Vatican City, officially the Vatican City State (Italian: Stato della Città del Vaticano; (Latin: Status Civitatis Vaticanae), is an independent city-state, microstate and enclave within Rome, Italy. Also known as The Vatican, the state became independent from Italy in 1929 with the Lateran Treaty, and it is a distinct territory under “full ownership, exclusive dominion, and sovereign authority and jurisdiction” of the Holy See, itself a sovereign entity of international law, which maintains the city state’s temporal, diplomatic, and spiritual independence.