, we can, we can. We can chat about
this offline. The founding of Rome round eight hundred BCE
through the very end of what is known as the
Roman Republic forty four BCE, the name of the area
that is now referred to as Vatican City was Ager
or Ager Vaticanas, which is located on a hill on
(10:22):
the west bank of the Tiber River. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
And if you go to Vatican City now, of course,
for Catholics and non Catholics alike, this is one of
the world's most popular, most prestigious tourist destinations. Just it's
simply the seat of so much history. It might surprise
some of us to learn that this wasn't always the case.
(10:47):
It was kind of a dull neighborhood for a while
because it was close to another city, an Etruscan city
named They, and it also had some geographical problems. The
thing about rivers like the Tiber is they flood.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Right, you'd want to get flood insurance, or if that
was a thing back then, someone would be trying to
sell it to you. The Tiber River, as you said,
the banks would overflow and those waters would flood the city.
But after first century AD, Vaticanus became the term to
describe this area. It referred to the area that today
(11:23):
is the site of Saint Peter's Square. We described with
all the you know, lookie Louse and Vatican Hill, and
also an area known as a Via della consilazione. I
hope I did that relative justice.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
Oh we are not obviously native Italian speakers, folks, Thank you,
We're doing our best.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
We mean no offense. Quock question, do you have to
show your Catholic credentials? Your bona fides no to be allowed,
not like Mecca. Okay, yeah, well that's the thing in
Mecca there are.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
You cannot enter. You're not supposed to enter Mecca if
you are not of the Muslim faith.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Okay, So they relatively speaking, welcome secular tourism.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
Yes, yeah, yeah, of course. I mean think about all
the reporters who come there from around the world all
the time.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
Very right point. But i'd imagine, you know, given it
being the seat of the Catholic Church and so many
Catholic officials of the highest order, security is probably pretty tight.
So tight.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Yes, this is a well the best way to put it,
and this is kind of an ugly thing, but we
have to admit it is that there are a lot
of people who, for one reason or another, will attempt
acts of violence against it. You know, we can't forget
that the Catholic Church, however imperfect, it's been as a
(12:45):
political entity as a lot of ongoing problems. It also
people of the Catholic faith have been targeted before in
the past, you know, so because the pope is an
historic world leader, there are assassination So you're making a
great point about security.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Again, this wasn't always the way.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
If it wasn't for this historical figure, Agrippina the Elder,
then it may well have just stayed a marsh.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Yeah it's sank into the swamp. Yeah yeah, yeah, great
big tracks of land. I'm sorry, I'm being a Monty
Python Nord. That's true. Agrippina the Elder, which is a
baller name, had this kind of you know, swampy marshland
(13:33):
drained and had it landscaped beautifully, you know, with gardens.
And then her son a fellow. You might have heard
of a little guy by the name of Caligula. Oh yeah, yeah, real, real,
stand up, fella. Watch the movie. It's basically pornography. It was,
I believe, if I'm not mistaken, produced by the publisher
(13:55):
of Penthouse magazine or one of the highly X rated
you know, sub playboy Nudi mags of the time. I
forget the guy's name, but there are serious acts portrayed
in this film. And also portrayed in the film is
and Ber Caligula, of course, played by Malcolm McDowell. It's
(14:15):
a very interesting film. It is an artifact of the time.
There's really nothing else quite like it. It's got some
really elaborate death scenes involving like weird contraptions that there's
a part where people are buried up to their necks
in the ground and then this like weird lawnmower buzzsaw
thing just chops all their heads off.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
There are multiple versions of that film because it was
so controversial. Yeah, Bob Gucciote, right, I.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Think that's right. But Caligula wanted to make this a
site for kind of chariot competitions in the garden, so
he actually built what's called a circus, like Circus Maximus,
right like that, which is really more just like a
hippodrome kind of situation.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
It's like a public venue for performance.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
Right.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
And so this work, this we results in the obelisk
that we mentioned earlier, The obelisk in Saint Peter's Square
was taken by Caligula from Egypt just to flex to
decorate the circus, and eventually Nero completes this huge public work.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Another great fellow, Oh yeah, class act, that great violinist too.
