Italy: history to 1796

The various peoples inhabiting Italy - Etruscans in Tuscany, Latins and Sabines in central Italy, Greek colonies in the south and Sicily, and Gauls in the north - were united under Roman rule during the 4th-3rd centuries BC. From that point the early history of Italy is inseparable from that of Rome (see Rome, ancient and Etruscans).

Odoacer and the Ostrogothic kingdom Roman rule lasted until AD 476, when Odoacer, leader of the ‘barbarian’ Germanic mercenaries in the service of Rome, deposed the young Romulus Augustulus, the last emperor of the Western Roman Empire. Odoacer was proclaimed king by his soldiers, and placed his kingdom under the rule of Zeno, the emperor of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire, who named him ‘patrician’ of Italy. Odoacer ruled in Italy until he himself was deposed in 493 by Theodoric the Great, king of the Germanic Ostrogoths (see Goth). Theodoric established his own kingdom in Italy, with its capital in Ravenna. At his death (526), the Byzantine generals Belisarius and Narses, sent by the Emperor Justinian, invaded and reconquered the country.

The kingdom of the Lombards In 586 another Germanic people, the Lombards, who had been employed by Narses as mercenaries, swept down upon Italy from the north under the leadership of their king, Alboin. The northern Italian town of Pavia was captured after a three years' siege and made the capital of the new kingdom. The Lombards spread south and formed the two duchies of Spoleto and Benevento, but lacked the strength to occupy Rome, Ravenna, Venice, the islands of Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, or the important sea towns. Gregory (I) the Great (pope 590-604) converted the Lombards from the Arian ‘heresy’ to orthodox Christianity and asserted the supremacy of Rome.

The Frankish conquest and subsequent invasions In 756 the Lombards were defeated by Pepin the Short, king of the Franks. Pepin captured Ravenna, Pentapolis (a group of five towns on the Adriatic coast in central Italy), several cities in Romagna, and Spoleto, which he ceded to the pope, thus founding the secular sovereignty of the Roman Church. The conquest of the Lombards was completed by Charlemagne, Pepin's son, who deposed his father-in-law Desiderius, the last Lombard king, in 774, and was crowned emperor of the Romans in 800 by Pope Leo III. The cities and Sicily still remained under the rule of the eastern emperor, and were undisturbed by the Frankish conquest of the north. The Carolingian line of Charlemagne ended in 887 with the deposition of Charles (III) the Fat. The following 74 years were a period of misrule and anarchy. Before the end of the 9th century the Arabs began to overrun Sicily and southern regions of the mainland, while in the 10th century the plains of Lombardy were laid waste by invasions of Magyars.

The advent of the German emperors The German king of Saxony, Otto I, was called in by the enemies of Berengar II, king of Italy (950-52) and a descendant of the Carolingian emperor Louis (I) the Pious. Berengar was forced to pay tribute and acknowledge Otto as his overlord, and in 962 Otto was crowned emperor in Rome by the pope. From this dates the tradition to which the German rulers jealously clung, that he who had been crowned German king in Aachen was entitled also to be crowned king of Italy in Milan, and emperor in Rome. Italy was now considered a fief of the German Empire (which the German emperors were later to call the Holy Roman Empire; see German history to 1519). About this time, when Italy was a divided country, governed from a distance by foreigners, the Lombard cities of Milan, Pisa, Genoa, Venice, and Florence began to rise in power and to gain some degree of independence. Otto I encouraged this spirit of municipal independence, which crushed the power of the turbulent counts. Otto's son and grandson, Otto II and Otto III, however, were weaker rulers, and on the death of the latter in 1002 Ardoni, marquis of Ivrea, claimed the crown and was supported by Lombardy and Pavia. The Saxon dynasty, however, continued in Henry of Bavaria, who gained the alliance of Milan, and crushed its rival, Pavia. On Henry's death in 1024, Aubert, archbishop of Milan, offered the crown to Conrad II, the Franconian king of Germany.

The beginnings of the papal-imperial conflict The Saxon policy of interference in the election of the pope was followed by Conrad's successor, Henry III, who, finding three popes in Rome, dismissed them all, and bestowed the papacy on a German bishop of his own choosing. During the minority of Henry IV (who succeeded his father Henry III in 1056), Archdeacon Hildebrand of Soana, afterwards Pope Gregory VII, threw his energies into strengthening the power of the papacy. He was determined to throw off the influence of the German emperor and the Tusculan counts (Tusculum was an ancient city near Rome). He was also determined to purify the church morally by enforcing the celibacy of the clergy, by abolishing the investiture of ecclesiastics by secular authorities, and by placing the election of the pope in the hands of the Roman people under the guidance of the clergy. During the ensuing struggle between pope and emperor, Gregory was supported by Robert Guiscard and his son Roger, Norman adventurers who had occupied Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily, and had agreed to hold them as fiefs of the Holy See (thus making the pope their feudal overlord). In 1084 Henry IV seized Rome, but after his death in 1106 the so-called ‘Investiture Contest’ was continued by his successors, and ended in the compromise Concordat of Worms between Calixtus II and Henry V (1122).

