Papal States pre-1808

Pippin the Short, ruler of the Franks, led his army into northern Italy in the years 754 and 756 and, after taking control, made a gift of the Exarchate of Ravenna (a centre of Byzantine power) to the Pope; this was the start of the Papal States, territories under direct sovereign rule of the papacy, at their greatest expanse covering most of the modern Italian regions of Romagna, Marche, Umbria and Lazio. They used a vertical red and yellow flag, the colours of Rome, until the year 1808.