Rome celebrates 150 years as capital of Italy

City became capital of unified Italy after being taken from the Church

On September 20, 1870, Italian troops invaded Rome., breaking through the pontifical defenses in the episode that became known as Porta Pia breach and taking the area that then belonged to the Holy See.

The official unification of the country would only be definitively completed a year later, but a popular plebiscite led to the annexation of the area to the State.

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A The Fall of Rome, as it is called, was the episode of Risorgimento which sanctioned the annexation of Rome to Kingdom of Italy, decreeing the end of Papal State as a historical-political entity and a moment of profound revolution in the management of temporal power by the popes. 

Several hypotheses have been raised about the reasons why Pope Pius IX did not put up firm resistance: the most widely believed is that the Holy See renounced the impossibility of preventing the conquest of the city by the Italian contingent.

The September 20 anniversary was a national holiday until its abolition following the Lateran Pacts in 1929.