Vatican City

Vatican City, independent state, the world's smallest. It occupies 108.7 acres (44 hectares) of territory within the city of Rome, Italy. Vatican City serves as the spiritual, administrative, and political center of Roman Catholicism, and it is ruled by the pope, as head of the Roman Catholic church. It has a population of c. 1,000 and its official languages are Italian and Latin. Vatican City is dominated by Saint Peter's basilica and the Vatican Palace, one of the world's largest residential palaces. Among the city's treasures are the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel executed by Michelangelo Buonarroti as well as the paintings, sculpture, and other artifacts in the Vatican Museum collection. The Vatican Archive and Library contain many priceless manuscripts and, reputedly, the world's most extensive holdings of erotic literature, including a collection that once belonged to Benjamin Franklin.

The Vatican has its own bank, mints its own coins, and oversees the administration and investment of the church's assets worldwide. The city has no income tax and no restriction on the import or export of funds. It has its own broadcasting facilities, railroad station, and the newspaper L'Osservatore Romano. The Swiss Guard, the pope's personal bodyguard, are Vatican City's army. The city maintains diplomatic relations with many countries throughout the world by means of ambassadors, called nuncios, and sends apostolic delegates to other countries to represent the church's interests. As a matter of tradition and practice, the U.S. government did not post an ambassador to the papal court in the 18th and 19th centuries, nor to the Vatican City for most of the 20th century. Under President Ronald Reagan, the United States broke with a long-standing tradition and appointed an ambassador to Vatican City.

The official independence of Vatican City from Italy was established in 1929 following a long period of estrangement between the papacy and Italy over the papacy's loss of its once extensive territorial holdings, known as the Papal States, on the Italian peninsula. The issue was finally resolved in the Lateran Treaty negotiated that year between Cardinal Pietro Gasparri for the papacy and the Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. In 1993 official ties with Israel were established and in 1994 with Jordan. The latter step was taken in order to improve relations with the Arab world.

See also: Roman Catholic Church.