It turns out that's just the wind motivated the longest
stuff was burning. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
I still think we should do an episode on the
crazy eccentricities of Roman emperors. And how much of that
is fact and how much is fiction.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
We did one of ways back remember the little Nippers.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
Oh yeah, those kids swim and and.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Was that anyway we'll get we'll get back to it.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
But the point is this has a lot of history
even in its formation. That obelisk is from Egypt. Nero,
again being a super class act, doesn't have the idea.
Originally he completes the work and people start calling at
the circus of Nero. This becomes a martyrdom site for
(16:04):
a lot of Christians, including Saint Peter, and it's right,
and they're very very upfront about the history in that
regard to their credit. Like you can get we're getting
some of this information from the tourism site for the Vatican.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
Very similar to what you'll see if you go to
Berlin or other like German kind of museum cities. You know,
there are lots of references to the Holocaust, and they're
very open about you know, how many very very bad
people donated some very very important works of art, and
wings of museums and areas of cities were named after
(16:40):
you know, bona fide anti semis, you know, your high
ups in the Nazi party so I think it's always
interesting when a problematic culture does their very best to
own up to their problematic past. Absolutely, there's a why
this like clean, but it's it's a start. Can I
tell you something crazy before we move on? I had
a interesting conversation. I saw an interesting conversation with some
(17:03):
folks on Twitter or x whatever.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
Right, folks wore an audio podcasts should have seen the
headshakes we all made. But anyway, on that platform, someone
showed me that in reaction to the Oppenheimer film in Japan,
several Japanese meme posters will try to make yeah offensive
joke nine to eleven, and they didn't realize Americans will go,
(17:30):
well is it?
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Is it a funny joke? That's the memes that Americans
love you, and we already probably well ahead of them
in that particular game. You know it's been done. But
I mentioned Nero fiddling while Rome was burning, or at
least I alluded to that. That is an image that
is often conjured, you know, and referring to this individual
because it is said, or at least it is believed
(17:52):
by many that he himself started a massive fire in
sixty four CE that destroyed more than two thirds of
the city and then blamed it on the Christians.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
And his secret his conspiracy, according again to the story,
is that he did this so he could first get
rid of these pesky political activists, which is what Christians
were becoming in his mind, these dissidents, and then secondly,
so he could rebuild the city in his image. He
wanted to construct something called the domus Aria or Golden House,
(18:26):
and like you say, persecutes Christians as scapegoats. Again, according
to the legend, he has said to have ordered the
murder of Saint Peter. And it's true that after Rome
was leveled in this fire eighty sixty four, however it started,
Nero executed Saint Peter, along with many other members of
(18:47):
the Christian faith.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
But as we know, you can't really kill an idea,
and oftentimes when you kill someone that represents the heart
of an idea, you just serve to further bolster that idea.
It's sort of like the streisand effect we talk about
often the idea of the moment you start to try
to wipe something off the Internet that's in the Internet
really starts to dig in and like push that stuff
out even more.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
One hundred percent. Yeah, they rise again stronger. So something
interesting happens on the way to the present day.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Emperor.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Constantine the first converts to Christianity, and this is evidenced
by the Edict of Milan in three thirteen AD or
again CE and so he starts he's the one who
makes the Basilica. Like, after all these Christians get executed,
including Saint Peter, there's an acropolis at the base of
(19:40):
Vatican Hill, and Constantine is the one who orders the
construction of the basilica over the tomb in three twenty
four very old architecture.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
Yeah, it's true, and it's always so interesting. Man. Constantine
is such an important figure in all of this because,
I mean again, Romans were virilin the anti christian as
we've discussed, and then all of a sudden there's a
sea change, not a holy sea change, it's a regular
sea change spelled I believe s A in this case.
