Italy History

Long before the Romans established their city-state, the Italian Peninsula had been inhabited by tribes sich as the Ligurians near Tuscony, the Sabines in central Italy and the Umbrians around the Nar and Tiber rivers.  By the time Rome was founded in 753 BC, the Etruscans had arrived, probably from Asia Minor, and became a powerful kingdom in much of central Italy, including the Tiber region where the Romans lived.  Some of the structures built by them can still be found in places such as Siena near Florence.

For Rome, legend has it that its founder and first king, Romulus and his brother, Remus, were the baby twins of Mars, the Roman god of war, and Rhea Silvia, the daughter of the king of Alba Longa, who was deposed by his brother, Amulius.  When Amulius found out about the babies’ birth, he threw them into the Tiber, but they were saved and brought up by a she-wolf.  When they grew up, Mars told them to build a city on the site where they had been found.   The brothers did so but ended up fighting each other and Remus died.  The city was then named Rome.

The history of ancient Rome and its empires deserves a full section by itself and can only be summarised below.  In 509 BC, the Romans overthrew the Etruscan king, and later assimilated the other tribes, and expelled the Phoenicians and the Greeks from the south and Sicily.  By 272 BC, the Romans controlled the entire peninsula.  In the next few centuries, the Romans first brutally destroyed their rival, Carthage, in North Africa and conquered the Greeks as they sided with Carthage; later, they occupied the British Isles and the entire Mediterranean region from the Iberian Peninsula, to Asia Minor, Egypt and North Africa.  It also built a network of roads, cities, agoras, colesiums, baths, amphitheatres and monuments wherever they went, many of which still survive to this day.

From its beginning until 31 BC, Rome was ruled as a republican city-state, ruled by elected consuls, a senate and citizen assemblies.  The assassination of Julius Caesar and the ensuing wars between Brutus /  Cassius and Mark Anthony / Octavian, and between Mark Anthony and Octavian ended the republic, and led to the creation of the Roman Empire with Octavian named as the first emperor (Augustus Caesar).

From the first century AD onwards, Christianity gradually spread in the empire despite being persecuted.  In 313 AD, Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity and churches rapidly grew. 

In the 3^rd century AD, Germanic and other tribes began to poke at the fringes of the empire; there was also internal strife.  In 285 AD, the Empire was split into the Western Roman and Eastern Roman Empires.  The latter was also called the Byzantine Empire, and had Constantinople as its capital from 330 BC.  The western empire fell in 476 AD, under pressure from the barbarians.

For the next few centuries, Italy was invaded by the Lombards, the Franks, the Muslims and the Germans.  From the 9^th century onwards, came the Holy Roman Empire, created by the popes to counterbalance the Byzantines, and later the city-states emerged. 

By the 14^th century, Italy was divided into the Papal states in the centre of the peninsula, the city-states like Venice, Florence, Milan and Bologna in the north, and the Kingdom of Naples (which occupied the region south of the Papal states) under Norman rule. 

Venice, Florence and other city-states wielded great commercial and military power, and provided the impetus for the development of arts, music, science, and culture.  This gave birth to the Renaissance, when, among others, the Medici family in Florence used vast sums of money to finance the works of masters such as Lenonardo de Vinci, Sandro Botticelli and Michelangelo Buonarroti.  This cultural movement later spread throughout Europe and left a marvellous legacy for all to enjoy.

Following the French Revolution of 1789 and the 1848 French Revolution which spread to the rest of Europe, both of which fanned the sentiments of liberty, equality and nationalism everywhere, there emerged in the Italian Peninsula a popular desire for national unity.  Several key figures, including Giuseppe Mazzini, Giuseppe Garibaldi and Camillo Cavour emerged in the 19^th century to lead the drive towards unity.  The Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed in 1861 with Victor Emmanuel II as king.  However, Rome did not become the capital of Italy until 1871 after the Italian army occupied the city the year before.  The Pope refused to recognise the new kingdom.  It was only in 1929 that Benito Mussolini negotiated a treaty with the Pope establishing Vatican as a state.