History UsefulNotes / VaticanCity

[[folder:Films]]

** President of the Governorate: Giuseppe Bertello

* The ''Vatican Secret Archives'' religious historical thriller series by Gary [=McAvoy=], which features as its primary character a Jesuit priest named Father Michael Dominic. His work in the eponymous Vatican Secret Archives provides the central mystery of each novel.

Vatican City, officially known as Vatican City State ('''Italian:''' ''Stato della Città del Vaticano'', '''Latin:''' ''Status Civitatis Vaticanae''), is the world's smallest country, a sovereign Southern European city-state located entirely within UsefulNotes/{{Italy}}'s capital city, UsefulNotes/{{Rome}}. Created by the Lateran Treaties of 1929 signed by Pope Pius XI and UsefulNotes/BenitoMussolini, it had a previous, and far more powerful incarnation - UsefulNotes/ThePapalStates. It is perhaps the only currently existing RealLife example of TheTheocracy as well as one of the most famous examples of a HolyCity. It is also unique in the modern world in having Latin as its official language[[note]]Technically, Latin is the official language of the Holy See, the Christian body which oversees the administration of the city-state[[/note]], though its newspaper, ''L'Osservatore Romano'', is published primarily in Italian.

Vatican City, officially known as Vatican City State ('''Italian:''' ''Stato della Città del Vaticano'', '''Latin:''' ''Status Civitatis Vaticanae''), is the world's smallest country, a sovereign Southern European city-state located entirely within UsefulNotes/{{Italy}}'s capital city, UsefulNotes/{{Rome}}. Created by the Lateran Treaties of 1929, it had a previous, and far more powerful incarnation - UsefulNotes/ThePapalStates. It is perhaps the only currently existing RealLife example of TheTheocracy as well as one of the most famous examples of a HolyCity. It is also unique in the modern world in having Latin as its official language[[note]]Technically, Latin is the official language of the Holy See, the Christian body which oversees the administration of the city-state[[/note]], though its newspaper, ''L'Osservatore Romano'', is published primarily in Italian.

Note that Vatican City is, officially, ''not'' considered a continuation of the Papal States. It was created in the Lateran Treaty of 1929 between the Papacy and Mussolini, which [[InsistentTerminology made it a point to emphasize]] that the Papal States had ceased to exist, and "Vatican City" was a new creation.

** The Vatican is the site of the final mission in ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedII'', with the bulk of it taking place on the Passetto di Borgo and in the Art/SistineChapel. In [[ShownTheirWork a nod to history]], the Chapel's ceiling lacks its famous fresco painting, as the level takes place in the year 1499, before the fresco was painted.

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* ''Film/TheAgonyAndTheEcstasy'', which tells the story of the creation of the Art/SistineChapel's ceiling fresco paintings and the feud between Creator/MichelangeloBuonarroti and his patron, UsefulNotes/PopeJuliusII.
* ''Literature/AngelsAndDemons'', where ritual murders surrounding the election of a new pope are central to the story. The murders actually take place in Rome, but the climax takes place in the Vatican City.
* ''Series/{{Borgia}}'' and ''Series/TheBorgias'', as it covers the infamous history of UsefulNotes/PopeAlexanderVI and his family.

* In ''Film/DonCamilloMonsignor'', Don Camillo becomes a ''Monsignore'' (bishop) and is briefly seen at the Vatican at the beginning.
* ''Manga/{{Hellsing}}'': the manga features an attack on the Vatican by a New Age cult, and later includes a cameo of Pope John Paul II (yes, they actually refers to him directly as Papa Joannes Paulus Secundus, lawsuits be damned) authorizing a crusade to reconquer England.

%%* ''Film/MissionImpossibleIII''
%%* Burgled by Creator/BruceWillis in the SoBadItsGood ''Film/HudsonHawk''.

%%* ''The Scarlet and the Black''
* The Vatican as represented in ''Webcomic/ScandinaviaAndTheWorld'' is portrayed as a kindly old man in popish garb (with his flag as his robe) who gets freaked out by the Scandinavians' Christmas traditions.
* Shows up in ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedII'' as the site of the final mission, with the bulk of it taking place in the Sistine Chapel. In [[ShownTheirWork a nod to history]], the Chapel's ceiling lacks its famous fresco painting, as the level takes place in the year 1499, before the fresco was put in.

* ''Series/PennAndTellerBullshit'' had an episode dedicated to calling out the Vatican.
* The central story ''Film/TheGodfather Part III'' gravitates around a struggle between the TheMafia and the Vatican bankers, with UsefulNotes/ThePope (a reformist man) caught in the middle. Many scenes take place in the city.