But that's all thanks to Constantine. And then all of
(20:11):
a sudden he's like flipping everybody. We're left and right,
you know, by edict to Christianity. And that is what
leads more or less to this area becoming this sort
of sanctified seat of the Catholic Faith, all based around
the supposed site of Saint Peter's burial.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Ding Ding Ding supposed believe that's right site. Yeah. The palace, conversely,
is constructed in the fifth century during the papacy of
Pope Samachus.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Sorry picture like him walking around slapping people in the face.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
I know his name, yeahs Smacus was here.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
In between three eighteen and three twenty two, the very
first church, Saint Old Peters Basilica, started in Earnest Again.
This became a site for Christian pilgrims, then became sort
of a housing situation for high level clergymen, and also
(21:13):
eventually they built a marketplace that was kind of a
really bustling side of trade, you know, for the region
known as the District of Borgo. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
And you know, when you get a lot of tourists,
sometimes you get crime. So pirates attacked damage Saint Peter's
in eight forty six. This caused Pope Leo the fourth
to say, build a wall. We got to build a
wall to keep the pirates out. We want to protect
our holy structures. And this was you know, at the time,
(21:51):
this was a pretty good and smart defensive.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Measure indeed, And I just want to make a quick,
a little behind the curtain thing. I sometimes listen to
research that we've on or that that our research associates
extraordinaries have done for these shows on a voice to
speech yeah, a way that I can kind of do
it in the card speech IFI. And we did one
recently on I forget exactly which episode it was, but
(22:14):
there was some reference to pornography in it and Triple X.
The speech to voice robot reads that as thirty every time,
because that's the Roman numeral triple another sex phone? Which
one is that one? That's the hip hop episode? That's right, Yeah,
Triple X. The idea of of you know, censorship and
(22:35):
all that and the X rating and then triple X
ray and the fact that it wasn't actually really a thing.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
No pornography studios created that to make it look like
they were.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
Even so hardcore. Yeah, but sorry, I just just had
to do a little aside on Roman rated thirty rated
thirty exactly. All right.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
Well, let's like, you know again, say yelling that you
want to build a wall kind of has a bad
connotation for a lot of us here in twenty twenty three,
but back then, Pope Leo, he had his head in
the right place. They did build the wall thirty nine
feet tall, so they're not playing around. It's not like
a decorative picket fence. And when this enclosed the whole area.
(23:17):
When the wall was complete, they called it Leo nine city.
Get it, Pope Leo is a cavalcade of humble dudes
things after themselves.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
No, it's true, and that was wrapped up in around
eighteen fifty two. And yeah, it really was designed to,
you know, keep the folks inside in and the folks
outside out. Yeah, right, exactly like a wall is meant
to do. I'm sorry, I'm stating the obvious here.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
Right, there is a small shrine that, according to according
to the believers, holds the bones of the real Saint Peter,
and they top it with a canopy that has four
twisted columns from the second century. I am adin, We're
(24:01):
not architecture experts, so I imagine it's like taking a
column and just twisting your hands in opposite direction.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
I think that's right in that description. There's not an image,
but that description. I haven't been to Vatican City, so I, Kevin,
see a lot of this stuff. Personally. But that description
comes from an article by A. Lisa Bernard from romewise
dot com Your Guide to Rome. Yeah, if you want.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
To there, we go Rome around the world, and Rome
and the Vatican did indeed spread around the world. Okay,
some other things you need to know. People started donating
lands to the Catholic Church. It eventually becomes one of
the largest landholders in.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
All of Europe.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
And with that power, you know, like like Little Kim said, money,
power respect. You get the money, get the power, and
then people respect you. I'm sure she's referencing the growth
of Vatican City in those lyrics. Big Day, December twenty fifth,
eight hundred CE. A guy that may also be familiar
to you. Charlemagne, not our co worker.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
The God, not the God. This is just regular art.
