The subtitle of this book is a bit misleading: there didn't appear to be a "secret plan" to recapture Rome from the new Italian state. Most of what happened was rather straightforward, and done by diplomatic means. In any event, this is an extremely interesting book about a little-known subject. Of course, everyone knows the basic story of the taking of Rome from the Pope by the new Italian state, but after that, nothing. This book very well fills in the knowledge gap by showing how the new state "bent over backwards" to try and mollify the Papal folks, only to be rebuffed at every turn. From the vantage of more than 125 years of Italian sovereignty over Rome, we can see how foolish the fears of the Pope actually were, but hindsight is the best sight. At the time, the Pope felt he was protecting the sovereignty and independence of the Papacy by having a temporal land under his control. This is fascinating history at its best, and I strongly recommend it!

Hidden here and there within the history of the Roman Catholic church must be dozens, even hundreds of stories that would surpass the best fictional writing. Here is one of them.

We view Italy (and Germany for that matter) as countries, countries with a history going back for thousands of years. But this isn't true. These two countries came together as countries in the middle 1800's. Before that they were a loose collection of city states, small kingdoms I'd guess you call them.

This is one such story. Victor Emmanuel II, the king of an Italy finally united wanted to make Rome/The Vatican a part of Italy. The pope, at that time Pius IX, didn't recognize Emmanuel or for that matter Italy. Thus began this story.

The Pope retreated into the walls of the Vatican, and they remained at impasse until Mussolini finally came to an agreement that stands today where the church recognizes Italy, and Italy agreed that the Vatican was a soverign state.

This is a fascinating and little known story based on recently opened archives.

Now if the author could go back to the Vatican and get the archives on Galileo.