Roma: XX Settembre 1870

A century-and-a-half ago, to use the words on the memorial near the Porta Pia, Italy entered Rome. This may seem rather nonsensical, since we all know Rome as the Italian capital, but once the ‘Eternal City’ was the heart of the Papal States and the pope was both head of the Church and a temporal king who passed laws, collected taxes and maintained both an army and a navy. This ended on 20 September 1870, when the Italian army bombarded the city walls and entered through a breach. Depending on one’s political persuasion, XX Settembre 1870 was either the ‘capture’ of Rome or its ‘liberation.’

A view of the Porta Pia in the autumn of 1870, showing the breach in the wall to the right of the defensive tower on the right-hand side of the gate

The mid-nineteenth century was dominated by the ‘Roman Question.’ Efforts were made to unify Italy under the progressive rule of Piedmont and to rid the peninsula of foreign influence. However, the longstanding existence of the Papal States formed both a geographical and ideological obstacle. Many Catholics saw the existence of the Papal States as a necessary guarantee of the pope’s authority and independence. The Holy See displayed little desire to compromise, especially since nationalism was readily identified with liberalism, anti-clericalism and revolution. 

The ‘Roman Question’ generated a considerable literature during the nineteenth century. This important collection of bound pamphlets on the subject, running from 1849 to 1892, survives in the Archives of the Venerable English College.

In 1860 a large part of the Papal States was lost to the new Kingdom of Italy, which was formally established in 1861. All that was left was Rome and an area roughly corresponding to Lazio. In the meantime, volunteers from the Catholic world assembled in Rome to defend the pope, including some from Britain and Ireland; many of them joined a new unit called the Pontifical Zouaves. The pope’s temporal power was also upheld by the presence of French troops in Rome, sent by Napoleon III in an effort to win Catholic votes.

When war broke out between France and Prussia in the summer of 1870 and the French troops returned home, Italy made the most of the opportunity. Ostensibly sending 60,000 men to protect Rome from revolution, it was clear the king had his eyes on Rome as his new capital, thus completing the work of unification.    

Volunteers rushed to Rome to help defend the pope. Some were former Zouaves, who had promised to return should the Holy Father find himself in peril. One of the most intriguing was Edmond de la Poer (1841–1915), then the Liberal MP for County Waterford, who had first shown interest in joining the papal army eight years previously. In July 1870 he wrote to Mgr Tobias Kirby (1804–1895), Rector of the Pontifical Irish College in Rome, declaring that, despite his parliamentary responsibilities, he was essentially free until March and thought he ‘cannot better pass the time than in the service of His Holiness.’[1]

By mid-September 1870 the city was declared to be in a state of siege, with hastily built ramparts and barricades. A Lancashire-born student of the English College, William Kirkham (1848–1931), a future priest of the diocese of Middlesborough, examined the fortifications on returning from the summer villeggiatura at Monte Porzio:

Here was Rome ostensibly preparing to stand a siege and in her extremity every second was supposed to be invaluable in the feverish task of strengthening the defences. Yet inquisitive Church Students are good-humouredly allowed to poke into everything … The Papal regime indeed was almost too humane to survive this brutish world![2] 

Feelings ran high at the Venerable English College in Rome. Some of the Zouaves had been school friends with the seminarians and William Kirkham bought them ‘a whole lot of cigars at the Custom House near the Propaganda.’  Along with other students, he wanted to volunteer for ambulance work, though the Rector of the English College refused to give permission: it seems, though, that students at the College of Propaganda Fide and the North American College succeeded in persuading their own respective rectors to allow them to act as volunteers.[3]

At 4.40am on 20 September 1870, the pontifical army was ordered to their battle positions, expecting an imminent attack. A small group of Zouaves established an advance post in the Villa Patrizi, firing on the Italian artillery until they were driven back by the bersaglieri – the shocktroops of the Italian army. There were minor engagements elsewhere as the Eternal City came under a heavy bombardment. Within the Apostolic Palace, Pius IX (1792–1878) celebrated Mass to the background sound of cannon fire, gathered together the diplomatic corps and nervously awaited news.

