History of Italy

The history of Italy covers the Ancient Period, the Middle Ages and the modern era. In antiquity, Italy was the homeland of the Romans and the metropole of the Roman Empire. Rome was founded as a Kingdom in 753 BC and became a Republic in 509 BC, when the monarchy was overthrown in favor of a government of the Senate and the People. The Roman Republic then unified Italy at the expense of the Etruscans, Celts, and Greeks of the peninsula. Rome led the federation of the Italic peoples to the domination of Western Europe, Northern Africa, and the Near East by conquering Epirus, Gaul, Britain, Hispania, Lusitania, the Balkans, Dacia, Macedonia, parts of Germania, Egypt, Carthage, Mauretania, Numidia, Libya, Anatolia, Syria, Mesopotamia, Armenia, Judea and parts of Arabia. Caesar Augustus became the first Roman Emperor in 27 BC and ended the civil wars between the Populares and the Optimates, initiating the Pax Romana: Italy was the core of global Technology (mining, sanitation and construction of monumental roads, bridges and aqueducts), Economy (mare nostrum and trade with China, India, and Sub-Saharan Africa), Art (Pantheon, Ara Pacis, marble sculptures, Pompeian Styles), and Literature (Aeneid, Metamorphoses, De Rerum Natura, Naturalis Historia, Ab Urbe Condita). Various Emperors were successful in foreign policy and domestic issues (Claudius, Vespasian, Trajan, Marcus Aurelius) while others acted as paranoid despots (Caligula, Nero, Domitian, Caracalla). The military anarchy of the third century led to the separation of the Eastern Roman Empire from the Western Roman Empire. Both parts ended the persecutions of Christians with the Edict of Milan and granted religious primacy to Bishop of Rome with the Edict of Thessalonica. The Roman Empire ended in 476 when the West fell to Odoacer and the East became the Byzantine Empire. During the Early Middle Ages, the Italian Peninsula suffered a series of wars of conquest by the Goths, the Byzantines and the Lombards. The day of Christmas of the year 800, Pope Leo III crowned the Germanic ruler Charlemagne with the title of Holy Roman Emperor and as such also sovereign of northern Italy, with the exclusion of the Papal States. The Roman Pontiff and the Germanic Emperor became the universal powers of Italy and Europe, but then entered in conflict for the investiture controversy and the clash between their factions: the Guelphs and Ghibellines. The struggle between the Papacy and the Empire led to the collapse of the Imperial-feudal system in Italy between the Humiliation of Canossa of Emperor Henry IV at the feet of Pope Gregory VII and Matilda of Tuscany (1077) and the Treaty of Venice signed by Friedrich Barbarossa and Pope Alexander III after the Battle of Legnano (1177). Papal claims to temporal authority were put forward with the Dictatus Papae and the Third Lateran Council. By the 12th century Italy was organized in Republican city-states called comuni, except for the Kingdom of Sicily formed by the Normans and inclusive of the entire Mezzogiorno. In 1095, Pope Urban II called for the First Crusade and opened Mediterranean trade to the maritime republics. The result was an Italian commercial revolution, that shifted European economy from agriculture to trade, and caused the birth of banking and universities in Italy. Between 1198 and 1215, Pope Innocent III approved the Franciscan and Dominican Orders and allowed Venice to sack Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade. Innocent III turned several states of Europe into papal fiefs and replaced the Germanic Emperor Otto IV with the Sicilian King Frederick II 'the wonder of the world'. Frederick II abolished the trial by ordeal and made Italy the cultural and strategic centre of a large reign that included the Holy Roman Empire and, following the Sixth Crusade, the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Frederick II refused to submit his dominions to the Mongol Empire and planned an expedition against the Golden Horde, but died in 1250 exhausted by civil wars against German princes and Italian republicans. Medieval culture peaked around 1300 with the paintings or Giotto, the writings of Dante, and the travels of Marco Polo. The Black Death and the Western Schism marked the crisis of the Late Middle Ages. The Renaissance began in Florence (ruled by the Medici family) and transformed art, science, exploration and philosophy, marking the transition from the Middle Ages to Modernity. At the Council of Florence (1439) Cosimo de Medici formed a League between the Pope and maritime states in order to defend the Byzantine Empire from the Ottoman Turks. After the Fall of Constantinople (1453) Cosimo de Medici favoured the peace between Venice and Milan and created the Italic League with all the major Italian states. Under Lorenzo the Magnificent, the Ottoman invasion of Italy was prevented and polymaths such as Leonardo and Michelangelo began their careers. Italian navigators such as Columbus in service for Castille, Amerigo Vespucci for Portugal, Cabot for England, and Verrazzano for France, became colonizers of the Americas for European monarchs in order to by-pass the Ottoman Empire and find a trade route to Asia via the Atlantic Ocean. The Italic League collapsed with the outbreak of the Italian Wars. During the High Renaissance, Italy became the battleground for European hegemony between competing foreign powers. Attempts to 'free Italy from the barbarians' (in the words of Machiavelli) were made by Pope Julius II and the Medici Popes, but in 1527 Rome suffered a sack by Protestant militias and at the Congress of Bologna (1530) much of Italy returned under the protection of the Catholic Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor: his abdication divided Italy between indirect domination of the Austrian Habsburgs in the north and direct domination of the Spanish Habsburgs in the south. The Papacy remained independent and launched the Catholic Revival, resulting in: the Christianization of large parts of the world; the spread of Baroque culture; the council of Trent and the counter-reformation; the success of Galileo's scientific academia; the adoption of the Gregorian Calendar; and the formation of Holy Leagues to prevent Ottoman expansion in the West. However, the Peace of Westphalia (paradoxically set up by the Italian Cardinal Mazarin as PM for France) diminished Roman Catholic influence in Europe and led to the consolidation of large states, while Italy was fragmented and divided Following a series of wars of succession in Europe, the north passed to the Habsburg-Lorraine and the south passed to the Spanish Bourbons. Inspired by Neoclassicism and Napoleonic enlightenment, the Risorgimento movement emerged to contest the Congress of Vienna and unite Italy by liberating it from foreign control. After the unsuccessful attempt of 1848, the Italian Wars of Independence against Austria in the North, the Expedition of the Thousand against the Spanish Bourbons in the South, and the capture of Rome in 1870, resulted in the formation of the nation-state. Giuseppe Mazzini, Giuseppe Garibaldi, King Victor Emmanuel II and Prime Minister Camillo Cavour became known as the four fathers of the fatherland. The new Kingdom of Italy obtained Great Power status, acquired a colonial Empire and rapidly industrialised, although mainly in the north, while the south remained largely impoverished, fuelling a large and influential diaspora. In World War I, Italy joined the Entente with France and Britain, despite having been a member of the Triple Alliance with Germany and Austria-Hungary, and gave a fundamental contribution to the victory of the conflict as one of the principal allied powers. Italy completed the unification by acquiring Trento and Trieste, and gained a permanent seat in the League of Nations's executive council. Nevertheless, Italian nationalists considered World War I a mutilated victory and that sentiment led to the rise of the fascist dictatorship of Benito Mussolini in 1922. The subsequent participation in World War II on the side of Germany and Japan ended in military defeat and an Italian Civil War. Following the liberation of Italy, the country abolished the monarchy with a referendum, reinstated democracy, enjoyed an economic miracle, and founded the European Union, NATO and the Group of Six (later G8 and G20).