ULTRAMONTANISM is the tendency of Roman Catholicism that emphasizes the authority of the papacy in the government and teaching of the church. Originally articulated in opposition to Gallicanism, ultramontanism stressed the unity of the church centralized in Rome ("over the mountains") and its independence from nations and states. Ultramontane principles can be traced to the struggles of popes and councils in the fifteenth century. The papalist position received a full exposition by the Jesuit Roberto Bellarmino at the end of the sixteenth century. However, ultramontanism acquired its definitive meaning in the conflict over the Gallicanism of Louis XIV in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The term ultramontanism seems to date from the 1730s, although ultramontane was used with various meanings in the Middle Ages. During the eighteenth century, exponents of ultramontanism waged a generally losing struggle against Gallicanism and similar statist movements in other countries, such as Febronianism...