A sovereign territorial state in central Italy ruled by the Pope, constituting the temporal power of the Catholic Church throughout the medieval and early-modern periods.
Absorbed into the Kingdom of Italy on 20 September 1870 when Italian troops captured Rome after the withdrawal of the French garrison, ending over a thousand years of papal temporal rule.
The atlas holds 4 border frames for Papal States — the shape you scrub through changes in 754 · 950 · 1296 · 1654.
Provides essential context for the papacy's temporal power in the medieval period.
A narrative history of the most notorious medieval and Renaissance popes whose temporal ambitions shaped the Papal States.
Stone's biographical novel of Michelangelo is set largely in Rome under papal patronage, dramatizing the temporal Papal States at their Renaissance height.