Prisoner of the Vatican

by David I. Kertzer

  Just what assurances the Vatican gave the Italian authorities remain one of the points in the dispute that followed. Two days after the violent events on the night of the procession, an emergency inquiry was conducted at the behest of Depretis, the prime minister, who also served as minister of the interior. As part of the inquest, Signor Bacco—who as questore served as the head of the police services for the prefect of Rome—described how he was first informed of the plans. "On the 9th, at just about the same time, I was called in both to see the general director of public security for the minister of the interior and to the prefect's office. I went first to the ministry, where Commissioner Bolis [head of the police in Rome] told me that the transport of Pope Pius IX's body was going to take place in an absolutely private manner, and he gave me responsibility for taking some purely precautionary measures, as there was nothing unusual to be worried about."

  Bacco recalled voicing some concern: "I replied to Commissioner Bolis that it was a mistake to think that the transport would take place quietly, without a crowd of followers, since there was already great ferment among Catholics, for the news of the transport had reawakened all the devotion and sympathy that these people felt for the Pontiff." And in this recollection, recorded in the wake of the disaster and with the knowledge that heads would have to roll, Bacco made sure to cast the blame elsewhere: "Commissioner Bolis in the end did not believe that at midnight many people would gather to follow a long route such as that from St. Peter's to San Lorenzo."

  By the following day, signs of trouble appeared. The prime minister was getting reports that, despite the Vatican's assurances, the "private" procession was going to become a mass demonstration of loyalty to the last of the pope-kings. Rattled, the secretary-general of the minister of the interior called in Bacco. "I wouldn't like to see the procession assume—due to the clericals' involvement—the nature of a political demonstration," he said. "True, there are not a great many of them, but in any case it would make a bad impression to hear it said that Rome is still today devoted to the pope." Bacco was told to ensure that all went quietly.

  But Bacco was uneasy. Were he to try to prevent people from taking part in the procession, the Church would certainly complain that the government was keeping the faithful from a funeral rite. "I also said," the questore recalled, "that there should be no illusions about the number of Romans who remained loyal to the Pope, for there are a great many of them."

  He was then escorted to the prime minister's office. Described by Bacco as both listless and brusque, Depretis asked him whether he thought the funeral cortege could proceed in such a way that it would avoid attracting attention, "since it would not be good if there were much hubbub and it was given much importance."

  The following day, Monday, the eleventh, Bacco received a series of disturbing reports from his informants. A meeting had been held at one of Rome's radical clubs, with two parliamentary deputies present. The radicals were convinced that if the funeral cortege proceeded without protest, it would give the impression that the government was in league with the Vatican. Worse still, the world would conclude that the Romans were devoted to the pope. Bacco was also told that news of the supposedly private cortege had spread among Rome's loyal Catholics, who were planning to turn out in great number.

  That day Bacco received two unexpected visitors, Cesare Crispolti and Alessandro Datti, two of Rome's most prominent lay Catholics. The fullest account we have of their visit comes from a report they made to the Vatican secretary of state a few days later, at the height of the procession polemics. On Sunday evening, they recalled, while talking with friends, they had decided that it would be best to notify the authorities that what they had initially thought was going to be a small, private funeral cortege was clearly turning into something very different. After receiving approval from (unspecified) Vatican authorities for their plan, Crispolti and Datti were deputized to speak to the police authorities. At 6 P.M. the next day they were ushered into Bacco's office.

  They had come, they said, in a private capacity—although it is hard to believe they would have engaged in such a mission without the Vatican's encouragement—to be sure that the authorities allowed all those Romans who so desired to join the funeral procession. Bacco expressed his consternation that the supposed secret had become so publicly known, pointing out that even the morning's newspaper had carried a story about it. Would the participants be carrying torches and singing songs? he asked. Yes, the men replied, they would be carrying torches, singing songs, and reciting the rosary. "He then observed," Crispolti and Datti recalled, "that police regulations in fact prohibited such a funeral procession because they specified that after 11, the city should remain quiet. Nonetheless, persuaded that all would unfold in a satisfactory manner, he left us complete freedom to do what we had told him was planned."

  Pius IX with his court in the 1850s.

  Cardinal Antonelli, secretary of state, in the 1850s.

  Giuseppe Garibaldi, in a red shirt, at the time of his expedition to Sicily, 1860.

  This satirical image from 1863 shows Pope Pius IX and Napoleon III unsuccessfully trying to prevent the heavenly light—labeled "Freedom"—from shining on Garibaldi, the object of popular adulation.

  Victor Emmanuel II, proclaimed king of Italy.

  The satirical magazine Il Lampione regularly skewered the pope. In this caricature from 1861, King Victor Emmanuel II rescues Rome (portrayed as a half-naked woman) from the grasp of Pius IX, whose tiara is falling off. The legend reads, "The rape of the Sabines, by Giambologna, as revisited and corrected by II Lampione." The image is based on a famous statue by Giambologna in Florence. The Lampione caricatures shown here were originally in color.

  Il Lampione (1861) shows French troops, under Napoleon III, trying to put the papal tiara on the skeleton of temporal power.