* ''Literature/TrinityBlood'' has the Vatican becoming the dominant power in Western Europe about a thousand years after an apocalyptic war with vampires.
* ''Manga/BlueExorcist'' has the Knight of the True Cross's headquarters under Vatican City. Or Rome, to be accurate...
* Some early events of ''Literature/TheGenesisCode'' take place in the offices of the Vatican's bureaucracy.
* In ''Literature/ACertainMagicalIndex'', the Vatican occasionally appears, as the Roman Catholic Church and the Pope are major characters. [[spoiler:Eventually, Fiamma of the Right decides the city and the Pope have outlived their usefulness to his plans and tries to wipe it off the map. The Pope manages to contain the blast so that there is minimal damage to the city (though St. Peter's Basilica gets destroyed) at the cost of his body being left in critical condition, and Fiamma leaves.]]
* In the climax of ''Film/{{Eurotrip}}'', Scotty and his friends enter the Vatican to try to meet Scotty's prospective love interest Mieke, who is on a tour there. Leads to hilarity like Scotty accidentally ringing a bell that signals the Pope had died.
* ''Film/MissionImpossibleIII'': Ethan decides to infiltrate the Vatican in order to abduct an arms dealer whose been avoiding the IMF for years after an email indicating he's going to be at an event there is recovered by Benji. Luther points out that the security is going to make this plan a bigger nightmare than stealing from Langley, but they manage to pull it off anyway.
* Heavily featured in the Italian satiric comic ''Ninja Nuns'', whose protagonists work as the Church's troubleshooters and have been busy protecting the Vatican ever since [[ItMakesSenseInContext the surprise Gay Pride started with the election of the new Pope was suddenly zombified]].
* ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'' establishes that the Vatican, as well as the Pope and the Catholic Church by extension, are still around in the 22nd century, as Phlox's study of Earth religions includes attending a mass service at St. Peter's Square.
* Shows up a bit in ''Film/TwoThousandTwelve'' as part of the mandatory MonumentalDamage, starting with cracks in Michelangelo's ''The Creation of Adam'' fresco (specifically, [[RuleOfSymbolism between God's and Adam's hands]]) and ending with the dome of St. Peter's Basilica falling down and running over the crowd like a bowling ball.
* ''VideoGame/SeriousSam4'' has a part set in Vatican City, where Sam finds a book leading to the location of the Holy Grail.

* ''LightNovel/TrinityBlood'' has the Vatican becoming the dominant power in Western Europe about a thousand years after an apocalyptic war with vampires.

* In ''LightNovel/ACertainMagicalIndex'', the Vatican occasionally appears, as the Roman Catholic Church and the Pope are major characters. [[spoiler:Eventually, Fiamma of the Right decides the city and the Pope have outlived their usefulness to his plans and tries to wipe it off the map. The Pope manages to contain the blast so that there is minimal damage to the city (though St. Peter's Basilica gets destroyed) at the cost of his body being left in critical condition, and Fiamma leaves.]]

->''"[[IncrediblyLamePun If you hack the Vatican's servers, are you tampering in God's domain?]]"''

The country is ruled by UsefulNotes/{{the Pope}}, which is also the ruler of the Holy See, that is, the government of the Roman Catholic Church whose influence extends far outside the city's walls. This makes the pope one of the Roman Catholic religious leaders that also leads a country, the other being the Bishop of Urgell of UsefulNotes/{{Andorra}}. While Castel Gandolfo (the former summer residence of the pope and now a museum) and other places belong to the church, they are ''not'' as is often assumed exclaves of the Vatican in any diplomatic sense. However, Italy does not usually press the matter, so the point is moot for all but geography nerds.

* ''Series/{{Borgia}}'' and ''Series/TheBorgias'', as it covers the infamous history of UsefulNotes/PopeAlexanderVI and his family.

St. Peter's Basilica is the focal point of Vatican City. Built in the early 16th century to replace the previous St. Peter's, it is the largest church on Earth. St. Peter's, however, is ''not'' the Cathedral for the Diocese of Rome as it does not house the Bishop's throne. That honor instead belongs to the Archbasilica of Saint John Lateran

The country is ruled by UsefulNotes/{{the Pope}}, which is also the ruler of the Holy See, that is, the government of the Roman Catholic Church whose influence extends far outside the city's walls. This makes the pope one of the Roman Catholic religious leaders that also leads a country, the other being the Bishop of Urgell of UsefulNotes/{{Andorra}}. While Castel Gandolfo (the summer residence of the pope and current home to "Pope Emeritus" Joseph Ratzinger) and other places belong to the church, they are ''not'' as is often assumed exclaves of the Vatican in any diplomatic sense. However, Italy does not usually press the matter, so the point is moot for all but geography nerds.

The country is ruled by UsefulNotes/{{the Pope}}, which is also the ruler of the Holy See, that is, the government of the Roman Catholic Church whose influence extends far outside the city's walls. This makes the pope one of the Roman Catholic religious leaders that also leads a country, the other being the Bishop of Urgell of UsefulNotes/{{Andorra}}. While Castel Gandolfo (the summer residence of the pope and current home to "pope emeritus" Joseph Ratzinger) and other places belong to the church, they are ''not'' as is often assumed exclaves of the Vatican in any diplomatic sense. However, UsefulNotes/{{Italy}} does not usually press the matter, so the point is moot for all but geography nerds.

