Vaticano
Nowadays it is the name of the Rome's part which extends for 80 meters in the valley, on the right bank of the Tevere (between the last ramifications of Monte Mario and Gianicolo on the left side of the river) and the complex of the buildings that rises up there within the walls of Città Leonina, and which forms today the Vatican City.
It was considered to be dry and ill-famed. In 45 B.C. Plinius wrote " the Vatican hill is a disgusting place, do not go there ". The mosquitos decimated here the soldiers of Vitellio. The epigram of Marziale poet says "if you drink the wine of the Vatican, you drink the poison".
The first reclamation of the hill was executed by Agrippa Maggiore, the grandmother of Nero. Then Nero built here his private circus where he let wild animals tear the first Christians into pieces.
In 67 A.C. Saint Peter was crucified here. By night some disciples buried the body in a tomb of the hill and the Vatican turned from an ill-famed into the Saint Hill.
It was the first Christian emperor Constantine who ordered to build up on the tomb of SanPietro the Basilica dedicated to the Apostle Peter that was then transformed into the current Basilica di S. Pietro in Vaticano.
Today in the current use, the name of the Vatican is often used to mean in a metaphoric sense The State of the Vatican City and together with it the pontiff's and curia's authority, the political and spiritual activity of the Vatican (embassador of the Vatican, the relations of the government and the Vatican itself etc).
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The administrative, urban, toponymic and imaginative subdivisions of Rome.
Notice for tourists: in Rome you drink for free. Historical fountains and 'big noses'.
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