Prisoner of the Vatican (31 page)

Victor Emmanuel II, proclaimed king of Italy.

The satirical magazine
Il Lampione
regularly skewered the pope. In this caricature from 1861, King Victor Emmanuel II rescues Rome (portrayed as a half-naked woman) from the grasp of Pius IX, whose tiara is falling off. The legend reads, "The rape of the Sabines, by Giambologna, as revisited and corrected by
II Lampione
." The image is based on a famous statue by Giambologna in Florence. The
Lampione
caricatures shown here were originally in color.

Il Lampione
(1861) shows French troops, under Napoleon III, trying to put the papal tiara on the skeleton of temporal power.

An engraving of Pius IX with his signature.

II Lampione
(1861) shows "The Sickly Temporal Power." Napoleon III comes to Pope Pius IX's aid, but his troops' attempts to prop up the ailing pontiff are bound to fail.

Il Lampiones
view of the Vatican Council in 1870. The Catholic clergy are depicted as voracious ravens picking at the half-naked body of Italy. The legend reads: "Italy and the Ecumenical Council: Here we see Italy's true position without its Rome. Will it end up being devoured by the ravens?"

La Rana,
Bologna's satirical weekly, regularly carried caricatures of the Church-state battle. Here, in an image from July 1,1870, the Vatican Council's proclamation of papal infallibility is skewered. The pope, with a Jesuit at his side, fires the cannon of "Infallibility" at the female figure of Progress, who is thumbing her nose at them. The legend says, "The shot will leave infallibly, but instead of hitting Progress, bam!...the piece of artillery cracks and ... flies into pieces."

Giovanni Lanza, prime minister of Italy in 1870, urged the reluctant king to send Italian soldiers to take Rome from the pope.

Napoleon III in his last days as emperor of France, around 1870.

Giovanni Mazzini, a great theorist of Italian nationalism, was imprisoned at Gaeta on orders of the Italian government while its troops marched on Rome.

Ferdinand Gregorovius, the German Protestant scholar, lived for many years in Rome while he worked on his multivolume history of the city. With acerbic wit and jaundiced eye, his diaries recount the events surrounding the Vatican Council and the taking of Rome.

Hermann Kanzler, the Swiss general in charge of the papal troops protecting Rome.

Porta Pia, showing the holes made by Italian artillery in its assault on Rome.