Vatican Hill
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Tapestry featuring Vatican Hill (left), circa 1519 |
The Vatican Hill (in
Latin,
Vaticanus Mons) is the name given, long before the founding of
Christianity, to one of the hills on the side of the
Tiber opposite the traditional
seven hills of Rome. It may have been the site of an
Etruscan town called
Vaticum. In the
1st century A.D., the Vatican Hill featured a
circus and a
cemetery.
St. Peter's Basilica is built over the cemetery, the traditional site of
St. Peter the Apostle's grave.
The Vatican Hill is not one of the famous seven hills of
Rome, although it was included within the city limits of Rome during the reign of
Pope Leo IV, who
between 848 and 852 A.D. expanded the city walls to protect St. Peter's Basilica and the Vatican. Thus, Vatican Hill has been within the walls and city limits of Rome (until the
Lateran Treaties in
1929 it was part the
rione of
Borgo) for over 1100 years.
Before the
Avignon Papacy (1305-1378), headquarters of the
Holy See was at the
Lateran Palace. After the Avignon Papacy the church administration moved to Vatican Hill and the papal palace was (until 1871) the
Quirinal Palace, upon the
Quirinal Hill. Since
1929 the Vatican Hill has been the headquarters of the
State of the Vatican City. However, the cathedral of the Bishop of Rome, the Pope, is not St. Peter's in the Vatican, it remains St. John Lateran, which is on one of the seven hills of Rome (the
Caelian), and is extra-territorially a part of the Vatican
city-state. This is the result of the
Lateran Treaty signed with the Italian state in 1929, which restored the diplomatic status of the Vatican as an independent city-state, which had been lost in 1860-1870 when Italy seized all papal territories.
