More information
- Some History of Italy
- Unification of Italy
- Travels to Cloisters - Italy
- Rome - short History
- Florence - some history and highlights
- Venice - some history
- Amalfi - historical notes
As we travel throughout Italy we are always taken with the history, and the knowledge of the history that museum or tour guides have about their country.
There is endless reading that can be done, and not a single starting point, however, one important point of reference is that of the Greeks and Etruscans - around 750 - 509 BC. Since one of my favourite fountain pens is the Eutricia by Stipula, the Eutricians seems like a good starting point from my perspective.
Etruria — more often referred to in Greek and Latin sources as Tyrrhenia — is in the area that is now the Regions of Tuscany, Latium and Umbria. Etruria was one of the most important city/states on the Italian peninsula before it fell to the the Roman Republic in the 3 BC. Etruscan kings conquered and ruled Rome for 100 years.
In 509 BC the last Etruscan king Lucius Tarquinius Superbus was removed and the Roman Republic was established. It was through the Etruscans that Rome changed from being a farming village and transformed into a large city. They also built the first road in Rome — Via Sacra.
The Via Sacra is one of the main streets of ancient Rome. It leads from the top of the Capitoline Hill, through the Forum to the Colosseum.
It was the Etruscan civilization that brought a fair amount of the Greek culture to Rome. This included the twelve Olympian gods, and the growing of olives and grapes and the Latin alphabet
By about 600 BC the 12 cities of Etrucia ruled just about all of Northern Italy. They controlled the mines and had wealth.
Their downfall was relatively quick. The were worn down by battles with the Gauls. Then Rome threw out the Etrucan King and established itself as a Republic (509 BC).
Napoleon I of France gave credit to their heritage and used the name Etruria in the 19th Century to name the Kingdom of Etruria, located in Tuscany. This lasted a relatively short time, from 1801 to 1807.
Rome fought. They wiped out the Gauls in around 390 BC. Southern Etruria and Latium were taken over. There was what appears to be an endless listing of wars as the battle for Italy took place.
Rome kept expanding its territory. As it defeated areas Rome would force them to become junior allies of Rome. In some cases I take it that if the "city" knew it would fall, rather than fight the Romans it would ask for their protection. At the end of 2nd century BC, the Roman state dominated the Mediterranean world with the exception of Egypt.
Following the days of the Roman Empire a series of invasions took place. Rome was actually sacked 410. Constantinople, invaded Italy in the 6th century.
The Lombards moved in next and ruled Italy until the late 8th century. After the Lombard invasion, the popes were somewhat subject to the eastern emperor, but often received little help from Constantinople.
The Franks were next to invade and they defeated the Lombards. This lead to the pope proclaiming Charlemagne King and later in 800, the pope went further and Charlemagne was crowned emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.
Charlemagne, never recognized by the Byzantines, then conceded direct rule over central Italy to the pope, creating the Papal States. But this was far from a total country. The Imperial authority never extended much south. Southern Italy was divided amongst the two Lombards duchies of Spoleto and Benevento and the Byzantine Empire. Although cities along the coast such as Gaeta, Amalfi, Naples on the Tyrrhenian Sea, and Venice on the Adriatic, were Latin-Greek enclaves and were themselves becoming increasingly independent from Byzantium.
Charlemagne was an important influence, and Leo III was the first Pope to date his Bulls from the year of Charlemagne's reign (795) instead of those of Byzantine emperors. Moving away from the Eastern Empire and establishing closer connections with the Western world of France and Germany completed itself by the 9th century.
Lots of battles and divisions of empires. In 846, Muslim Arabs invaded Rome, looted St. Peter's Basilica, and stole all the gold and silver in it. Ouch.
So Pope Leo IV built the Leonine walls of the Vatican City.
By the 11th century the economics of trade helped and the Italian cities of Amalfi, Pisa, Genoa and Venice became major powers. The papacy regained its authority, and started a long struggle with the empire.
This was from the end of the 14th century to about 1600. The Italian Renaissance began in northern Italy, centred in the city of Florence. It then spread south, having an especially significant impact on Rome, which was largely rebuilt by the Renaissance popes. The Italian Renaissance peaked in the late 15th century as foreign invasions plunged the region into turmoil. This was the time of great artists such as Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci. It was the time of great architecture such as The Duomo in Florence and St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.
By the 16th Century states of Italian peninsula began to suffer as trade routes started to move from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic. Spain took over some of the weaker Italian states. The papacy lost much of its importance both because of military defeats and the Protestant Reformation.
To stop further expansion of Protestantism, the church endorsed the wars of the emperor Charles V (who was also king of Spain) -- the so-called Counter-Reformation. In 1494 Charles VIII of France invaded Italy. Her arrived in Naples February 22, 1495 and was crowned on King in May. 12. In November his armies entered Florence while a revolution had expelled Piero de Medici.
As Italy approached the 19th century it was almost in the same political conditions as in the 16th century. Austria replaced Spain as the dominant foreign power. In 1796, Napoleon led French armies and created republics. The republics changed into Italian Republica under the presidency of Napoleon.
The Congress of Vienna (1814) divided Italy between Austria (in the north-east and Lombardy), the kingdom of Sardinia, the kingdom of the two Sicilies (in the south and in Sicily), and Tuscany, the Papal States and other minor states in the centre. At the beginning the new state did not include Rome (under papal rule until 1870) and the north-eastern provinces around Venice (most of which were annexed in 1866, after a new war with Austria).
Victor Emmanuel II in 1861 united most of the states. Rome remained for a decade under the rule of the Papacy, becoming part of the Kingdom of Italy in 1870.
Later, with the defeat of Napoleon, french protection for the Popes ended and Italian troops breached Rome's walls at Porta Pia. The Italian occupation forced Pope Pius IX to his palace where he declared himself a prisoner in the Vatican until the Latern Pacts of 1929. The Holy See (State of the Vatican City) is now an independent enclave surrounded by Italy.
Italian workers held strikes demanding more rights and better working conditions. In 1922 there was a march on Rome and in the end an alliance with Mussolini endorsed a fascist government. , Mussolini became known as "Il Duce", the leader, ended all political parties and curtailed personal liberties under the pretext of preventing a revolution.
In 1929 Mussolini signed the Latern Pacts with the Roman Catholic Church which in essence formed the independent state of Vatican City.
World War II
Italy was initially neutral and only later declaring war on France and Britain. After later invasions of Albaina and things not going so well King Victor Emmanuel III arrested Mussolini. On September 8, 1943 Italy announced an armistice with the Allies. The Italian army was without instructions and scatter. Germany next occupied central and northern Italy, liberated Mussolini, and the fascist Italian Social Republic was formed.
Rome was liberated by the allies in June 1944, Milan in April 1945.
King Victor Emmanuel III was in his last days. He nominating his son Umberto II general lieutenant of the kingdom.
The US influenced the 1948 general election as a means of fighting communism. US agencies wrote ten million letters, made numerous short-wave radio broadcasts of propaganda and funded the publishing of books and articles, all of which warned the Italians of what the US felt would be the consequences of a communist victory.
From there the internal political scene of Italy was focused on the various political parties of the country.