The question is slightly cheeky, but I was curious about this aspect of Rome’s history as a city. Rome today now has a democratic government like almost all cities in democratic countries. For years, however, it was ruled by the Roman Emperors and then the Pope, before becoming the capital of modern Italy. When in the city’s history did it become democratically run “again,” and what was the context for this “restoration”? Was there any acknowledgement of it as a historic moment, or was Rome’s modern city government created with relatively little fanfare?
Hello. This is not going to be the answer you are looking for, but it might guide you on how to phrase you question in a way someone with more in depth knowdlege about the local governance of Rome though History to give you some in depth answers.
The problem to your question is not the question itself - or its cheekyness, which I personally loved- but underlying premise: that Rome was "democratically ran" sometime in the Roman period, then not, then it aquired the current "democratic" goberment. The main thing is, there's no such a thing as that kind of linearity of progress thou history, so nowhere never a place went from "democracy" to "dark ages" to "democracy again".
First, the city of Rome saw a decimation in population that left it looking more like a provincial city than not in a mediterranean context. After the collapse of roman rule after the last gothic war, most of central italy was destroyed and powerless. The popes bacame, slowlly, the rules of the city, but it was a long and complicated process, and no Pope in those times had the omnipotent opwer it has today, or during the XVIII Century: in the middle ages, the pope was the patriarch of Rome, a simbolically important but politically irrelevant city. The popes had to dispute the governance of Rome with both powerful local families (most popes came from them) or whatever geopolitical ally the papacy had resorted to at the time (the lombards, carolinguians, germans, angevines etc...)
Plus, even if the Popes exerted nomital authority over the city , the Romans where famous for rebelling and fighting for local, comunal goverments. It's a literal quote from Sir Steven Runciman's The Sicilian Vespers, about the XIII Century: "Roman people loved to be goberned by themselves"
Most Popes spent really little time in Rome during the middle ages; sometimes it was for geopolital reasons, but most often it was becase it uneasyness of governing Rome and the possibility of revolt in favour of a comunal gobernment, which you could call "democratic", or more democratic than theocracy at least in a procedural way. You can look for the story of Cola Di Rienzo, who was the leader and instigator of a revolt that, in 1347, led to the proclamation of a renewed roman republic. He had actually been sent by the Pope (who lived, as popes did those days, in Anagni) to pacify the nobles of the city, with whom he was fighting at the moment. So things in the local governance of Rome were quite interesting and complicated during its less famous History, with periods of more autocratic governance and times with more autonomous, participative, local-led goverments. Just to clarify, these "democratic" goberments were so only in a procedural way: they didn't guarantee equal rights, or liberated the oppressed, liberated slaves or made general life better for the common people: the fact that power is exercised by one member or an elite or a few members of an elite don't warantee you any of those: those were gotten, in places with "modern democracy" as Rome herself, by other means and forces that didn't happen in those days.
To give you some clarification, Rome the city was ruled in an Autotratic, Theocratic absolutist way by the Pope up untill the XIX Century, when the soldiers of the Italian Republic had to ACTUALLY STORM THE IV Century ROMAN WALLS to take the City, in the section of Porta Pia. The Pope refused to give the city to the italians, and he lived in a weird alegal exile up untill the quiestion was resolved under a very non democratic Fascist regime, that gave Vatican City, one of the last Absolutist Theocracies in the world, to the Holy See. So even in recent times, you see that closed-open-closed dinamic going on. Anyway, that's the origin of Modern Rome, quite different to almost any other western city as in it was taken by assault to an absolutist ruled designed by a God, only that it was less than 150 years ago.
I hope this has helped you, I hope you can rephrase your question in a way in which you can delve into some of these episodes, witch are incredibly entertaining.
Edits: typos, reformat and upgrading info.