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The Pontifical Swiss Guard (also Papal Swiss Guard or simply Swiss Guard; in Latin Pontificia Cohors Helvetica; in Italian Guardia Svizzera Pontificia; in German Päpstliche Schweizergarde; in French Garde suisse pontificale; in Romansh Guardia svizra papala) is an armed force and honour guard unit maintained by the Holy See that protects the Pope and the Apostolic Palace within the territory of the Vatican City.
Established in 1506 under Pope Julius II, the Pontifical Swiss Guard is among the oldest military units in continuous operation.
The dress uniform is of blue, red, orange and yellow with a distinctly Renaissance appearance.
The Swiss Guard are equipped with traditional weapons, such as the halberd, as well as with modern firearms. Since the assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II in 1981, a much stronger emphasis has been placed on the Guard's non-ceremonial roles, and has seen enhanced training in unarmed combat and small arms.
Recruits to the guards must be unmarried Swiss Catholic males between 18 and 30 years of age who have completed basic training with the Swiss Armed Forces.
The unit's security mission is complemented by the Corps of Gendarmerie of Vatican City.
More information: Schweizergarde
The Pontifical Swiss Guard has its origins in the 15th century. Pope Sixtus IV (1471-1484) had already made an alliance with the Swiss Confederacy and built barracks in Via Pellegrino after foreseeing the possibility of recruiting Swiss mercenaries.
The pact was renewed by Pope Innocent VIII (1484-1492) in order to use Swiss troops against the Duke of Milan. Alexander VI (1492-1503) later actually used the Swiss mercenaries during their alliance with the King of France.
During the time of the Borgias, however, the Italian Wars began in which the Swiss mercenaries were a fixture in the front lines among the warring factions, sometimes for France and sometimes for the Holy See or the Holy Roman Empire. The mercenaries enlisted when they heard King Charles VIII of France was going to war with Naples. Among the participants in the war against Naples was Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, the future Pope Julius II (1503-1513), who was well acquainted with the Swiss, having been Bishop of Lausanne years earlier.
The expedition failed, in part thanks to new alliances made by Alexander VI against the French. When Cardinal della Rovere became Pope Julius II in 1503, he asked the Swiss Diet to provide him with a constant corps of 200 Swiss mercenaries. This was made possible through financing by German merchants from Augsburg, Ulrich and Jacob Fugger, who had invested in the Pope and saw fit to protect their investment.
In September 1505, the first contingent of 150 soldiers set off on march to Rome, under the command of Kaspar von Silenen, and entered the city on 22 January 1506, now regarded as the official date of the Guard's foundation.
The
Swiss see the sad situation of the Church of God, Mother of
Christianity, and realize how grave and dangerous it is that any tyrant,
avid for wealth, can assault with impunity, the common Mother of
Christianity, declared the Swiss Huldrych Zwingli, who later became a
Protestant reformer. Pope Julius II later granted the Guard the title Defenders of the Church's freedom.
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The force has varied greatly in size over the years and on occasion has been disbanded and reconstituted. Its most significant hostile engagement was on 6 May 1527, when 147 of the 189 Guards, including their commander Caspar Röist, died fighting the troops of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V in the stand of the Swiss Guard during the Sack of Rome in order to allow Clement VII to escape through the Passetto di Borgo, escorted by the other 42 guards. The last stand battlefield is located on the left side of St Peter's Basilica, close to the Campo Santo Teutonico, in German Graveyard.
Clement VII was forced to replace the depleted Swiss Guard by a contingent of 200 German mercenaries (Custodia Peditum Germanorum). Ten years later, Pope Paul III ordered the Swiss Guard to be reinstated and sent Cardinal Ennio Filonardi to oversee recruitment.
Anti-papal sentiment in Switzerland, however, stymied recruitment and it was not until 1548 that the papacy reached an agreement with mayor of Lucern, Nikolaus von Meggen, to swear-in 150 new Swiss Guardsmen under commander Jost von Meggen, the mayor's nephew.
After the end of the Italian Wars, the Swiss Guard ceased to be used as a military combat unit in the service of the Pope and its role became mostly that of the protection of the person of the Pope and of an Honour guard. However, twelve members of the Pontifical Swiss Guard of Pius V served as part of the Swiss Guard of admiral Marcantonio Colonna at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571.
The office of commander of the Papal Guard came to be a special honour in the Catholic region of the Swiss Confederacy. It became strongly associated with the leading family of Lucerne, Pfyffer von Altishofen, a family which between 1652 and 1847 provided nine out of a total of ten of the commanders (the exception being Johann Kaspar Mayr von Baldegg, also of Lucerne, served 1696-1704).
In 1798, commander Franz Alois Pfyffer von Altishofen went into exile with the deposed Pius VI. After the death of the Pope on 29 August 1799, the Swiss Guard was disbanded and only reinstated by Pius VII in 1800.
In 1809, Rome was again captured by the French and the guard was again disbanded. Pius VII was exiled to Fontainebleau. The guard was reinstated in 1814, when the Pope returned from exile, under the previous commander Karl Leodegar Pfyffer von Altishofen.
