Pope Pius IX flees Rome

The day the Pope had to slip out of the side door of his palace

Pope Pius IX fled Rome in the face 
of a revolutionary uprising 

Fearing for his own safety, Pope Pius IX left his home in Palazzo del Quirinale in Rome, disguised as an ordinary priest, and fled from the city on this day in 1848.

It was an unwelcome change of circumstances for Pius IX, who had enjoyed great popularity since being elected as Pope two years before. But the day before his escape from Rome, he had found himself besieged inside his palace by an unruly mob that had gathered in Piazza del Quirinale.

Revolutionary fever had been whipped up and the city was in turmoil following the murder of Count Pellegrino Rossi at Palazzo della Cancelleria, the seat of the government of the Papal States in Rome. This event eventually led to the formation of the short-lived Roman Republic.

Rossi had been the Minister of the Interior in Pope Pius IX’s government and had been responsible for a programme of unpopular reforms, which gave only the well-off the right to vote and did nothing to address economic and social issues. Street violence was being stirred up by secret societies, such as Giuseppe Mazzini’s Young Italy movement, and Rossi had been declared an enemy of the people by revolutionaries.

There was also anger because of Pius IX’s decision to withdraw the support of the Papal Army from the First Italian War of Independence, being fought between the Kingdom of Sardinia and the Austrian Empire.

When Rossi had arrived at Palazzo della Cancelleria and was climbing the stairs to the Assembly Hall a few days before, he had been stabbed in the neck by an attacker and killed. This sparked an uprising against the papal government and Pius IX found himself a prisoner inside his own palace.

So, he decided to escape and, with the help of close allies and his personal attendant, the Pope slipped out of Palazzo del Quirinale by a side door in the attire of an ordinary priest. He was able to leave through one of the gates of the city and board a carriage which took him to Gaeta, situated 120km (75 miles) south of Rome, where the King of the Two Sicilies, Ferdinand II, provided him with a refuge.

Pope Pius IX, who was born Giovanni Maria Mastai-Ferretti in Senigallia in Le Marche in 1792, studied theology and was ordained as a priest, working his way up to become Archbishop of Spoleto, and developing a reputation as a Liberal, who visited prisoners in jail and organised programmes for street children.

Pope Pius IX, pictured three years before
he died, was initially a popular figure

His election as Pope in 1846 was greeted with enthusiasm in Italy and elsewhere in Europe. For the first 20 months his popularity was high and it was assumed by his supporters that he would back the cause of Italian unification. 

But unification would have meant the end of the Papal States and Pius IX would also have had to back aggression against Austria, another Catholic country. When he revealed that he opposed the campaign for a united Italy, he was regarded by many people as a traitor.

The murder of his chief minister made the Pope realise that Rome was no longer safe for him and so he fled to Gaeta, where he continued papal business from a comfortable distance.

Pius IX ignored all requests for him to return to Rome until a French army had marched on the city in 1849 and taken it from Giuseppe Garibaldi and his army, who had arrived to defend the new republic.

It was not until April 1850 that Pius IX finally returned to Rome and, ignoring Palazzo del Quirinale, he went straight to the Vatican, from where he was to govern the Catholic Church for another 28 years.

He is thought to have had the second longest papal reign since Saint Peter, who, it is believed, was Pope for 37 years, although this cannot be verified.

Pius IX died at the age of 85 in 1878. All his successors to the papacy have followed his example and chosen to live in the Vatican. 

Senigallia's pier, the Rotonda al Mare, sits on the
resort's renowned Spiaggia di Velluta

Travel tip:

Senigallia, where Pope Pius IX was born, is a port town on the Adriatic coast in the province of Ancona in Le Marche, which is now a popular seaside resort. It was fought over by opposing sides in the Guelph and Ghibelline wars in the 13th and 14th centuries and in 1503, Cesare Borgia, the son of Pope Alexander VI, carried out a raid on the town to punish disloyal supporters. The port was then ruled by the Della Rovere family and Medici families in turn before being annexed to the papal states. It suffered damage during World War I, was hit by a powerful earthquake in 1930, and during World War II was damaged again. Senigallia has now become popular with holidaymakers because of its soft, sandy beach, known as Spiaggia di Velluta, Velvet Beach. Also notable is Senigallia's circular pier, known as the Rotonda al Mare.

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The Palazzo del Quirinale, now the official residence
of presidents, used to be the home of the Pope

Travel tip:

The Palazzo del Quirinale in Rome, from which Pope Pius IX fled, was originally built in 1583 by Pope Gregory XIII as a summer residence. It served both as a papal residence and as the offices responsible for the civil government of the Papal States until 1870. When, in 1871, Rome became the capital of the new Kingdom of Italy, the palace became the official residence of the kings of Italy. When the monarchy was abolished in 1946, the Palazzo del Quirinale became the official residence and place of work for the presidents of the Italian Republic. During its history, the palace has housed 30 popes, four kings and 12 presidents.

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More reading:

The murder of Pellegrino Rossi

Giuseppe Mazzini, journalist and revolutionary

How the Bersaglieri corps became key to completing Italy’s unification

Also on this day:

1472: The birth of sculptor Pietro Torrigiano

1826: The birth of Pinocchio creator Carlo Collodi

1897: The birth of Mafia boss Charles ‘Lucky’ Luciano

1926: The birth of painter Vittorio Miele

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Clio Maria Bittoni – lawyer

First Lady who supported workers’ rights and victims of domestic violence

Clio Maria Bittoni pictured with her
husband, Giorgio Napolitano, in 2009

Clio Maria Bittoni, a specialist in labour law, who was married to a President of Italy, Giorgio Napolitano, was born on this day in 1934 in Chiaravalle in the province of Ancona in Marche.