Frederick Barbarossa and the northern republics During the next 30 years the northern cities each formed themselves into single republics. In these republics the bishops were superseded by consuls, who, assisted by a council of burghers, administered the law. Rome shook off for a time the territorial rule of the pope, and under Arnold of Brescia established a short-lived republic. In 1152 Frederick (I) Barbarossa, a member of the German Hohenstaufen dynasty, was elected emperor. He crossed the Alps in 1154, determined to exercise his imperial rights and to put an end to the warfare among the Italian cities. He marched on Rome and was crowned by Adrian IV, the only pope to have been of English birth. Frederick then marched upon Milan and forced it to surrender. But in 1159 Milan was again in revolt, and after a lengthy siege was laid waste (1161). In 1164 the northern cities united in the Lombard League, and in alliance with the papacy inflicted a crushing defeat upon Frederick at the Battle of Legnano (1176). In 1183 a permanent peace was ratified by the Treaty of Constance, which granted to the Lombard towns self-government and the right to declare war.

Guelphs and Ghibellines During the short reign of Frederick's successor, Henry VI, the strife between Guelphs and Ghibellines broke out in Italy. In Germany it had involved a quarrel between two rival dynasties, but in Italy the Guelphs represented the papal party (Rome and the Lombard League), while the Ghibellines stood for the imperial party. On Frederick's death (1190) Henry laid claim to the whole of Italy and the kingdom of the Two Sicilies (Sicily and the southern part of Italy), his claim being acknowledged in 1194. Henry VI was succeed by his young son Frederick II. During Frederick II's long minority the Fourth Crusade (1200-04), at the instigation of Venice, was diverted to attack Constantinople, where a Latin kingdom, and the power of the pope, were established. With the capital of the Byzantine Empire thus weakened, Venice became one of the most powerful commercial cities of the Mediterranean. In 1212 Frederick II was crowned king of Germany, and in 1220 Holy Roman Emperor, and was thus the virtual ruler of Germany, Italy, the Sicilies, and Jerusalem. He made a determined effort to crush the Lombard League and subdue the pope, but the powers pitted against him were too strong. Pope Gregory IX excommunicated him in 1227, and Pope Innocent IV declared him dethroned at the Council of Lyon in 1245. The Hohenstaufen line ended in 1268; in 1273 Rudolph I of Habsburg was crowned emperor by the pope and five years later publicly recognized the pope's territorial sovereignty in the papal states. The Guelph party was now supreme in the north. However, it lost much of its influence in the south when, in a revolt known as the Sicilian Vespers, Sicily rebelled against Charles I of Anjou and placed itself under the rule of the Spanish kingdom of Aragón (1282). At the end of the century the Guelphs of Florence were divided into two factions, the Neri (‘blacks’) and the Bianchi (‘whites’). In 1300 Pope Boniface VIII called in Charles of Valois (son of Philip III of France), who banished the latter faction and then undertook to manage the affairs of the republic. In 1309, with the election of a French pope, Clement V, the seat of the papacy was transferred to Avignon, where it remained till 1377. After that, during the Great Schism, there were rival popes in Avignon and Rome until 1417, when the Council of Constance elected a new pope, Martin V. Thereafter, the papacy revived its weakened authority in Italy and Europe.

The growing power of the cities The earlier part of the 14th century was a period of great commercial prosperity. The origins of the modern banking system had emerged in Italy in the 13th century, and in the 14th century the great banking houses of Florence were lending vast sums internationally. Florence also had a thriving cloth industry, and, with Genoa and Venice, stood at the centre of Europe's trading networks. The northern towns still made war upon one another, but the burghers paid companies of mercenary adventurers, the condottiere, to do the fighting. The rural counts lost their power and became citizens of the towns, and the elected office of podesta (highest civic official) was now practically that of a judge. In many towns his place was taken by a new functionary, the ‘captain of the people’, who was a leader of Guelphs or Ghibellines, whichever party was in the ascendant, and whose powers, being ill-defined, tended to become unlimited. The mid-14th century witnessed a reversal of commercial fortunes, as one of the biggest of the Italian banks' customers, Edward III of England, failed to repay the huge debts he had incurred in waging the Hundred Years' War in France. The great Florentine bankers, the Bardi and the Peruzzi, were bankrupted, and the shock to the commercial system was followed by the devastating effects of the Black Death, which arrived in Italy in 1348.

