Italy
Historie
Thousands of Lower Paleolithic artefacts have been recovered from Monte Poggiolo (a hill near Forlì, in the Emilia-Romagna area),
dating as far back as 850.000 years. Excavations throughout Italy revealed a Neanderthal presence dating back to the
Middle Palaeolithic period some 200.000 years ago, while modern humans appeared about 40.000 years ago at Riparo Mochi.
During the Copper Age, Indoeuropean people migrated to Italy. Approximately four waves of population from north to the Alps have
been identified.
A first Indoeuropean migration occurred around the mid-3rd millennium BC, from a population who imported coppersmithing. The
Remedello culture took over the Po Valley.
The second wave of immigration occurred in the Bronze Age, from the late 3rd to the early 2nd millennium BC, with tribes identified
with the Beaker culture and by the use of bronze smithing, in the Padan Plain, in Tuscany and on the coasts of Sardinia and Sicily.
In the mid-2nd millennium BC, a third wave arrived, associated with the Apenninian civilization and the Terramare culture.
The Terramare people were still hunters, but had domesticated animals and cultivated crops; they were fairly skilful metallurgists,
casting bronze in moulds.
In the late Bronze Age, from the late 2nd millennium to the early 1st millennium BC, a fourth wave, the Proto-Villanovan culture,
brought iron-working to the Italian peninsula. Proto-Villanovan culture was part of the central European Urnfield culture system.
Born in Sardinia and southern Corsica, the Nuraghe civilization lasted from the 18th century BC to the 2nd century AD, when
the islands were already Romanized. They take their name from the characteristic Nuragic towers, which evolved from the pre-existing
megalithic culture, which built dolmens and menhirs.
Between the 17th and the 11th centuries BC Mycenaean Greeks established contacts with Italy and in the 8th and 7th centuries
BC a number of Greek colonies were established all along the coast of Sicily and the southern part of the Italian Peninsula, that
became known as Magna Graecia.
According to the founding myth of Rome, the city was founded on 21 April 753 BC by twin brothers Romulus and Remus,
who descended from the Trojan prince Aeneas and who were grandsons of the Latin King, Numitor of Alba Longa.
The site of Rome had a ford where the Tiber could be crossed. The Palatine Hill and the hills surrounding it presented easily defensible
positions in the wide fertile plain surrounding them. All of these features contributed to the success of the city.
The traditional account of Roman history, is that in Rome's first centuries, it was ruled by a succession of Seven Kings.
The Roman Republic was established around 509 BC, when the last of the seven kings of Rome, Tarquin the Proud, was
deposed by Lucius Junius Brutus, and a system based on annually elected magistrates and various representative assemblies was
established.
In the 4th century BC, the Republic came under attack by the Gauls, who initially prevailed and sacked Rome. The Romans then
drove the Gauls back, led by Marcus Furius Camillus. The Romans gradually subdued the other peoples on the Italian peninsula.
The last threat to Roman hegemony in Italy came when Tarentum, a major Greek colony, enlisted the aid of Pyrrhus of Epirus
in 281 BC, but this effort failed as well.
In the 3rd century BC, Rome had to face a new and formidable opponent: Carthage. In the three Punic Wars, Carthage was
eventually destroyed and Rome gained control over Hispania, Sicily and North Africa. After defeating the Macedonian and
Seleucid Empires in the 2nd century BC, the Romans became the dominant people of the Mediterranean Sea.
In the mid-1st century BC, the Republic faced a period of political crisis and social unrest. Into this turbulent scenario emerged
Julius Caesar. Caesar reconciled the two more powerful men in Rome: Marcus Licinius Crassus, his sponsor, and Crassus'
rival, Pompey. In 53 BC, the Triumvirate disintegrated at the death of Crassus, who had mediated between Caesar and Pompey.
After being victorious in the Gallic Wars, Caesar crossed the Rubicon River and invaded Rome in 49 BC, rapidly defeating Pompey.
Caesar was eventually granted a dictatorship for perpetuity but was murdered in 44 BC.
Caesar's assassination caused political and social turmoil in Rome; without the dictator's leadership, the city was ruled by his friend
and colleague, Mark Antony. Octavian (Caesar's adopted son), along with Antony and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus,
established the Second Triumvirate. Lepidus was forced to retire in 36 BC after betraying Octavian in Sicily.
Antony settled in Egypt with his lover, Cleopatra VII. Following Antony's Donations of Alexandria, which gave to
Cleopatra the title of "Queen of Kings", and to their children the regal titles to the newly conquered Eastern territories,
war between Octavian and Mark Antony broke out. Octavian annihilated Egyptian forces in the Battle of Actium in 31 BC.
Mark Antony and Cleopatra committed suicide, leaving Octavianus the sole ruler of the Republic.
Octavian's adoption of the name Augustus in 27 BC is usually taken by historians as the beginning of the Roman Empire.
The Roman Empire was among the most powerful economic, cultural, political and military forces in the world of its time, and it was
one of the largest empires in world history. At its height under Trajan (98 to 117 AD), it covered 5 million square kilometres.
The Roman legacy has deeply influenced Western civilisation, shaping most of the modern world; among the many legacies of Roman dominance
are the widespread use of the Romance languages derived from Latin, the numerical system, the modern Western
alphabet and calendar, and the emergence of Christianity as a major world religion.
After the death of Emperor Theodosius I (395), the Empire was divided into an Eastern and a Western Roman Empire.
The Western Empire, under the pressure of the barbarian invasions, eventually dissolved in 476 AD when its last emperor, Romulus
Augustulus, was deposed by the Germanic chief Odoacer. The Eastern half of the Empire survived for another thousand years.
