To understand why the Vatican matters to more than a billion Catholics worldwide, it helps to look beyond its art and architecture to its history and its role today. The Vatican is at once a pilgrimage destination, the seat of a global church, and an independent state – a combination found nowhere else on earth.
From a Roman Hill to the Holy See
The Vatican hill lay across the river from ancient Rome, the site of a Roman circus and, according to tradition, of Saint Peter’s martyrdom and burial. Over the centuries the bishops of Rome – the popes, regarded by Catholics as successors of Peter – made it the centre of the Western Church. The institution they head is known as the Holy See, and its influence has shaped European history, art and politics for nearly two thousand years.
A State Within a City
For much of history the popes ruled a large territory across central Italy. When those Papal States were absorbed into a united Italy in 1870, the pope’s temporal power all but vanished. The question was finally settled in 1929, when the Lateran Treaty created the tiny, fully independent Vatican City State, guaranteeing the pope’s freedom. Today it issues its own stamps and coins, flies its own flag, and is a permanent observer at the United Nations.
Why Pilgrims Come
Catholics come to the Vatican to pray at the tomb of Saint Peter, to attend Mass in the great basilica, to receive the pope’s blessing and, for many, to deepen their faith at the very heart of their Church. Every 25 years or so the Church proclaims a Jubilee or Holy Year, when millions of pilgrims pass through the basilica’s Holy Door, a tradition reaching back to 1300. For the devout, no journey in the Catholic world carries quite the same weight.
A Place for Everyone
Yet you need not be Catholic to be moved by the Vatican. Its treasures belong to the history of human art and ideas, and visitors of every background and belief walk its galleries and gaze up at its dome. Few places so completely fuse faith, power, beauty and history in a single square kilometre.