Milan, Florence, and Venice The duchy of Milan was governed by the powerful Visconti dynasty for more than a century until the death of the last duke in 1447. Under Gian Visconti (died 1354) the duchy conquered Genoa and a large proportion of northern Italy. But in 1450 Filippo Visconti's son-in-law and general, Francesco Sforza, seized the Visconti's possessions with the aid of his Florentine ally, Cosimo de' Medici, and proved himself an able ruler. The Sforzas continued to rule the duchy of Milan for much of the next 85 years, and the Milanese court became a centre of Renaissance culture of learning. Until 1343, the turbulent character of Italy's political life, and the threat posed to Florence by its local rivals Pisa and Lucca, led the Florentines to modify their republican regime in favour of a succession of powerful lords, or ‘signori’. The last of these was Walter of Brienne, duke of Athens. For the following 100 years, with the exception of a short-lived revolution of cloth workers (1378), the city was governed by an oligarchy headed by the Albizzi family. During this period Florence achieved the subjection of Pisa and extended its domains in Tuscany. In 1434 the wealthy banker Cosimo de' Medici seized power. Florence remained a republic but Cosimo was king in all but name. Medici control became a dictatorship under his grandson, Lorenzo the Magnificent (ruled 1469-92). The history of Venice was very different from that of the other great Italian states. In the 11th century the administration lay in the hands of the popular representative, the doge. After a series of revolutions, however, the oligarchical principle was established in 1297, and in 1310 the ruling Council of Ten was formed. The doge became largely a figurehead. In the middle of the 14th century Venice began its struggle for maritime supremacy in the Mediterranean, which ended in victory over its great rival Genoa (1381). In 1406 Venice added Verona, Vicenza, and Padua to its Italian possessions, and during the long dogeship of Francesco Foscari (1423-57) extended its dominions on the mainland. The turbulence in Italy was brought to an end following the peace of Lodi in 1454. Italy was now divided into a number of commonwealths; each was governed by an oligarchy or an Italian prince, but the individual enjoyed considerable liberty, and much encouragement was given to literature and art. It was the age of the Italian Renaissance.

The French and Spanish wars in Italy The year 1494 brought an end to a period of comparative peace in the Italian peninsula, and throughout the following half-century the country was a battlefield on which France and Spain fought out their quarrels and looked for new conquests. In 1494 Charles VIII of France invaded Italy at the request of Ludovico il Moro, who wanted to take over as duke of Milan from his Sforza nephew, Gian Galeazzo. Charles, after having the Medici expelled from Florence, marched south and was crowned king of Naples. In the meantime Ludovico assassinated Gian Galeazzo, and raised Lombardy in revolt against Charles, who was forced to make a difficult retreat back to France. The way was now opened to other invaders, and Spain soon established a firm foothold in southern Italy. In 1499 Louis XII, the successor of Charles VIII as king of France, seized Milan, and in 1504 invited the Emperor Maximilian I to assist him in the conquest of Venice. In 1508 the League of Cambrai was formed with France, Spain, and Germany against Venice. The League defeated Venice (1509), but the allies then fell out and Pope Julius II formed a Holy League (which included Venice) against France. In 1512 the French army under Gaston de Foix fought a fierce battle against the combined Spanish, Venetian, and papal troops on the banks of the River Ronco near Ravenna. The French were victorious but Gaston was killed while pursuing the enemy. The French returned in a few years. In 1515, their new king, Francis I, was victorious at the Battle of Marignano, and entered Milan, but was later expelled by the troops of Emperor Charles V (who was also king of Spain). These devastating wars - marking the start of the long struggle between the French and the Habsburg emperors - were temporarily ended in the Peace of Cambrai (1529), by which Charles V was left in possession of Italy, but they soon resumed. The Italian wars, begun in 1494, were finally ended in 1559 by the Treaty of Cateau-Cambresis, which saw France expelled from Italy, the duke of Savoy restored, and the king of Spain, Philip II, as the dominant power in Italy (holding rule over Milan, Naples, Sicily, and Sardinia). Venice, Genoa, Lucca, and San Marino were allowed to retain their independence, as was Florence, where the Medici had been restored in 1530.

Continued foreign domination in the 17th and 18th centuries For most of the 150 years after 1559 Italy was relatively peaceful, dominated by Spain. However, the Thirty Years' War spilled over into Italy, when France renewed its efforts to gain a foothold in Italy. Louis XIII secured Pinerolo; Louis XIV gained Casale (1681) and bombarded Genoa (1684). The war of the League of Augsburg (1688-97) saw the duke of Savoy ranged against Louis XIV, who was obliged to surrender Casale and Pinerolo. Venice regained some of its lost power by the conquest of the Peloponnese peninsula in southern Greece (1684), but this was recaptured by the Ottoman Turks in 1715. The War of the Spanish Succession (1701-14), which was partly fought in Italy, led to a redistribution of Italian land and marked the start of a new period of political stability. By the Treaty of Utrecht (1713) Austria took over the Spanish dominions in Italy, and Sicily was given to Victor Amadeus, duke of Savoy, with the title of king. In 1720 he had to yield Sicily to Austria, in exchange for the kingdom of Sardinia. Italy was subjected to a further redivision at the end of the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-48). By the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748), Milan, which had been ceded to the Austrian Habsburgs in 1713, was ceded with Tuscany to Austria; the future Charles III of Spain was confirmed as ruler of the kingdom of the Two Sicilies (which he had conquered in 1734), and a Bourbon dynasty was established there; Charles's brother, Don Philip, was given the duchy of Parma; Piedmont and Sardinia remained in the hands of the house of Savoy; and Modena and Genoa were placed under the protection of France, to whom the Genoese sold Corsica in 1768.

For subsequent events in Italian history, see Italy: history 1796-1870 and Italy.