Rome and the Vatican [antikvár]

HISTORICAL OVERVIEW Rome got its start when groups of shepherds and farmers settled on the hill now known as the Palatine. Etymologically, the name Roma may mean the city of the river, or more probably "the city of the Ruma" (an old Etruscan family). After the semi-legendary period of the monarchy, the first authentic references date to the moment of transition from the monarchy to the republic (509 BC), when the Etruscan civilization, which had dominated in Rome with the last kings, began its slow decline. During the long period of the republic, there arose a sort of democracy governed by the consuls and the tribunes (the representatives of the plebeians) which progressed to the point of instituting equal rights for patricians and plebs. By the 4th century BC, Rome already held sway over all of Latium. The city later extended its rule to many other regions in Italy, subjugating numerous Italic peoples and the great Etruscan civilization; even the Gauls, and the Creeks in southern Italy, laid down their arms to Rome. By 270 BC, the entire Italian peninsula was under Roman domination. In the 3rd century BC, the Romans began to extend their sphere of influence beyond the borders of the peninsula: with the Punic Wars (254 - 201 BC), the entire Mediterranean came under Roman rule; in the east. Rome extended its frontiers into the kingdom of Alexander the Great and in the west subjugated the Gauls and the peoples of Spain. At this point, with Augustus, the republic became an empire, and auspices of power and greatness accompanied its foundation. As it was first conceived, the empire was intended to provide a balanced form of government administered by the various republican magistratures in accordance with the will of the people and under the direct control of the senate. This was what it was meant to be, but in reality the administration grew increasingly dictatorial and militaristic as time went on. Eventually, with its far-flung frontiers, the empire became divided and ungovernable; central authority inevitably began to weaken and a slow but inexorable decline set in. The city of Rome was no longer the absolute center of imperial power; the emperors moved their courts elsewhere and the senate gradually lost its political identity. The decline of Rome reached its nadir following the first barbarian invasions. Nonetheless, the city never lost its moral force, that awareness which for centuries had made Rome caput mundi, and its survival was abetted by the advent of Christianity, which consecrated it the seat of its Church. By the mid-6th century AD, Rome had become just one more of the cities of the new Byzantine empire, which had its capital in Ravenna. Even so, two centuries later, thanks to the growing importance of the papacy, Rome had returned to occupying a central position in this new empire and its history began to intertwine with that of the Prankish Car-olingian dynasty. Charlemagne chose to be crowned emperor in Rome, as did all the Holy Roman emperors who followed him. The city proclaimed itself an independent commune in 1144, and in this period it was governed by local factions, the papacy, and the feudal nobility. The communal forces were often in open contrast with the pope: the life of the new commune was for a long period marked by conflicts and harsh struggles. At the beginning of the 14th century, when the papacy moved to Avignon, the popular forces were freer to govern. But in the late 14th and the early 15th century the situation was reversed: the pope returned to Rome and managed to gain control of city government, returning to the Church most of the power the popular government had gained in the preceding century. The city flourished in this