He probably thought of himself as a bit of a
gods should imagine.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
Right, especially on this day when he was officially crowned
Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Leo the Third.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
This took place on this big, big circular stone, and
you can see the stone right at the entrance of
Saint Peter's Basilica. When you visit today, you are walking
through history. When you were in this town.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
Incredible. That's the beautiful thing about so many parts of
Europe is like it's a park, but there are like
sculptures and topieris and things that have been maintained for
hundreds of years.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
You're in a bar and you look around and you go, hey,
how old is this bar? And they're like, well, that's
sixteen fifteen hundred.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
Is that the shroud of turn over? There? Yes, as
a bar, wipe down cloth.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
Yeah, don't bring it up there, don't bring it up.
But yeah, what's that old saying. I'm sure a lot
of our ridiculous historyans are thinking this already. In Europe,
two hundred miles is a long way. In the United States,
two hundred years is a long time.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
That's very true. So, as you said, Charlemagne is crowned
on the eve of December twenty fifth, eight hundred, thee
crowned Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Leo the Third, and
eventually the popes start to have a very similar type
and amount of power as an emperor.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
My yeah, yeah, they start governing neighboring regions, they become
the state authority, and up until about the mid eighteen
hundreds they ruled a large piece of the Italian peninsula,
and these came to be these areas came to be
collectively referred to as the papal states. These popes would
(26:54):
live at the Litterian Palace, and then later they would
live at the Querarinal Palace coronel.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
You know, like you.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
Or if you're British, your hinal right right, aluminium and
so on.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
And that's between thirteen oh nine and thirteen seventy seven,
when the papal residence was actually in France, as we
referred to earlier in Avignon.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
Avignon, Yes, yes, sir, and their dalliance their company moved
to France. Didn't last too long. Actually, in the great
scheme of things, the church returned to Italy in thirteen
seventy seven, and this is where they begin building things
like the Cistine Chapel, the new Saint Peter's Basilica.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
And the old Apostolic Palace was actually leveled, and then
they built a new one for the pope to live,
and that's Pope Nicholas the Fifth. This was kind of
the beginning of the new and improved Vatican City that
is largely what we know today.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
Yeah, yeah, and it happens because our pal Pope Nicholas
the fifth decides to live permanently within the bounds of
the city. And to the fast forward toward the end
of the fourteen hundreds, Pope Julius the second is saying,
it's time to think of the future. It's time to
preserve our legacy. The Basilica is twelve hundred years old.
(28:22):
Now we should probably look into some maintenance. And sadly
this idea came a little too late. Imagine a huge
building like this, it's leading to one side. It's not
big enough to hold the huge tomb that Pope Julius
the Second had asked Michelangelo to design for him.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
That's right, always stay humble. And this was a big
deal because all of this stuff, you know, the whole
origin of this area was connected directly to Saint Peter's martyrdom,
you know, under the Romans, and so it was kind
of very unpopular, at the very least divisive to consider
(29:06):
overhauling it, you know, or or almost like bordering on
sacrilege to the faithful.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
Yeah, absolutely, but they had to deal with reality. It
would be virtually impossible to repair this structure. So they said,
we're going to preserve Saint Peter's tomb, and we're going
to make something even bigger, bolder, better and more holy
around it. Pope Julius passes away in fifteen thirteen, and
(29:36):
subsequent popes after him consult so many architects to try
to figure out what this new basilica will look like.
How will it not be sacrilegious, How will it be
more of the stuff you liked already but even better,
and how will it be an appropriately dignified structure for
one of the most important figures in all of Catholic history.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
So I know we're jumping around in history a little bit,
as we are wont to do, but let's jump if
we may to May the sixth of fifteen twenty seven,
when troops, under acting under orders from Charles the Fifth,
the Holy Roman emperor at the time, rose up because
they hadn't been getting paid. Good reason to rise it is, Yeah,
for sure, labor rights very important concept. So a lot
(30:23):
of these foreign soldiers they didn't just attack Rome, or
as the popular militaristic term would be of the time,
sack Rome, but in fact they pretty much annihilated it.
