eli5 why is Vatican city independent even though it’s barely visible in a map?
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Vatican City is the seat of the Catholic Church. Just a very wealthy microstate now, but once the center of power in Western Europe through the Middle Ages and into the early industrial era.
One doesn’t simply attack *the pope* during the height of his power, attempting to do so would risk igniting a holy war if greater Catholicism didn’t approve of whoever is attempting to consolidate power over Italy.
That’s not to say these things didn’t happen – the Vatican was indeed attacked several times over the centuries – but it has a strong historical tendency towards being an independent religious state free from the whims of kings that ruled by the Pope’s blessing.
In theory the pope approves the Catholic kings, not the other way around.
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