country saint peter's tomb
Pope Pius XI , born Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti ( 31 May 1857  10 February 1939 ), reigned as Pope from 6 February 1922 to his death in 1939 . He was the first sovereign of ___MASK27___ from its creation as an independent state on 11 February 1929 . He took as his papal motto , " Pax Christi in Regno Christi ," translated " The Peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ ." The Papal Basilica of St . Peter in the Vatican , or simply St . Peter ' s Basilica , is an Italian Renaissance church in ___MASK27___ , the papal enclave within the city of Rome . Pope Paul VI , born Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini ( 26 September 1897  6 August 1978 ), reigned as Pope from 21 June 1963 to his death in 1978 . Succeeding Pope John XXIII , he continued the Second Vatican Council which he closed in 1965 , implementing its numerous reforms , and fostered improved ecumenical relations with Eastern Orthodox and Protestants , which resulted in many historic meetings and agreements . Montini served in the Vatican ' s Secretariat of State from 1922 to 1954 . While in the Secretariat of State , Montini and Domenico Tardini were considered as the closest and most influential colleagues of Pope Pius XII , who in 1954 named him Archbishop of Milan , the largest Italian diocese . Montini later became the Secretary of the Italian Bishops Conference . John XXIII elevated him to the College of Cardinals in 1958 , and after the death of John XXIII , Montini was considered one of his most likely successors . The pope ( from " pappas ", a child ' s word for " father ") is the Bishop of Rome and , therefore , the leader of the ___MASK55___ Catholic Church . The primacy of the Roman bishop is largely derived from his role as the traditional successor to Saint Peter , to whom Jesus is supposed to have given the keys of Heaven and the powers of " binding and loosing ", naming him as the " rock " upon which the church would be built . The current pope is Francis , who was elected on 13 March 2013 , succeeding Benedict XVI . Adolf Hitler ( 20 April 1889  30 April 1945 ) was a German politician who was the leader of the Nazi Party (" Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei "; NSDAP ), Chancellor of ___MASK7___ from 1933 to 1945 , and Führer (" Leader ") of ___MASK70___ from 1934 to 1945 . As dictator of the German Reich , he initiated ___MASK12___ War II in Europe with the invasion of Poland in September 1939 and was central to the Holocaust . The Reichskonkordat (" Concordat between the Holy See and the German Reich ") is a treaty negotiated between the Vatican and the emergent ___MASK70___ . It was signed on 20 July 1933 by Cardinal Secretary of State ( and later Pope Pius XII ) Eugenio Pacelli on behalf of Pope Pius XI and Vice Chancellor Franz von Papen on behalf of President Paul von Hindenburg and the German government . It was ratified September 10 , 1933 and it has been in force from that date right up until the current day . The treaty guarantees the rights of the Roman Catholic Church in ___MASK7___ . When bishops take office Article 16 states they ' re required to take an oath of loyalty to the Governor or President of the German Reich established according to the constitution . The treaty also requires all clergy to abstain from working in and for political parties . Nazi breaches of the agreement began almost as soon as it had been signed and intensified afterwards leading to protest from the Church including in the 1937 " Mit brennender Sorge " encyclical of Pope Pius XI . The Nazis planned to eliminate the Church ' s influence by restricting its organizations to purely religious activities . ___MASK70___ is the common English name for the period in German history from 1933 to 1945 , when ___MASK7___ was governed by a dictatorship under the control of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party ( NSDAP ). Under Hitler ' s rule , ___MASK7___ was transformed into a fascist state in which the Nazi Party took totalitarian control over nearly all aspects of life . The official name of the state was " Deutsches Reich " from 1933 to 1943 and " Großdeutsches Reich " (" Greater German Reich ") from 1943 to 1945 . The period is also known under the names the ___MASK22___ and the National Socialist Period ( abbreviated as " NS - Zeit "). The Nazi regime came to an end after the Allied Powers defeated ___MASK7___ in May 1945 , ending ___MASK12___ War II in Europe . The Italian Renaissance was the earliest manifestation of the general European Renaissance , a period of great cultural change and achievement that began in ___MASK75___ during the 14th century and lasted until the 16th century , marking the transition between Medieval and Early Modern Europe . The term Renaissance is in essence a modern one that came into currency in the 19th century , in the work of historians such as Jules Michelet and Jacob Burckhardt . Although the origins of a movement that was confined largely to the literate culture of intellectual endeavor and patronage can be traced to the earlier part of the 14th century , many aspects of Italian culture and society remained largely Medieval ; the Renaissance did not come into full swing until the end of the century . The French word " renaissance " (" Rinascimento " in Italian ) means " Rebirth ", and the era is best known for the renewed interest in the culture of classical antiquity after the period that Renaissance humanists labeled the Dark Ages . Domenico Tardini ( 29 February 1888  30 July 1961 ) was a longtime aide to Pope Pius XII in the Secretariat of State . Pope John XXIII named him Cardinal Secretary of State and , in this position the most prominent member of the Roman Curia in ___MASK27___ . Summi Pontificatus is an encyclical of Pope Pius XII published on 20 October 1939 . The encyclical is subtitled " On the Unity of Human Society ." It was the first encyclical of Pius XII and was seen as setting " a tone " for his papacy . It critiques major errors at the time , such as ideologies of racism , cultural superiority and the totalitarian state . It also sets the theological framework for future encyclical letters , such as " Mystici