They did a nero. Yeah, they narrowed the heck out
of it, and it was absolutely brutal rape and pillage
(30:43):
style kind of behavior. And one hundred and eighty nine
Swiss guards in the palace. Total of that number, one
hundred and forty seven actually died right there in front
of Saint Peter's Basilica. These Swiss guards, by the way,
as you mentioned at the top of the show, also
housed in this part. Why are they called Swiss Guards?
Speaker 1 (31:04):
I'm so glad you asked. Okay, So they are kind
of a relatively new force at this time, because we
say fifteen twenty seven, so they well, they've been around
for a few decades. They start in the fourteen hundreds
and late fourteen hundreds. Because Pope Sixtus the Fourth, which
is confusing, wow, for the sixth threat, he can't be
(31:26):
Pope sixty four. Pope Sixtus the fourth made an alliance
with what was called the Swiss Confederacy. And he did
this because he thought, we need you know, we're a
state force. Now we need an army because the true
definition of any state is a monopoly on violence. And
(31:47):
they so he makes a pact and says, we're going
to agree with you. The Swiss Confederacy, a bunch of
really small independent states initially within the Holy Roman Empire.
We're gonna get your soldiers that are gonna work for us.
They don't have to become members of the clergy or
anything like that. So the Swiss Guard, which is around
(32:09):
today has its own storied history that would be a
lot of fun to talk about. They went through the fire,
Like you said, almost one hundred and fifty died. The
Pope Clement the seventh in this attack, he has to
go to ground.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
He's on the run, that's right, and he, along with
I think only around forty two of these Swiss Guard
members escape through a network of passageways on top of
that Leonine Wall that we mentioned, which is the walls
surrounding Vatican City, and that led to a fortress called
Castel San Angelo, and eventually Pope Clement the what is
(32:48):
it seventh, right, actually had to pay a quite sizeable
ransom and give up some of those papal states or
control of them to the Holy Roman Empire. It really
does get a little convoluted because I even was confused
with that right way is Holy Roman Empire are the
same as like the Seat of the Catholic Church. And
it's not because there was a time where they were
(33:10):
like at odds with each other, Oh for sure. I
mean because the power that Vatican City held largely was
due to the fact that they were gifted all of
this land and all of this property, and they were
just early to the game. So they eventually amassed enough
influence and you know cachet I guess, you know, actual
(33:30):
physical goods and lands that they were a rival to
the emperor, and that probably didn't go over particularly well.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
Yeah, and even the term Holy Roman Empire wasn't used
until the thirteenth century, I want to say. And the
idea was supposed to be that they got their authority
from God, right, so the pope would have to co
sign you as a monarch, which led to some very
sticky situations. Anyway, as you said, Pope Clement the seventh,
(34:03):
in the parlance of our times, he got got.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
He sure did so. In eighteen seventy the various states
that were contained within the Peninsula of Italy, the Italian
Peninsula became kind of unified, I guess under King Victor
(34:27):
Emmanuel the Second. This was also a time where the
pope's supremacy was beginning to wane a little bit because
he'd already the position rather right, had to give up
a lot of that control over these papal states and
of the influence they had. So it was a little
bit questionable between eighteen sixty one and nineteen twenty nine
(34:52):
as to what the pope even represented, you know, and
what kind of power that position would wield. Right.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
Yeah, And Italy, you're probably wondering the whole time what
was Italy doing? Uh, they were minding their own business.
