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Tapestry featuring Vatican Hill (left), circa 1519

The Vatican Hill (in Latin, Vaticanus Mons) is the name given, long before the founding of Christianity, to one of the hills on the side of the Tiber opposite the traditional seven hills of Rome. It may have been the site of an Etruscan town called Vaticum.

In the 1st century A.D., the Vatican Hill was outside the city limits and so could feature a circus (the circus of Nero) and a cemetery. St. Peter's Basilica is built over this cemetery, the traditional site of St. Peter the Apostle's grave. There was another cemetery nearby, which was opened to the public on 10th October 2006 to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the Vatican Museums.[1]

The Vatican Hill is not one of the famous seven hills of Rome, although it was included within the city limits of Rome during the reign of Pope Leo IV, who between 848 and 852 A.D. expanded the city walls to protect St. Peter's Basilica and the Vatican. Thus, Vatican Hill has been within the walls and city limits of Rome (until the Lateran Treaties in 1929 it was part the rione of Borgo) for over 1100 years.

Before the Avignon Papacy (1305-1378), the headquarters of the Holy See were located at the Lateran Palace. After the Avignon Papacy the church administration moved to Vatican Hill and the papal palace was (until 1871) the Quirinal Palace, upon the Quirinal Hill. Since 1929 the Vatican Hill has been the headquarters of the State of the Vatican City. However, the cathedral of the Bishop of Rome, the Pope, is not St. Peter's in the Vatican, it remains St. John in Lateran, which is on one of the seven hills of Rome (the Caelian), and is extra-territorially a part of the Vatican city-state. This is the result of the Lateran Treaty signed with the Italian state in 1929, which restored the diplomatic status of the Vatican as an independent city-state, which had been lost in 1860-1870 when Italy seized all papal territories.

Coordinates: 41°54′13″N, 12°27′01″E