When Pope Alexander VII (1599-1667) decided to widen St. Peter’s Square in 1656, the Congregation of the Construction called upon the famous Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680), who had already designed the interior of the Church.
He matured, not without thoughts, small and major changes, and the plan for the organisation of the area that was to receive the faithful of Christianity, as we see it today. In those days, the Papal State still owned or dominated a large part of Italy. In 1870 however, Garibaldi had conquered the Patrimonimus Petri and the Papal state was dissolved and absorbed by the new Italian state.
The Risorgimento of Italy meant the end of the centuries-old Papal State. The Pope remained the head of the Catholic Church, but without any worldly power. It was only in 1929 that a new State was established: the Vatican State, or, formally, the Stato della Città del Vaticano. The ancient, medieval and baroque surroundings are deceptive from this point of view. The Collonade of Bernini was built in 1929 along the South border.
The initiator of the agreement between the new state and the Italian State was Benito Mussolini (1883-1945), who sought to address the Vatican’s ambiguous status after 1870. He was inspired by political motives. Pope Pius XI (1857-1939) welcomed this step because the ‘ship of Petrus’ had found a new and safe harbour to deal with the global ecclesiastical and religious affairs.
Indeed, the management of a territory of only a few hundred square meters diminished the worldly ambitions, obligations and temptations of the Papacy. Back to the core business, we should say, what already appears to be difficult enough today. Today, the smallest world power celebrates eighty years of stormy history.