corporis Christi " ( 1943 ). The encyclical laments the destruction of ___MASK88___ , denounces the Molotov - Ribbentrop Pact , and calls for a restoration of independent ___MASK88___ . Pope Pius XII , born Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli ( 2 March 18769 October 1958 ), reigned as Pope from 2 March 1939 to his death in 1958 . Before his election to the papacy , Pacelli served as secretary of the Department of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs , papal nuncio to ___MASK7___ ( 1917  1929 ), and Cardinal Secretary of State , in which capacity he worked to conclude treaties with European and Latin American nations , most notably the " Reichskonkordat " with ___MASK70___ , with which most historians believe the Vatican sought to protect the Church in ___MASK7___ while Adolf Hitler sought the destruction of " political Catholicism ". A pre - war critic of Nazism , Pius XII lobbied ___MASK12___ leaders to avoid war and , as Pope at the outbreak of war , issued " Summi Pontificatus ", expressing dismay at the invasion of Poland , reiterating Church teaching against racial persecution and calling for love , compassion and charity to prevail over war . The Second Vatican Ecumenical Council ( more commonly known as the Second Vatican Council , or informally as Vatican II ) addressed relations between the Catholic Church and the modern ___MASK12___ . It was the twenty - first and most recent ecumenical council of the Catholic Church and the second to be held at St . Peter ' s Basilica in the Vatican . The council , through the Holy See , formally opened under the pontificate of Pope John XXIII on 11 October 1962 and closed under Pope Paul VI on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception on 8 December 1965 . Saint Peter ' s tomb is a site under St . Peter ' s Basilica that includes several graves and a structure said by Vatican authorities to have been built to memorialize the location of St . Peter ' s grave . St . Peter ' s tomb is near the west end of a complex of mausoleums that date between about AD 130 and AD 300 . The complex was partially torn down and filled with earth to provide a foundation for the building of the first St . Peter ' s Basilica during the reign of Constantine I in about AD 330 . Though many bones have been found at the site of the 2nd - century shrine , as the result of two campaigns of archaeological excavation , Pope Pius XII stated in December 1950 that none could be confirmed to be Saint Peter ' s with absolute certainty . Following the discovery of bones that had been transferred from a second tomb under the monument , on June 26 , 1968 Pope Paul VI claimed that the relics of St . Peter had been identified . The grave claimed by the Church to be that of St . Peter lies at the foot of the aedicula beneath the floor . The remains of four individuals and several farm animals were found in this grave . In 1953 , after the initial archeological efforts had been completed , another set of bones were found that were said to have been removed without the archeologists ' knowledge from a niche ( loculus ) in the north side of a wall ( the graffiti wall ) that abuts the red wall on the right of the aedicula . Subsequent testing indicated that these were the bones of a 60 - 70 - year - old man . Margherita Guarducci argued that these were the remains of St . Peter and that they had been moved into a niche in the graffiti wall from the grave under the aedicula `` at the time of Constantine , after the peace of the church '' ( 313 ) . Antonio Ferrua , the archaeologist who headed the excavation that uncovered what is known as St . Peter ' s Tomb , said that he was n ' t convinced that the bones that were found were those of St . Peter . The upper image shows the area of the lower floor of St . Peter ' s Basilica that lies above the site of St . Peter ' s tomb . A portion of the aedicula that was part of St . Peter ' s tomb rose above level of this floor and was made into the Niche of the Pallium which can be seen in the center of the image . The Secretary of State of His Holiness The Pope , commonly known as the Cardinal Secretary of State , presides over the Holy See 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 ___MASK27___ . ___MASK27___ , officially ___MASK27___ State or the State of ___MASK27___ , is a walled enclave within the city of Rome . With an area of approximately 44 hectares ( 110 acres ), and a population of 842 , it is the smallest State in the ___MASK12___ by both area and population , but formally it is not sovereign , sovereignty being held by the Holy See , the only entity of public international law that has diplomatic relations with almost every country in the ___MASK12___ . Pope Saint John XXIII ( born Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli , ; 25 November 18813 June 1963 ) reigned as Pope from 28 October 1958 to his death in 1963 and was canonized on 27 April 2014 . Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli was the fourth of fourteen children born to a family of sharecroppers who lived in a village in ___MASK29___ . He was ordained to the priesthood on 10 August 1904 and served in a number of posts , including papal nuncio in ___MASK38___ and a delegate to Bulgaria , Greece and Turkey . In a consistory on 12 January 1953 Pope Pius XII made Roncalli a cardinal as the Cardinal - Priest of Santa Prisca in addition to naming him as the Patriarch of Venice . Rome is a city and special " comune " ( named " Roma Capitale ") in ___MASK75___ . Rome is the capital of ___MASK75___ and of the ___MASK17___ region . With 2 , 870 , 336 residents in , it is also the country ' s largest and most populated " comune " and fourth - most populous city in the European Union by population within city limits . The Metropolitan City of Rome has a population of 4 . 3 million residents . The city is located in the central - western portion of the Italian Peninsula , within ___MASK17___ ( Latium ), along the shores of Tiber river . The ___MASK27___ is an independent country geographically located within the city boundaries of Rome , the only existing example of a country within a city : for this reason Rome has been often defined as capital of two states .