Bittoni was working for the League of Cooperatives, specialising in the application of the fair rent law in agriculture, in 1992, when Napolitano was elected as president of the Chamber of Deputies.   

She had helped many farm workers to get better conditions but was quoted at the time as saying that it seemed ‘inappropriate’ for her to stay in her role since her adversaries had often been parliamentary committees, and other institutional bodies in Italy. 

Her parents were Diva Campanella, a socialist activist, and Amleto Bittoni, who were both opponents of the Fascist regime ruling Italy, and they were officially living in exile at the time of her birth. 

After attending classical high school in Jesi in Marche, Bittoni went to the University of Naples to study Law, where she met her future husband, who was a member of the Italian Communist Party.

After she graduated from university, Bittoni married Napolitano in a civil ceremony in Campidoglio in 1959. They went to live in Rome and had two sons, Giovanni, who was born in 1961, and Giulio, who was born in 1969.

Napolitano became the 11th President of the Italian Republic in 2006 and remained in office until 2015. In her official role as Companion of the President of Italy, Bittoni attended many events, both in Italy and abroad, by his side.

She also became involved in the defence of women’s rights, writing letters to newspapers about the cause, an interest she shared with the US First Lady, Michelle Obama, whom she hosted at the Palazzo Quirinale - the President's official residence - in Rome in 2009.

Bittoni hosted her United States counterpart, First
Lady Michelle Obama, at the Palazzo Quirinale

Bittoni had suffered a serious fracture two years previously when she was struck by a car while crossing Via del Quirinale near the palace.

She personally laid flowers at the Fountain of the Dioscuri in front of the Quirinale in March 2014 on a day dedicated to the victims of domestic violence, when the fountain was illuminated in red to reflect the bloody attacks suffered by victims, whose names were projected on the base of the obelisk.

After many years living in the Quirinale, Bittoni moved to live in an apartment in the Palazzo della Panetteria, the building next to the presidential palace, saying she felt freer of formalities and protocol by living there. 

Bittoni was often seen out and about in Rome, mixing with ordinary people, without any bodyguards. In 2012 she queued with members of the public to visit an exhibition of pictures by Vermeer being held in the stables at the Quirinale and, after she was recognised, insisted on buying a ticket just like everyone else.

After Napolitano’s presidency came to an end in 2015, the couple moved back to their family home in Monti, another district of Rome, where neighbours often saw them walking around without any security escort. 

Clio Maria Bittoni died in September 2024, two months before what would have been her 90th birthday. It was exactly a year after the death of her husband. Like him, she was buried in the non-Catholic cemetery in the Testaccio district of Rome.

The Lazzaretto building in the harbour at 
Ancona was once a quarantine station

Travel tip:

Chiaravalle, where Clio Maria Bittoni was born, is a comune - municipality - in the province of Ancona in the region of Marche, located about 15km (9 miles) to the west of Ancona, which is the capoluogo - the capital - of the Marche region. Ancona lies 280km (170 miles) northeast of Rome, and is one of the main ports on the Adriatic sea. Ancona’s history goes back centuries before the birth of Christ when it was inhabited by an Italic tribe. It was conquered by Greek settlers in 387BC, who developed it and set up industries there, and it was taken by Julius Caesar immediately after he crossed the Rubicon River in 49BC, sparking civil war. The 18m-high Arch of Trajan, built in honour of the emperor who built the city’s harbour, is regarded as one of the finest Roman monuments in the Marche region. Ancona’s harbour contains the Lazzaretto, a pentagonal building constructed on an artificial island in the 18th century as a quarantine station designed to protect the city from diseases carried by infected travellers.

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The tranquil surroundings of Rome's 
non-Catholic cemetery in Testaccio

Travel tip:

Clio Maria Bittoni and her husband, Giorgio Napolitano, are buried in the beautiful, tranquil, surroundings of the non-Catholic Cemetery, often referred to as the English cemetery, in the Testaccio district of Rome. The cemetery lies behind high walls flanked by cypress trees, close to Porta San Paolo and the Pyramid of Cestius, a burial monument that was built before the birth of Christ.  The non-Catholic Cemetery was originally intended for foreigners who had died in Rome and it has become famous as the last resting place of the English romantic poet, John Keats, who died at the age of 25, soon after arriving in Rome, in 1821 . The remains of the Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley were also buried there after he was cremated on a Tuscan beach following his death at sea in 1822 at the age of 29. Due to the limited space available, burial is granted only in exceptional circumstances to illustrious Italians. In 2019, the remains of the writer Andrea Camilleri were interred there, and in 2023, burial was granted for Napolitano, a former communist who declared himself not to be an opponent of the Catholic Church but a non-believer. Bittoni was laid to rest there in 2024.

Testacccio hotels from Hotels.com

More reading:

Giorgio Napolitano, the non-Catholic and Communist who rose to high office 

How Laura Matarella took the place of her late mother as First Lady

The first Sicilian to be made President of the Republic of Italy

Also on this day:

1811: The birth of Charles Ferdinand, Prince of the Two Sicilies

1816: Lord Byron arrives in Venice

1869: The birth of King Umberto I's assassin, Gaetano Bresci

1928: The birth of film music composer Ennio Morricone

1990: The birth of gymnast Vanessa Ferrari

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