Capture of Rome
| Capture of Rome Presa di Roma |
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| Part of the wars of Italian Unification | |||||||||
 The Breach of Porta Pia, by Carlo Ademollo |
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| Belligerents | |||||||||
 Kingdom of Italy
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 Papal States
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| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
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Victor Emmanuel II Raffaele Cadorna
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Pope Pius IX Hermann Kanzler
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| Strength | |||||||||
| 50,000 | 13,157 | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
| 49 killed | 19 killed | ||||||||
The capture of Rome (Italian: Presa di Roma) on 20 September 1870 was the final event of the long process of Italian unification known as the Risorgimento, marking both the final defeat of the Papal States under Pope Pius IX and the unification of the Italian peninsula under King Victor Emmanuel II of the House of Savoy.
The capture of Rome ended the approximate 1,116 year reign (AD 754 to 1870) of the Papal States under the Holy See and is today widely memorialized throughout Italy with the Via XX Settembre street name in virtually every town of any size.
During the Second Italian War of Independence, much of the Papal States had been conquered by the Piedmontese Army, and the new unified Kingdom of Italy was created in March 1861, when the first Italian Parliament met in Turin. On 27 March 1861, the Parliament declared Rome the capital of the Kingdom of Italy. However, the Italian government could not take its seat in Rome because it did not control the territory. In addition, a French garrison was maintained in the city by Napoleon III of France in support of Pope Pius IX, who was determined not to hand over temporal power in the States of the Church.
In July 1870, at the very last moment of the Church's rule over Rome, the First Vatican Council was held in the city – affirming the doctrine of papal infallibility.
In July 1870, the Franco-Prussian War began. In early August, Napoleon III recalled his garrison from Rome. The French not only needed the troops to defend their homeland, but Prussian diplomats were actively trying to convince Italy to join the war, so there was real concern that Italy might use the French presence in Rome as a pretext to go to war with France. In the earlier Austro-Prussian War Italy had allied with Prussia and Italian public opinion favoured the Prussian side at the start of the war. The removal of the French garrison eased tensions between Italy and France. Italy remained neutral in the Franco-Prussian War.
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