40th Anniversary of the Villa Madama Agreements - €1.25

On February 18, 1984, the Vatican Secretary of State, Agostino Casaroli, and the then Prime Minister of Italy, Bettino Craxi, signed at Villa Madama a revision of the 1929 Concordat, marking the conclusion of a long negotiation process. The aim of the new Agreement was essentially to align the regulation of relations between the Italian State and the Catholic Church with the principles of the Republican Constitution, through the application of a bilateral revision procedure. The new agreement took the form of a ‘framework agreement’ of fundamental principles regulating the independence of the respective orders of the State and the Church, identifying the specific constitutional cornerstones, on which to reconstruct the system of their relations with the articulated referral to further agreements on specific issues, to be stipulated subsequently between the State and ecclesiastical authorities in charge. The first of these agreements was the one on the reform of ecclesiastical entities and assets and the system of clergy subsistence, which was followed by those on the appointment of holders of ecclesiastical offices, religious holidays recognised for civil purposes, the teaching of the Catholic religion in schools, the recognition of academic qualifications of faculties approved by the Holy See, spiritual assistance to the State Police, the protection of cultural assets of religious interest and ecclesiastical archives and libraries. To mark the 40th anniversary of this event, Italy and the Vatican issued a joint postage stamp, created by artist Maria Carmela Perrini, depicting an aerial view of Villa Madama, an imposing 16th-century building on the slopes of Monte Mario in Rome, designed by Raphael. The signatures of the signatories of the agreements are highlighted over the image. At the top of the stamp are the emblems of the Italian Republic and the Holy See.