Italy was not unified. There were a bunch of semi
autonomous different communities and states, and Italy would not interfere
(35:20):
with the Holy See within the Vatican, but outside of
the Vatican they would confiscate stuff pretty much whenever they can,
including the Coronal Palace, which was once again formerly the
pope's official homes.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
Right. And at that point the popes start to, you know,
kind of hole up within the walls of Vatican City
largely I would argue for their own protection. Yeah, and
and a lot of the I guess, let's call them
priorities of the popes were then recognized by something called
(35:59):
the Law of Guarantees, which included things like the right
to send and receive ambassadors and to maintain these ambassadorships.
But also the popes didn't recognize the supremacy of the
kings of Italy and their right to rule Rome. They
(36:19):
refused to get out of their Heidi hole behind those
walls in Vatican City. So it really did become kind
of like a bunker, like a compound where they were
able to kind of seek refuge, you know, and be
quite isolated.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
One hundred percent right again for their own safety, but
they became prisoners essentially out of necessity. Let's fast forward, max,
if we get the yeah, there we go, so perfect,
We're in nineteen twenty six. This is where Vatican City
begins to transform into an actual facts nation state as
our power, Volgelbaum would say. The negotiations for the settlement
(36:59):
of what became new as the Roman Question started in
nineteen twenty six. The government of Italy and the Holy
See again the jurisdiction of the Pope, they create these
things we mentioned earlier. The latter are in pacts. This
agreement gets signed off by a one of the only
bad bends in history, Benito Mussolini, prime minister at the time,
(37:21):
on behalf of King Victor Emanuel the third of Italy,
and then for the Vatican side, the packs are signed
by Cardinals Secretary of State Pietro Gaspari for Pope Pious
the Eleventh. This all goes down on February eleventh of
nineteen twenty nine, so it took three years for them
to negotiate this stuff, and it's a big win for
(37:46):
Vatican City.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
It's officially ratified on June seventh of nineteen twenty nine. Again,
much more recent history than we would typically think. You know,
you think of something like Vatican City, obviously the history
of it as a place much longer. But I think
for me, at least, I've always thought of it as
its own kind of you know, sovereign nation.
Speaker 1 (38:05):
Right right, It seems strange how close the history is here.
I think a lot of us in the West, especially
if we are not of the Catholic faith, we assume
that since ancient times, Vatican City has been a distinct
nation stake.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
Yeah, and you know, fascists don't typically have a reputation for, like,
you know, being particularly agreeable or giving stuff up. But
the fascist Italian government does in fact agree to the
latter entreaty to the terms the latter entreaty, and the
Pope then is able to exercise sovereignty. After he is
elected as the head of the Roman Catholic Church, he
(38:46):
becomes an absolute monarch essentially, or let's call it. I
guess you know. Britannica dot com uses the term executive
in terms of his head of this mini government which
has an executive, legislative and judicial branch, the Pope being
the head of all of those, right, big man on campus.
Speaker 1 (39:05):
So one of my questions is, and I say this
with great, great respect, one of my questions is how
absolute is that in practice? Does that mean the Pope
can be walking by somewhere and point at someone now
say I don't like it, get it out?
Speaker 2 (39:19):
Or like he can can he? I'm sure he can.
Speaker 1 (39:23):
He's like he could be like a stand up comic
when they're doing a show. He can just walk by
and not likes someone and say get him out, get
him out of here. Now get his Swiss and the
Swiss autumn, Yeah, get the Swiss.
Speaker 2 (39:34):
And it's funny too because we well I've always thought
of the Swiss as being you know, a gentle, neutral,
milk chocolate loving people, but we as we know the
history of like the Swiss Guard and Swiss soldiers very
intense and brutal, you know, and really good at like
living rough and you know oftentimes you know, dealing with
(39:55):
very difficult climates and you know, kind of inventing eight knives.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
Yeah, they also they play a huge role. I'm more
and more convinced we need to do an episode on
the Swiss Guard. So another thing that fascist Italy does,
which it may surprise us given what we know about fascism,
They modernize a lot of the Vatican. They give them
a train station, telephone and telegraph office, a post office,
(40:24):
a radio station. They supply them with money and property
in other parts of Rome to kind of compensate in
their negotiations. And weirdly enough, despite all this, during World
War Two, the Vatican officially stays neutral.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
And both the Allied and Axis forces exercise some restraints.
