United States presidential visits to Southern Europe

Woodrow Wilson became the first incumbent president to visit a Southern European country in January 1919 in the aftermath of World War I.

Of the present-day nations in (or partly within) the region, all but Cyprus, San Marino, Andorra, Montenegro, and Serbia have been visited by a sitting American president.

Martin Van Buren and Millard Fillmore each met (separately) with Pope Pius IX in Rome in 1855, as did Franklin Pierce in November 1857.

[15] Ulysses S. Grant met with Pope Leo XIII in the Vatican in 1878, during a world tour after leaving the presidency.

Roosevelt had no intention of meeting the missionaries, but he declined to submit to the pope's conditions and the interview did not take place.