  An engraving of Pius IX with his signature.

  II Lampione (1861) shows "The Sickly Temporal Power." Napoleon III comes to Pope Pius IX's aid, but his troops' attempts to prop up the ailing pontiff are bound to fail.

  Il Lampiones view of the Vatican Council in 1870. The Catholic clergy are depicted as voracious ravens picking at the half-naked body of Italy. The legend reads: "Italy and the Ecumenical Council: Here we see Italy's true position without its Rome. Will it end up being devoured by the ravens?"

  La Rana, Bologna's satirical weekly, regularly carried caricatures of the Church-state battle. Here, in an image from July 1,1870, the Vatican Council's proclamation of papal infallibility is skewered. The pope, with a Jesuit at his side, fires the cannon of "Infallibility" at the female figure of Progress, who is thumbing her nose at them. The legend says, "The shot will leave infallibly, but instead of hitting Progress, bam!...the piece of artillery cracks and ... flies into pieces."

  Giovanni Lanza, prime minister of Italy in 1870, urged the reluctant king to send Italian soldiers to take Rome from the pope.

  Napoleon III in his last days as emperor of France, around 1870.

  Giovanni Mazzini, a great theorist of Italian nationalism, was imprisoned at Gaeta on orders of the Italian government while its troops marched on Rome.

  Ferdinand Gregorovius, the German Protestant scholar, lived for many years in Rome while he worked on his multivolume history of the city. With acerbic wit and jaundiced eye, his diaries recount the events surrounding the Vatican Council and the taking of Rome.

  Hermann Kanzler, the Swiss general in charge of the papal troops protecting Rome.

  Porta Pia, showing the holes made by Italian artillery in its assault on Rome.

  While Rome is invaded by Italian troops on the morning of September 20,1870, foreign ambassadors console Pius IX. Cardinal Antonelli is at his side.

  Nino Bixio, who had commanded one of Garibaldi's two ships in the 1860 assault on Sicily, was made a general in the Italian army despite his reputation as a hothead and a fierce anticleric. In leading one portion of the army's assault on Rome ten years later, he had no compunction about aiming
cannonballs perilously close to St. Peter's.

  Harry von Arnim, Prussia's ambassador to the Holy See, pictured in 1870, was suspected by the Italians of plotting the pope's return to power.

  The pope blesses his defeated troops in St. Peter's Square on September 21,1870, as they begin their march out of Rome, bound for their countries of origin.

  In this religious image of 1871, a praying Pius IX, in stormy seas, receives heavenly blessings as demonic figures swarm in the dark sky, and monks and nuns try to save themselves from drowning.

  Pius IX portrayed as a prisoner, praying to the Madonna.

  "Changes in Residence." In May 1871, as plans went ahead to shift the capital from Florence to Rome, La Rana shows Prime Minister Lanza moving in; the pope must take all his belongings out. These include a book marked "Index," bellows marked "Reaction," and a broken pot marked "Excommunication."

  Umberto, the king's heir, holds his father's hand on his deathbed, in January 1878, as members of the cabinet, including Prime Minister Depretis (with white beard) and Minister of Internal Affairs Francesco Crispi (bald with white mustache, behind Depretis), look on. The excommunicated king's bed has a cross on the headboard.

  The Pantheon, site of Victor Emmanuel H's funeral. The Latin inscription atop the pillars has been covered with the new words "To Victor Emmanuel, Father of the Country."

  Pius IX's body on display in St. Peter's. His feet were placed so that the faithful could kiss them while filing by.

  King Umberto I as a young man.

  Leo XIII at his writing desk shortly after becoming pope in 1878.

  The two old antagonists embrace at St. Peter's gate. Pius IX exclaims, "Victor! Victor! Up here I will deny you no longer, but I ask you to give me an affectionate hug." From La Rana, February 1878.

  "In This World." In contrast with the reconciliation that could be achieved in heaven, La Rana, on March 1,1878, depicts the new king, Umberto I, and the new pope, Leo XIII, being prevented from reaching the reconciliation they both desired by the evil figure of the Jesuit. The stormy skies and scorched earth signify the Vatican's commitment to reinstate the pope's "temporal power."

  Cardinal Mariano Rampolla del Tindaro, secretary of state to Leo XIII from 1887 until the pope's death in 1903, aimed to regain Rome for the pope.

  Luigi Galimberti championed a Vatican alliance with Austria and Germany and peace with Italy. Galimberti, whose own hopes for becoming secretary of state in 1887 were dashed, long remained Cardinal Rampolla's rival for the ear of Leo XIII. This photograph was taken in the 1890s, when he had become a cardinal.

  Luigi Tosti, a monk who had long known Leo XIII, only thought he was helping the pope by publishing a call for reconciliation with Italy in 1887, but he was denounced by the Vatican.

  Alberto Mario, an anticlerical journalist and organizer, who at a rally in 1881 praised the anticlerical demonstrators who had come so close to throwing Pius IX's "carcass" into the Tiber.

  Giacomo Della Chiesa as a young priest, around the time in 1887 when he was sent on a secret mission by Leo XIII. In 1914, Delia Chiesa would become Pope Benedict XV.

