Summary - A short time after the British entered Jerusalem, the Italian government tried to put forward its claim on the Cenacle, on the grounds that this Holy Place belonged to the king of Italy. The king was the heir of the Kingdom of Naples, that had bought the sanctuary in 1333 from the Mameluks, with the intention of making a gift of it to the Franciscan order. The Italian case was rejected by the British government, who was certainly not going to allow other states in its domain. After a few years of useless attempts, in 1928 the Italian resorted to other means. During the visit of the Italian Crown Prince to Palestine, the Italian deliberately set to prove that the rightful heir to the Cenacle was unable to enter his property. The Muslim owners of the building which contained the sanctuary, in fact, at first refused to let the Prince in, and did so with the connivance of the Christian great power who ruled the Holy Land. The British government, on the other hand, believed that the Palestine situation was already too volatile, because of the Balfour Declaration policy and Jewish immigration, and had no intention of letting it get worse. The Holy Places question was terribly complicated; the Muslim population felt that their Holy Places were threatened by Jewish claims and there was no need to add further unrest by accepting the Italian claim to the sanctuary that was sacred to the Muslims as well.

During the discussion for the 1938 agreements between Italy and Great Bretain, the Italian tried again to discuss their claims but, once more, the British government refused to grant anything on such a delicate question.