More information: Wanted in Rome
The guard was disbanded yet again in 1848, when Pius IX fled to Gaeta, but was reinstated when the Pope returned to Rome the following year.
After the Piedmontese invasion of Rome, the Swiss Guard declined in the later 19th century into a purely ceremonial body with low standards. Guards on duty at the Vatican were Swiss only in name, mostly born in Rome to parents of Swiss descent and speaking the Roman dialect.
The guards were trained solely for ceremonial parade, kept only a few obsolete rifles in store and wore civilian dress when drilling or in barracks. Administration, accommodation, discipline and organization were neglected and the unit numbered only about 90 men out of an authorized establishment of 133.
The modern Swiss Guard is the product of the reforms pursued by Jules Repond, commander during 1910-1921. Repond proposed to recruit only native citizens of Switzerland and he introduced rigorous military exercises. He also attempted to introduce modern arms, but Pius X only permitted the presence of firearms if they were not functional.
Repond's reforms and strict discipline were not well received by the corps, culminating in a week of open mutiny in July 1913, and the subsequent dismissal of thirteen ringleaders from the guard.
In
his project to restore the Swiss Guard to its former prestige, Repond
also dedicated himself to the study of historical costume, with the aim
of designing a new uniform that would be both reflective of the
historical Swiss costume of the 16th century and suited for military
exercise.
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The result of his studies was published as Le costume de la Garde suisse pontificale et la Renaissance italienne (1917). Repond designed the distinctive Renaissance-style uniforms still worn by the modern Swiss Guard.
The introduction of the new uniforms was completed in May 1914.
The foundation of Vatican City as a modern sovereign state was negotiated in the Lateran Treaty of 1929. The duties of protecting public order and security in the Vatican lay with the Papal Gendarmerie Corps, while the Swiss Guard, the Palatine Guard and the Noble Guard served mostly ceremonial functions. The Palatine and Noble Guards were disbanded by Paul VI in 1970, leaving the Swiss Guard as the only ceremonial guard unit of the Vatican. At the same time, the Gendarmerie Corps was transformed into a central security office, with the duties of protecting the Pope, defending Vatican City, and providing police and security services within its territory, while the Swiss Guard continued to serve ceremonial functions only.
Paul VI in a decree of 28 June 1976 defined the nominal size of the corps at 90 men. This was increased to 100 men by John Paul II on 5 April 1979.
As of 2010 the guard numbered 107 halberdiers divided into three squads, with commissioned and non-commissioned officers.
Since the assassination attempt on John Paul II of 13 May 1981, a much stronger emphasis has been placed on the guard's non-ceremonial roles.
The Swiss Guard has developed into a modern guard corps equipped with modern small arms, and members of the Swiss Guard in plain clothes now accompany the Pope on his travels abroad for his protection.
On 4 May 1998, commander Alois Estermann was murdered on the day of his promotion. Estermann and his wife, Gladys Meza Romero, were killed by the young guardsman Cédric Tornay, who later committed suicide. The case received considerable public attention and became the subject of a number of conspiracy theories alleging Cold War politics or involvement by the Opus Dei prelature.
On the occasion of the 500th anniversary of the Swiss Guard, in April–May 2006, 80 former guardsmen marched from Bellinzona in southern Switzerland to Rome, recalling the march of the original 200 Swiss guards to take up Papal service, in 1505. The march had been preceded by other celebrations in Lucerne, including a rally of veterans of the Guard and a Mass.
More information: Catholic Outlook
In a public ceremony on 6 May 2006, 33 new guards were sworn in on the steps of St. Peter's Basilica instead of the traditional venue in the San Damaso Courtyard. The date chosen marked the anniversary of the Sack of Rome when the Swiss Guard had been nearly destroyed. Present at this event were representatives of the Company of Pikemen and Musketeers of the Honourable Artillery Company of London and the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts.
In December 2014, Pope Francis directed that Daniel Anrig's term as commander should end on 31 January 2015, and that he be succeeded by his deputy Christoph Graf. This followed reports about Anrig's authoritarian style.
With the rise of Islamic terrorism in Europe and open threats against the Vatican issued by the Islamic State (ISIS), Vatican officials in 2015 collaborated with Italian authorities to improve the protection of Vatican City against attacks that cannot be reasonably defended against by the Swiss Guard and Vatican gendarms, notably against drone attacks.
In October 2019, the Swiss Guard reached a total personnel of 135. It is the result of the expansion of the Corps announced at the press conference held on the occasion of the swearing in of the new guards in 2018. Previously, according to article 7 of the regulation, the Swiss Guard was made up of 110 men.
Recruits to the guards must be Catholic, single males with Swiss citizenship who have completed basic training with the Swiss Armed Forces and can obtain certificates of good conduct.
Recruits must have a professional degree or high school diploma and must be between 19 and 30 years of age and at least 174 cm tall.
In 2009, the Pontifical Swiss Guard commandant, Daniel Anrig, suggested that the Guard might someday be open to recruiting women, but he added that the admission of female recruits remained far in the future.
More information: The Culture Trip
Ian Caldwell
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