  Giovanni Bovio, member of the left in parliament and famed anticlerical orator whose inscription adorns the statue of Giordano Bruno in Rome.

  Chancellor Bismarck addressing the German Reichstag, in an 1886 painting by Anton von Werner.

  Francesco Crispi as prime minister. It was often said that Crispi looked like Bismarck. One observer wrote that although there was a resemblance, "Crispi gives all the appearance of wanting to charm his visitors,... Bismarck would like to terrorize them."

  Wilhelm II. Within months of becoming emperor of Germany in 1888, Wilhelm was the first European sovereign to defy the pope and visit the Italian king in Rome.

  Chancellor Bismarck and Wilhelm II in Friedrichsruh, Germany, on October 30, 1888, shortly after their return from Rome.

  The 1889 dedication of the statue of Giordano Bruno in the Campo dei Fiori, where Bruno had been burned at the stake almost three centuries earlier, enraging the pope. Many believed it was the last straw, that the pope would soon leave Italy, to return only after Rome was taken from the Italians and returned to his control.

  Did they expect there to be a large crowd? Bacco asked them. Yes, Crispolti and Datti replied, they thought it would be very large. But they hastened to add that the Vatican authorities had done nothing to encourage a mass gathering and had done all they could to discourage people from joining in. "Indeed, the cardinal vicar sent some Catholic organizations express instructions not to take part." Bacco told them that he had already made plans to have a large number of police lining the entire route and that many plainclothes police would be mixed in with the procession itself.4

  In his own testimony to the government's investigative committee, Bacco gave a slightly different account of this meeting. The two lay Catholic leaders came to see him on the eleventh, he recalled, but their mission had been to request that those following the funeral cortege be allowed to carry lit candles. He told them that they could, and then, he said, he sent news to the prefect "that the clericals were highly excited and planning to take part in the procession in great numbers, and that the well-known agitators were making plans to disrupt the funeral procession." However, in the police archives, Bacco's only telegram sent to the prefect on the eleventh reads rather differently: "I know positively that a great many people will be going to accompany the body of Pius IX from St. Peter's to San Lorenzo, following behind the coffin with torches and reciting prayers. There is so far no plan for political demonstrations or plans to promote disorders." It went on to say that he would submit a plan for the prefect's approval the following day for "a very strong contingent of police officers and agents at St. Peter's, behind the cortege, and along the streets through which it will pass on its way to San Lorenzo, so that we are in a position to provide for any emergency."5

  Despite receiving this warning, on the morning of the twelfth the prefect did not seem to fully register the magnitude of what was about to take place, for he wrote that "all ought to proceed in a totally private manner." Yet, while not entirely aware of just how explosive the situation was, the prefect stressed to Bacco the need to ensure that nothing disturb the procession. "I especially urge you to see that at both the Vatican basilica and at San Lorenzo there is a highly alert and sizable contingent of oversight and that this also extends along all of the roads through which the cortege will pass and is in a position to be able, in any eventuality and at any point of the route, to take prudent action to prevent or immediately stop even the smallest disorder." Should Bacco believe that the police under his command were insufficient to guarantee that there would be no public disturbance of any kind, the prefect wrote, he should let him know so that arrangements could be made to call up the troops.

  Clearly nervous, Bacco made one last trip to the Ministry of the Interior, where, according to his own later account, he received some good news. The secretary-general and the Rome police chief told him that they had received new information assuring them that, despite the earlier threats by anticlerical groups, there would be no disorders. But, still uneasy, at 2:10 P.M. Bacco sent a new telegram to the prefect, taking up his offer and asking that nine military squadrons of a hundred men each be placed at strategic points along the planned route. As soon as he received the request, the prefect sent urgent orders to the commander of the Military Division of Rome to furnish the troops. He then contacted Rome's mayor and asked him to have all available municipal police on hand to help. He also made arrangements with the Vatican's lay emissary, Vespignani, so that only those on a list that he provided would be allowed to enter the church of San Lorenzo with the pope's casket.6

  Until the morning of the twelfth, the route of the procession had been kept secret, but that morning news of it spread through the city, in the words of Civiltà Cattolica, "with the speed of light." As the journal put it, "Everyone's hearts were beating loudly, they could barely wait, so universal
was the desire to accompany the venerated body to San Lorenzo." And although Leo had wanted to avoid a large demonstration, by the morning of the twelfth Catholic groups were distributing printed invitations calling on all good Catholics in Rome to show their respect for the dead pontiff by joining the cortege.

  All day long itinerant vendors crowded St. Peter's Square, doing a brisk business in candles and torches. By shortly after eleven, in the estimation of the Jesuit journal, at least one hundred thousand people had crowded into the area between the steps of St. Peter's and the bridge in front of Sant'Angelo Castle. While this number seems suspiciously large, there is no question that the small ceremony had turned into something much different. Whatever the total number, not all were there out of devotion to Pius. Some were simply curious and wanted to see the strange and unusual event, or perhaps they knew of the battle to come and did not want to miss it. Others had a more mischievous intent.7