Prisoner in the Vatican the Basilica of St. John Lateran, situated on the opposite side of the city of Rome, and to travel regularly to their summer residence at Castel Gandolfo, from Rome. Prisoner in the Vatican A prisoner in the Vatican or prisoner of the Vatican (; ) is how Pope Pius IX was described following the capture of Rome by the armed forces of the Kingdom of Italy on 20 September 1870. Part of the process of Italian unification, the city's capture ended the millennial temporal rule of the popes over central Italy and allowed Rome to be designated the capital of
War of the Eight Saints War of the Eight Saints The War of the Eight Saints (1375–1378) was a war between Pope Gregory XI and a coalition of Italian city-states led by Florence, which contributed to the end of the Avignon Papacy. The causes of the war were rooted in interrelated issues, Florentine opposition to the expansion of the Papal States in central Italy (which the Avignon Popes had set as a condition for their return), and antipathy toward the "Parte Guelfa" in Florence. Specifically, Florence feared in the autumn of 1372 that Gregory XI intended to reoccupy a strip of territory near Lunigiana, which