About 8.30am, Kirkham was standing at his window on the top floor of the English College, when he was ‘startled by a shell hitting an opposite house a little to the right and bursting on the roof. The inhabitants on the balcony rushed in with a shriek.’ The community were ordered to gather on the ground floor and then in the cellars of the College: ‘we could hear nothing else but heavy explosions and the rattling of stones and broken glass’, including one shell that led to ‘bricks falling and windows crashing into the garden.’[4]

Visitors to Rome were caught up in the drama of events. David Hunter-Blair (1853–1939), a future Benedictine monk, later to become abbot of Fort Augustus Abbey in Scotland, had just finished at Eton and was touring Italy with a tutor. The sixteen-year-old found himself alone ‘at a most critical moment in the history of both Rome and Italy’ and, despite not yet being a Catholic, resolved to help the wounded during the Siege, working closely with a red-haired Scottish seminarian near Porta San Sebastiano:

we were provided with strong wheelbarrows stuffed with hay, and in these we were engaged for at least two hours wheeling wounded soldiers (and some dead ones) into a neighbouring convent.’ It was one of the hottest summers on record and all concerned were exhausted. In later years he remembered with affection the kindly nun who had put ‘two big ripe oranges into my pocket as we were going to and fro.[5]

Soon the bombardment resulted in a breach in the wall near the Porta Pia and the Italian troops began to enter. One of the English College servants, Giovanni, looked out at 11.00 a.m. and saw a white flag flying from St Peter’s.[6] The pope had ordered his army to show some resistance, in order to show that the king of Italy entered the city through an act of aggression, but to surrender once defeat was unavoidable, avoiding unnecessary bloodshed. Many of the papal volunteers, however, wished to continue fighting and there was initially some confusion over the capitulation. A College student wrote that eventually the Zouave officers were so angry that ‘I thought some of them would have gone raving mad. Some put away their swords, threw themselves upon the hedges of box and cried for disappointment.’[7]

The next few days were marked by much anxiety. Kirkham wrote:

There were a lot of murders committed, no lights in the streets, and I saw a long procession going down the Monserrato [the street on which the College is situated] with torches, the dregs of Rome with camp followers of the Italian Army, any amount of women with them, waving swords and singing “Viva Garibaldi” and other such like songs. It all reminded me of what I had read of the scenes during the French Revolution.’[8]

The Rector, Monsignor Henry O’Callaghan (1827–1904), corresponded with the authorities to ensure that the English College property was under the protection of the British government. The Union flag flew proudly outside. Much alarm had been caused at the Irish College when it was ‘visited by four or five persons, who required to go upstairs and to examine the apartments. Being refused, they have threatened to return in greater numbers’ and Italian troops were called in to provide protection.[9]

There would be rough times ahead – the pope declared himself the prisoner of the Vatican and forbade Catholics from entering public life in Italy, and the British government in London took a close interest in the evolving political situation in Italy, publishing a report on the matter in 1871.

An agreement was only worked out with the Lateran Treaty of 1929. Despite the aggression of 1870, however, the popes found a renewed role as Head of the Church and a global spiritual leader.

A British government report on Roman affairs, following the events of 20 September 1870, presented to the House of Commons and to the House of Lords at Westminster in 1871

Archivum Venerabilis Collegii Anglorum de Urbe (AVCAU), Liber 1107

[1] Archives of the Pontifical Irish College, Rome, KIR/1870/139, Poer to Kirby, 28 July 1870.

[2] The Venerabile, vol. 3, no. 4 (April 1928), p. 323.

[3] Ibid., pp. 324–25.

[4] Ibid., pp. 326–27.

[5] David Oswald Hunter Blair, In Victorian Days (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1939), pp. 180–86.

[6] The Venerabile, vol. 3, no. 4 (April 1928), p. 327.

[7] The Tablet, 1 October 1870, p. 430.

[8] The Venerabile, vol. 3, no. 4 (April 1928), p. 327.

[9] Correspondence Respecting the Affairs of Rome: 1870–71 (London, 1870), p. 50.