Italy's premier Paolo Gentiloni and Vatican secretary of state Paolo Parolin on Tuesday attended a ceremony at the Italian embassy to the Holy See to mark the anniversary of the 1929 Lateran Pact and its 1985 replacement.
Gentiloni led a government delegation that also included interior minister Marco Minniti, finance minister Pier Carlo Padoan, defence minister Roberta Pinotti and cabinet undersecretary Maria Elenea Boschi.
Parolin headed the Vatican delegation, which also comprised Vatican undersecretaries for general affairs and relations with states Angelo Becciu and Paul Gallagher, and the president and secretary of the Italian Bishops Conference, Gualtiero Bassetti and Nunzio Galantino.
Italy's president Sergio Mattarella and the speakers of the lower and upper houses of parliament, Pietro Grasso and Laura Boldrini, were later on Tuesday due to attend talks at the Renaissance Palazzo Borromeo and to kick off the celebrations.
Under the Lateran Treaty, signed in February 1929 by Benito Mussolini for the Italian government and by secretary of state Pietro Gasparri ,the papacy recognised the state of Italy, with Rome as its capital. Italy in return recognised papal sovereignty over the Vatican City.
In June, 1985, the Vatican ratified an historic pact ending Roman Catholicism as a state religion in Italy. The new treaty replaced the Lateran Pact.
