So many books, monographs and articles have been written around the "Roman Question" that a word of explanation or even of apology for the present study may be called for. Before as well as after 1929, the year in which the Lateran Treaty declared resolved the conflict which had divided Italy and the Papacy for nearly sixty years, professors and their students in a dozen lands have one after the other committed to the learned world their particular analysis of the international position of the Papacy. The variety of opinions which can be found in these studies is itself a remarkable testimony...