Francesco Pacelli

Francesco Pacelli, a nobleman of Acquapendente and Sant'Angelo in Vado, was an Italian lawyer and expert in canon law. He was the elder brother of Eugenio Pacelli, who later became Pope Pius XII. As a lay legal advisor to Pope Pius XI, Pacelli played a key role in assisting Pietro Gasparri, then the Cardinal Secretary of State, during the negotiation of the 1929 Lateran Treaty with Benito Mussolini, which established the independence of the Vatican City State and in so doing resolved the longstanding Roman Question.