STATES OF THE CHURCH or PAPAL STATES, that portion of central Italy which, previous to the unification of the kingdom, was under the direct government of the see of Rome. Their area in 1859 was 16,000.8 sq.m.; their population in 1853 numbered 3,124,758.
With the exception of Benevento, surrounded by the Neapoli tan province of Principato Ulteriore, and the small State of Pontecorvo, enclosed within the Terra di Lavoro, the States of the Church formed a compact territory, bounded on the N.W. by the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom, on the N.E. by the Adriatic, on the S.E. by the kingdom of Naples, on the S.W. by the Mediterranean, and on the W. by the grand-duchy of Tuscany and the duchy of Modena. On the Adriatic the coast extended 140 m. from the mouth of the Tronto (Truentus) to the southern mouth of the Po, and on the Tyrrhenian Sea 13o m. from 41° 20' to 42° 22' N. latitude. The former papal territories are now comprised within the Italian provinces of Bologna, Ferrara, Forli, Ravenna, Pesaro and Urbino, Ancona, Macerata, Ascoli-Piceno, Perugia, Rome and Benevento. The question of the origin of the territorial jurisdiction of the pope is treated under PAPACY. With the moral and ecclesiastical decay of the papacy in the 9th and loth centuries much of its territorial authority slipped from its grasp; and by the middle of the iith century its rule was not recognized beyond Rome and the immediate vicinity. By the Treaty of Sutri (Feb. III') Paschal II. was compelled by the Emperor Henry V. to surrender all the possessions and royalties of the church ; but this treaty was soon afterwards repudiated, and by the will of Matilda, Countess of Tuscany, the papal see was enabled to lay claim to new territories of great value. By
the capitulation of Neuss (1200 the Emperor Otto IV. recog nized the papal authority over the whole tract from Radicofani in Tuscany to the pass of Ceperano on the Neapolitan frontier— the exarchate of Ravenna, the Pentapolis, the March of Ancona, the bishopric of Spoleto, Matilda's personal estates, and the countship of Brittenoro ; but a good deal of the territory thus described remained for centuries an object of ambition only on the part of the popes. The actual annexation of Ravenna, An cona, Bologna, Ferrara, etc., dates from the 16th century. The States of the Church were submerged for a time by the ground swell of the French Revolution, but they appeared again in In 1849 they received a constitution. On the formation of the kingdom of Italy in 186o they were reduced to the Comarca of Rome, the legation of Velletri, and the three delegations of Viterbo, Civita Vecchia and Frosinone; in 187o they disappeared from the political map of Europe. From that time, the popes retired within the Vatican as self-constituted prisoners. This situ ation was changed by the Lateran treaty between the Holy See and the kingdom of Italy (signed Feb. II, 1929), which recognized Pope Pius XI. as sovereign of a clearly defined territory, indi cated by an annexed map, entitled "the city of the Vatican." Therein the Holy See is recognized as having full and exclusive dominion and sovereign jurisdiction. (See VATICAN ; PIUS XI.)