Vatican Hill

From Freepedia

The Vatican Hill (in Latin, Vaticanus Mons) is the name given, long before the founding of Christianity, to one of the hills on the side of the Tiber opposite the traditional seven hills of Rome. It may have been the site of an Etruscan town called Vaticum. In the 1st century A.D., the Vatican Hill featured a circus and a cemetery. St. Peter's Basilica is built over the cemetery, the traditional site of Saint Peter's grave.

The Vatican Hill is not one of the famous seven hills of Rome, although it was included within the city limits of Rome during the reign of Pope Leo IV, who between 848 and and 852 A.D. expanded the city walls to protect St. Peter's Basilica and the Vatican. So, Vatican Hill has been within the walls and city limits of Rome for over 1000 years.

Before the Avignon Papacy (1305-1378), headquarters of the Holy See was at the Lateran Palace. After the Avignon Papacy the papal palace and church administration moved to Vatican Hill. Since 1929 it has been the headquarters of the State of the Vatican City. However, the cathedral of the Bishop of Rome, the Pope, is not St. Peter's in the Vatican, it remains St. John Lateran, which is on one of the 7 hills of Rome (the Caelian), and is extra-territorially a part of the Vatican city-state. This is the result of the Lateran_Treaty (Concordat) signed with the Italian state in 1929, which restored the diplomatic status of the Vatican as an independent city-state, which had been lost in 1860-1870 when Italy seized all papal territories.