And you have to argue, I think that reverence for religion,
you know, and the sanctity of Vatican City plays into
that much more than any kind of strategic planning.
Speaker 1 (41:02):
Yeah, no army in the Western world wants to be
the people responsible for bombing the pope. That's a hard one.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
To walk back backs. That's a straight ticket to h
double hockey stacks, right, it probably is.
Speaker 1 (41:15):
I think it's just implied. There's so reverence about this.
This centrality is taken so seriously that when the British
Air Force drops pamphlets over Rome and some of them
land in the bounds of the Vatican, the pontiff gets
super angry. And even when the US enters the war,
(41:39):
they oppose bombing Rome, and they exempt Catholic pilots and
crew from any air raids on Rome or other property
held by the Church unless they actively assertively said as
a Catholic, I'm cool with it.
Speaker 2 (41:57):
It just speaks to the power of faith, you know,
and can transcend and how that you know. Just again,
the Roman Catholic Church has such a foothold in Europe,
you know, and you know throughout the world in many ways,
but especially in Europe that even if you were like
a member of like the Church of England or something
like that, you still respected the papacy, you know, it
(42:20):
was something that you would dare not interfere with.
Speaker 1 (42:23):
And during the war, by the way, Pious the twelfth
didn't create any new cardinals, so they had a backlog
they have positions to fill. In nineteen forty six he
creates thirty two cardinals to fill all these vacant openings.
The funt difficult military corps except for the Swiss Guard,
gets disbanded. In nineteen seventy the gendame rays right, Yeah, okay,
(42:49):
they become civilian police.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
I'm gonna say gendermere Yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:53):
And nineteen eighty four, again very recent, the Holy See
in Italy modify parts of their earlier t but the
sovereignty sticks. And that is why you can visit the
Vatican today and you will be visiting a sovereign foreign country.
We didn't even talk about the size of the Vatican yet.
Speaker 2 (43:14):
Yeah, what are we talking here, Ben, It's again we're
talking about micronations, So it's got to be small, yeah,
sort of part of the criteria of this whole ongoing series. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (43:27):
It get this zero point one point nine square miles.
Speaker 2 (43:31):
Wow, only around one hundred and nine acres within yeah, exactly,
a roughly two mile square mile border, one hundred and
sixty acres of holdings, land holdings elsewhere. But most importantly,
it represents the spiritual home. Yeah, I mean, if not
physical to roughly one point two billion Catholics around the world.
(43:56):
One point two billion.
Speaker 1 (43:57):
Yeah, exactly that, and I guess what we should should
point that out too quick? Correction, it's it covers one
hundred and nine acres. You will see the estimates say
that it's zero point one nine square miles, but it's
got a two mile border.
Speaker 2 (44:14):
Oh excuse me, correct, I was thinking one point nine Yeah.
There's two different no, two different things. And yeah, only
around a thousand people actually live there. Remains an absolute
monarchy essentially. You know, we can about being with an
executive you know, someone in control of both the executive, judicial,
and legislative branches of government. That's an absolute monarchy and
(44:36):
an incredibly you know, potent historical site and continued uh
site for pilgrimages from people from around the world that
want to come and hang with the pope. And you know,
see what's the thing too, when they elect a new
pope the white smoke, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, the conflict
that's yeah, I kind of like a king's moot, you know, situation, Yeah,
(44:58):
it is. And the negotia ciations are fraught with political
intrigue within the Vatican, stuff that we not even non Catholics,
but non clergy members wouldn't understand the intrigue. And I
think we did an episode on stuff they don't want
you to know about secret museums and this idea that
there is some sort of secret cache of artifacts housed
(45:21):
within the Vatican that you don't get to see, no
know about. Now. By you, I mean all of you
and the royal you.