Vatican City, officially known as Vatican City State ('''Italian:''' ''Stato della Città del Vaticano'', '''Latin:''' ''Status Civitatis Vaticanae''), is the world's smallest country, a sovereign Southern European city-state located entirely within UsefulNotes/{{Rome}}. Created by the Lateran Treaties of 1929, it had a previous, and far more powerful incarnation - UsefulNotes/ThePapalStates. It is perhaps the only currently existing RealLife example of TheTheocracy as well as one of the most famous examples of a HolyCity. It is also unique in the modern world in having Latin as its official language[[note]]Technically, Latin is the official language of the Holy See, the Christian body which oversees the administration of the city-state[[/note]], though its newspaper, ''L'Osservatore Romano'', is published primarily in Italian.

The Holy See (''not'' the Vatican as a state which is member of jack squat) is not a member of the UsefulNotes/UnitedNations, but has Permanent Observer status. Remarkably, this situation is the result of the Church's sense of honor: since the UN holds freedom and democracy as one of its highest values, and the Vatican is neither free nor democratic (as it is technically an absolute monarchy and all its inhabitants are either clergy, administrators, or Swiss Guards oath-bound to obey the Pope), it declines full membership out of honesty. This isn't to say that the Church is opposed to freedom or democracy -- quite the opposite -- but that the Vatican works best as it is, and nobody complains (it is the only state in the world where everyone who lives there has made an active and completely voluntary choice to do so. For very obvious reasons, no one can be a natural born citizen of Vatican City. Even in the off chance of, say, a pregnant tourist going into labor and delivering without being able to be transported to a Roman hospital, Vatican City has a policy of ''jus officii'', where citizenship is granted only to those (and their spouse/children) who have an official position and therefore a reason to be there. A child born in that position would be considered to be born in Italy. As Italy itself does not grant primary citizenship based on birthplace (''jus soli''), the child's citizenship would be governed by the relevant laws of his/her parent's home country. The legal fiction of a Vatican child being a born Italian was established as an ObviousRulePatch, in case such a child were born to stateless parents, in order to give the child a citizenship of last resort; Italy doesn't grant ''primary'' citizenship based on birthplace, but a child can claim Italian citizenship if he/she is not otherwise entitled to any other. There are however a handful of families — the family of disappeared teen Emanuela Orlandi, subject of a 2022 Netflix documentary, for example — who are multi-generational Vatican citizens, having lived in the City State for over 100 years and serving multiple Popes, though they still fall under the aforementioned policy of ''jus officii''.

The Holy See (''not'' the Vatican as a state which is member of jack squat) is not a member of the UsefulNotes/UnitedNations, but has Permanent Observer status. Remarkably, this situation is the result of the Church's sense of honor: since the UN holds freedom and democracy as one of its highest values, and the Vatican is neither free nor democratic (as it is technically an absolute monarchy and all its inhabitants are either clergy or Swiss Guards oath-bound to obey the Pope), it declines full membership out of honesty. This isn't to say that the Church is opposed to freedom or democracy -- quite the opposite -- but that the Vatican works best as it is, and nobody complains (it is the only state in the world where everyone who lives there has made an active and completely voluntary choice to do so[[note]]For very obvious reasons, no one can be a natural born citizen of Vatican City. Even in the off chance of, say, a pregnant tourist going into labor and delivering without being able to be transported to a Roman hospital, Vatican City has a policy of ''jus officii'', where citizenship is granted only to those who have an official position and therefore a reason to be there. A child born in that position would be considered to be born in Italy. As Italy itself does not grant primary citizenship based on birthplace (''jus soli''), the child's citizenship would be governed by the relevant laws of his/her parent's home country. The legal fiction of a Vatican child being a born Italian was established as an ObviousRulePatch, in case such a child were born to stateless parents, in order to give the child a citizenship of last resort; Italy doesn't grant ''primary'' citizenship based on birthplace, but a child can claim Italian citizenship if he/she is not otherwise entitled to any other.[[/note]]). Vatican City also does not participate in UsefulNotes/TheEuropeanUnion, its income primarily consisting of contributions from believers around the world, as well as its tourist sector, although it uses the Euro as currency and has a deal with the EU to mint - highly sought after - "Vatican Euros".[[note]] The same goes for UsefulNotes/{{Monaco}} and UsefulNotes/SanMarino but not for UsefulNotes/{{Kosovo}} and UsefulNotes/{{Montenegro}}, which use the Euro unilaterally. Andorra until 2014 used the Euro without minting its own coins but has since signed a treaty with the EU to that effect[[/note]]

Nowadays, the city-state mainly serves as the administrative capital of Catholicism and a ''major'' religious tourist destination. In an example of the perfidy of statistics, it has the world's highest per-capita crime rate, of 1.5 crimes per capita.[[hottip:*: Pickpockets from the rest of Rome are very active in the crowded St Peter's Square, and the Vatican has a tiny resident population - leading to the statistical oddity.]]