Vatican City
Rome, Italy

As the Roman Republic developed, the area on the west bank of the Tiber, across from the city itself, was named for nearby Vatican Hill. It was marshy land, known to the residents of Rome as a source of terrible wine, and was probably also the source of much of the malaria that forever plagued the nearby metropolis. The land was eventually "reclaimed" from the Tiber, and numerous plushy villas were built there. The third Roman Emperor, Caligula (12-41AD), built a circus for charioteers in order to entertain his mom (and it's hard to fault a guy for trying to please his mom), on the ground where the Vatican now sits. Caligula swiped an obelisk from Egypt and had it installed as a decoration at his circus: This is now the Vatican Obelisk, which adorns St. Peter's Square (which is naturally ovular in shape, as befits something called a "square").

One of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus Christ (0-33AD), St. Peter is considered to have been the first Pope, and was executed at the behest of Roman Emperor Nero (37-68AD), because a great fire had ravaged Rome, which Nero wished to blame on the Christians, because hey, why not. "Legend" has it that St. Peter was crucified, upside-down, at or near the aforementioned Vatican Obelisk. Or maybe he died in prison as early as 44AD! Accurate records are difficult to come by from 2000+ year ago.

Which is all well and good, but what happens when you build an Empire, whose capital city is filled with riches beyond anyone's wildest imaginations, and then allow that Empire to lose its military edge over all of its neighbors? Why, those neighbors come over and loot the snot out of that city of course. Repeatedly. In 846 the Saracens (as Muslims from Arabia, Turkey and/or Iran were known to those in the west), attacked Rome, lookin' for plunder. The Aurelian Walls kept them out of the main city, but the Vatican area was outside those walls, and St. Peter's Basilica was comprehensively sacked and badly damaged.

Anchoring this new wall to the northeast was Hadrian's Mausoleum. Chiefly remembered by the English-speaking world as the fellow who built the wall defining the northern limit of Britannia in the second century AD and then creatively named it after himself, Roman Emperor Hadrian (76-138) was such a swell guy that a mausoleum (known in this case as a mole) was built for him upon his demise, just across the Tiber from Rome. Hadrian's ashes were majestically entombed therein, which seemed like such a cool idea that the following eight Roman Emperors had their ashes parked in this tomb as well. Sadly, these holiest of ashes were scattered by Visigoths when Rome was sacked in 410.

We could of course talk for ages of the doings of Popes, Antipopes and Holy Roman Emperors, but as we are all eager to learn why and when the Vatican became a starfort, we will fast-forward several centuries to 1527, when mutinous troops of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V (1500-1558) entered, and pillaged, Rome. They went after Pope Clement VII (1478-1534) whom, thanks to a suicidal rearguard action fought by his Swiss Guard, managed to make it to Castel Sant'Angelo. Shortly thereafter he surrendered himself, agreeing to pay an exorbitant ransom for his freedom, but was held captive in his Castel for the next six months while events played out. Clement VII eventually managed to slip away disguised as a lowly person unworthy of ransom, but the experience had been a universally negative one for the Pope, not to mention Rome as a whole, which had been decimated. While the Leonine wall had served as a valid defense of the Vatican for half a millenium, modernization was plainly in order.

40 years pass. Pope Pius IV (1499-1565)'s real name was Giovanni Angelo Medici, and was a product of the hugely influential House of Medici whom, among other stellar accomplishments including furthering the causes of art, science and generally enriching themselves, were the driving force behind the initial development of the starfort.

As major landholders in northern Italy, the Medici were particularly threatened by the invasion of Italy by France's King Charles VIII (1470-1498) in 1494, at the head of an army of 25,000. Trailing some distance behind Charles' horse was an amalgamation of what passed for field guns at the end of the 15th century: Cumbersome, maddeningly slow to reload and vastly inaccurate as these cannon may have been, they were castle killers, castles not being the nimblest of prey. To protect their holdings, the Medici spared no expense in employing Italy's best military engineers, tasking them with coming up with a reliable defense against this new, deafeningly loud threat. The result of this Medician effort was the starfort.

Historically, Italian kings had an interest in what the Vatican had, which was a great deal of wealth and power: In addition to their duties as the head Christiandom, beginning in the 8th century Popes were also the secular rulers of the Papal States. Often donations from Holy Roman Emperors, these lands eventually amounted to a good chunk of central- and northern Italy, and were the source of a great deal of the Vatican's wealth: Wealth that an Italian king would have been more than happy to nab.

Additionally, fortifications look cool. And while this may sound like a puerile statement (which it is), the demonstrable security and solidity represented by such walls would have been an impression any Pope would wish to make. So while there doesn't seem to have been any immediate threat to the Vatican in the mid-16th century, one imagines that Pope Pius VI, who enjoyed having stuff built anyway, found the starfortification of the Vatican to be a worthwhile endeavor.

Was Fortress Vatican armed? Is a starfort even a starfort if it doesn't mount any guns? Again, history seems to have little interest in this period of the Vatican's development, so I don't have these answers...but this is definitely a unique circumstance, and a Papal mindset of fortification si, armaments no, doesn't seem too far-fetched. The Papal States did field their own army, however, so there were dudes around who likely know one end of a cannon from the other.

But in the interim, Italians had been infected with the dreadful disease of nationalism. Rebellions in the 1820's and 30's started the unification ball rolling, and by 1871 the Papal State was no more: Rome was the capital of the new kingdom of Italy, and Pope Pius IX (1792-1878) crossed his arms and pouted in the Vatican until 1929.

Though Napoleon III (1808-1873) was a captive of the Prussians and France was essentially rudderless, there was an Italian fear that vast Napoleonic columns would march on Rome, bent on restoring the old, Papal order. A new enthusiasm for fortification gripped the city authorities, but the ever-increasing range and accuracy of artillery had rendered the starfort obsolete. In 1877 ground was broken for the late-19th-century European version of the starfort to defend Rome: A ring of artillery forts. That subject is beyond the scope of a page about the Vatican, however, so you can learn more about it at Starforts.com's Fortifications of Rome page.

Today, though being surrounded by world-class starfortery, it's easier to get into the Vatican than a major American airport. Pass through a metal detector, show some ID (reportedly a library card will work), and pow, you're hangin' with the Pope.