Speaker 1 (45:28):
Unless the cardinals and the Pope are listening now, But
I assume you guys are busy.
Speaker 2 (45:33):
Because think about the history, man, I mean, like all
of that, that time when Vatican City started to really
be on the rise because of all of these faithful
people of great power and influence just giving them stuff,
you know, gifting them lands.
Speaker 1 (45:48):
All that stuff like exists somewhere there. Yeah, it has
to go somewhere. Things don't simply cease to be. It
is still continually fascinating. This is the world's smallest state.
It's nuts how much younger it is than a lot
of people assume.
Speaker 2 (46:06):
And I would love to visit. I don't know, what
do you think, smallest state's largest church? Yeah, it's almost
like the whole me think about it. The whole city
was built around a church, so it totally makes sense
not to mention that it is this like spiritual you know,
seat for billion, this you know, over a billion people.
(46:27):
It's pretty fascinating.
Speaker 1 (46:28):
We get asks Max, so nol you're in Max, would
you go with us to the Vatican if it meant
if you didn't have to climb the dome shimming, get
in a balloon?
Speaker 2 (46:37):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (46:37):
Absolutely. The Vatican is just you know, I don't know,
it's it's it's the Vatican. It's one of the most
famous places on the earth. Also in agreement, I thought
this place is much older as a country than it
actually is.
Speaker 2 (46:49):
But yeah, I mean, this is like serious history. It's
just something that we have grown up knowing, and I think,
you know, sometimes individuals feeling like the main character in
their own story, we just kind of assume that the
things that we've always known have always been true since forever.
That's sort of the point of history, studying history, and
hopefully this podcast is to help sort of correct some
(47:10):
of those misconceptions as best we can.
Speaker 1 (47:12):
Yeah, and we also didn't even talk about the fact
that Vatican City has restaurants. Oh I'm sure they're delightful. Yeah,
I just didn't eat lunch yet so.
Speaker 2 (47:21):
That either, I'm sure you could get a really nice
catcho to pipe.
Speaker 3 (47:25):
Are they like good restaurants? Are they're like really cheesy
tourist trap restaurants?
Speaker 2 (47:29):
Oh, there has to be some good ones. I'm sure
there have one hundred percent. They probably have a food
court in Saint Peter's Basilica. I imagine I'm.
Speaker 3 (47:38):
Thinking of one of those really themed up like uh,
gift shop inside the restaurant, because you know, when we go, guys,
we gotta go fifty to fifty on that. We had
to do the most touristy one, the most legitimate.
Speaker 2 (47:50):
Yeah. I also put forth that we pool our resources
and start a restaurant in Vatican City called Body of Christ.
We only served wine and wine, yeah, with for dipping.
Speaker 1 (48:04):
I'm certain this is one of the best ideas we've
ever had, and the Pope is gonna love it. He's
gonna be like, shut you know, all we have to
do is come to the ribbon cutting. It's an absolute monarchy,
which means all we have to do is get one
guy on our side, one guy if we can convince him,
if we can pitch the Pope on Body of Christ,
the pop up restaurant or permanent pope up restaurant.
Speaker 2 (48:27):
Cool. It's needed really, like, way more progressive in the
last couple of months. Bro, We're about to see Yeah,
all right, holy see, Holy see, you're killing it. We're done.
Speaker 1 (48:37):
So thank you of course to UH Research Socio Jeff Bartlett.
Thank you, of course to the one and only mister
Max Williams, who elsh.
Speaker 2 (48:48):
Long may he reign as Pope of our hearts, of
the nero of our podcast That's fair. I was trying
to be nice this time, but he took it to
the right place, man. I like where your head's at,
like the cut of your gym Alex Williams to compose
our theme. Christ vraciotis here in spirit and you Ben
the Pope of my heart and also with you. Thank
you go in peace. We'll see you next time. Folks.
(49:19):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!