Pope Pius IX was head of the Catholic Church from 1846 to 1878. His reign of nearly 32 years is the longest of any pope in history. He was notable for convoking the First Vatican Council in 1868 and for permanently losing control of the Papal States in 1870 to the Kingdom of Italy. Thereafter, he refused to leave Vatican City, declaring himself a "prisoner in the Vatican".
The Papal States, officially the State of the Church, were a conglomeration of territories on the Italian peninsula under the direct sovereign rule of the Pope from 756 to 1870. They were among the major states of Italy from the 8th century until the unification of Italy, which took place between 1859 and 1870, and culminated in their demise.
The Roman Republic was a short-lived state declared on 9 February 1849, when the government of the Papal States was temporarily replaced by a republican government due to Pope Pius IX's departure to Gaeta. The republic was led by Carlo Armellini, Giuseppe Mazzini, and Aurelio Saffi. Together they formed a triumvirate, a reflection of a form of government during the first century BC crisis of the Roman Republic.
The Secretary of State of His Holiness, known as the Cardinal Secretary of State, presides over the Holy See's Secretariat of State, which is the oldest and most important dicastery of the Roman Curia. The Secretariat of State performs all the political and diplomatic functions of the Holy See and the Vatican City State. The secretary of state is sometimes described as the prime minister of the Holy See, even though the nominal head of government of Vatican City is the President of the Pontifical Commission for Vatican City State.
The Kingdom of Italy was a kingdom in Northern Italy that was a client state of Napoleon's French Empire. It was fully influenced by revolutionary France and ended with Napoleon's defeat and fall. Its government was assumed by Napoleon as King of Italy and the viceroyalty delegated to his stepson Eugène de Beauharnais. It covered some of Piedmont and the modern regions of Lombardy, Veneto, Emilia-Romagna, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Trentino, South Tyrol, and Marche. Napoleon I also ruled the rest of northern and central Italy in the form of Nice, Aosta, Piedmont, Liguria, Tuscany, Umbria, and Lazio, but directly as part of the French Empire, rather than as part of a vassal state.
Giovanni Battista Caprara Montecuccoli was an Italian statesman and cardinal and archbishop of Milan from 1802 to 1810. As a papal diplomat he served in the embassies in Cologne, Lausanne, and Vienna. As Legate of Pius VII in France, he implemented the Concordat of 1801, and negotiated with the Emperor Napoleon over the matter of appointments to the restored hierarchy in France. He crowned Napoleon as King of Italy in Milan in 1805.
The House of Gabrielli is the name of an old and influential feudal Italian noble family from Gubbio, a town in Umbria.
Gaetano Bedini was an Italian ecclesiastic, cardinal, and diplomat of the Catholic Church.
Giulio Gabrielli was an Italian cardinal in the Catholic Church. He spent most of his career in the Roman Curia.
Bartolomeo Pacca was an Italian cardinal, scholar, and statesman as Cardinal Secretary of State. Pacca served as apostolic nuncio to Cologne, and later to Lisbon.
The Secretariate of Briefs to Princes and of Latin Letters, or simply the Secretariate of Briefs, was one of the offices of the Roman Curia abrogated in 1967 during Pope Paul VI's reform of the Pontifical court. It was divided into two sections.
The Capture of Rome occurred on 20 September 1870, as forces of the Kingdom of Italy took control of the city and of the Papal States. After a plebiscite held on 2 October 1870, Rome was officially made capital of Italy on 3 February 1871, completing the unification of Italy (Risorgimento).
The Diocese of Biella is a Latin diocese of the Catholic Church in northern Italy, in the Piedmont region. The diocese was established in 1772. It is a suffragan of the Archdiocese of Vercelli. Biella is a city in Piedmont, 42 km (25 mi) northwest of Vercelli.
Pietro Ostini was an Italian papal diplomat and Cardinal.
Foreign relations between Pope Pius IX and Italy were characterized by an extensive political and diplomatic conflict over Italian unification and the subsequent status of Rome after the victory of the liberal revolutionaries.
The Papal States under Pope Pius IX assumed a much more modern and secular character than had been seen under previous pontificates, and yet this progressive modernization was not nearly sufficient in resisting the tide of political liberalization and unification in Italy during the middle of the 19th century.
The modern history of the papacy is shaped by the two largest dispossessions of papal property in its history, stemming from the French Revolution and its spread to Europe, including Italy.
The Papal Navy was the maritime force of the Papal States. Loosely constituted, it was sporadically extant from approximately the Battle of Ostia (849) during the pontificate of Leo IV until the ascension of Pope Leo XIII in 1878, when he sold the last remaining Papal warship, the Immacolata Concezione.
The Army of the Kingdom of Naples was the primary land defence and offence force of the Kingdom of Naples. It served alongside Napoleon’s Grande Armée in various campaigns and wars across Europe, until its final demise in the Neapolitan War of 1815. It was in service from 1806 to 1815, reborn from the Army of the Two Sicilies after the annexation of Naples. The Army was more known for the splendour of its uniforms rather than the achievements of its troops.
Giuseppe Bofondi was an Italian cardinal of the Catholic Church. He served as Cardinal Secretary of State and Papal Minister of the Interior from February to March 1848.
Papal States 
First French Empire 
1808–1815