Odoacer's rule came to an end when the Ostrogoths, under the leadership of Theodoric, conquered Italy. Decades later,
the armies of Eastern Emperor Justinian entered Italy with the goal of re-establishing imperial Roman rule, which led to
the Gothic War (535–554 AD) that devastated the whole country with famine and epidemics. This ultimately allowed another
Germanic tribe, the Lombards, to take control over vast regions of Italy. The Lombard kingdom was subsequently absorbed into
the Frankish Empire by Charlemagne in the late 8th century and became part of the Holy Roman Empire. The Franks
also helped the formation of the Papal States in central Italy.
In 1176 a league of city-states, the Lombard League, defeated the German emperor Frederick Barbarossa at the
Battle of Legnano, thus ensuring effective independence for most of northern and central Italian cities.
In the south, the Normans occupied the Lombard and Byzantine possessions. In 1130, Roger II of Sicily
began his rule as the first king of the Norman Kingdom of Sicily; he had succeeded in uniting all the Norman conquests in
Southern Italy into one kingdom with a strong centralized government.
Between the 12th and 13th centuries, Italy developed a peculiar political pattern, significantly different from feudal Europe north
of the Alps. As no dominant powers emerged as they did in other parts of Europe, the oligarchic city-state became the prevalent
form of government. During the 13th and 14th centuries these cities grew to become major financial and commercial centres.
Milan, Florence and Venice, as well as several other Italian city-states, played a crucial innovative role in financial
development, devising the main instruments and practices of banking and the emergence of new forms of social and economic organization.
In coastal and southern areas, the maritime republics grew to eventually dominate the Mediterranean and monopolise trade routes
to the Orient. The four best known maritime republics were Venice, Genoa, Pisa and Amalfi.
The foreign invasions of Italy known as the Italian Wars began with the 1494 invasion by France that wreaked widespread
devastation on Northern Italy and ended the independence of many of the city-states. Originally arising from dynastic disputes over
the Duchy of Milan and the Kingdom of Naples, the wars rapidly became a general struggle for power and territory among their various
participants, marked with an increasing number of alliances, counter-alliances, and betrayals.
The French were routed by Holy Roman Emperor Charles V at the Battle of Pavia (1525) and again in the War of the
League of Cognac (1526–30). Eventually, after years of inconclusive fighting, with the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis (1559)
the many states of northern Italy remained part of the Holy Roman Empire, indirectly subject to the Austrian Habsburgs, while
all of Southern Italy (Naples, Sicily, Sardinia) and Milan were under Spanish Habsburg rule.
The history of Italy from 1559 to 1814 was characterized by the domination of foreign nations over Italy, and corresponds to the period
that began in 1559 with the end of the Italian Wars and ended in 1814 with the fall of Napoleon. The following period was characterized
by political and social unrest which then led to the unification of Italy, which culminated in 1861 with the proclamation of the
Kingdom of Italy.
In 1866, Italy declared war on Austria in alliance with Prussia and received the region of Veneto following their victory. Italian troops
entered Rome in 1870, ending more than one thousand years of Papal temporal power.
Italy entered into a Triple Alliance with the German Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1882, following strong disagreements
with France about their respective colonial expansions. Although relations with Berlin became very friendly, the alliance with Vienna
remained purely formal, due in part to Italy's desire to acquire Trentino and Trieste from Austria-Hungary. As a result, Italy accepted
the British invitation to join the Allied Powers during World War I, as the western powers promised territorial compensation
(at the expense of Austria-Hungary) for participation that was more generous than Vienna's offer in exchange for Italian neutrality.
Victory in the war gave Italy a permanent seat in the Council of the League of Nations.
The socialist agitations that followed the devastation of the Great War, inspired by the Russian Revolution, led to counter-revolution
and repression throughout Italy. The liberal establishment, fearing a Soviet-style revolution, started to endorse the small National
Fascist Party, led by Benito Mussolini.
In October 1922 the Blackshirts of the National Fascist Party attempted a mass demonstration and a coup named the "March on Rome"
which failed but at the last minute, King Victor Emmanuel III refused to proclaim a state of siege and appointed Mussolini
prime minister, thereby transferring political power to the fascists without armed conflict.
Over the next few years, Mussolini banned all political parties and curtailed personal liberties, thus forming a dictatorship.
Fascist Italy became a leading member of the Axis Powers in World War II. By 1943, the German-Italian defeat on multiple fronts
and the subsequent Allied landings in Sicily led to the fall of the Fascist regime.
Shortly after the war and the country's liberation, civil discontent led to the institutional referendum on whether Italy would
remain a monarchy or become a republic. On 2 June 1946 italians decided to abandon the monarchy and form the Italian Republic,
the present-day Italian state.
In the 1950s and 1960s the country enjoyed a prolonged economic boom, which was accompanied by a dramatic rise in the standard of living
of ordinary Italians. The so-called Italian economic miracle lasted almost uninterruptedly until the "Hot Autumn's"
massive strikes and social unrest of 1969–70, that combined with the later 1973 oil crisis, gradually cooled the economy.
From the late 1960s until the early 1980s, the country experienced the Years of Lead, a period characterised by economic crisis,
widespread social conflicts and terrorist massacres carried out by opposing extremist groups, with the alleged involvement of US and Soviet
intelligence. The Years of Lead culminated in the assassination of the Christian Democrat leader Aldo Moro in 1978 and the
Bologna railway station massacre in 1980, where 85 people died.
During the 1990s and the 2000s, centre-right (dominated by media magnate Silvio Berlusconi) and centre-left coalitions (led by
university professor Romano Prodi) alternately governed the country. Amidst the Great Recession, Berlusconi resigned in 2011, and
his conservative government was replaced by the technocratic cabinet of Mario Monti.
The 2018 general election was characterised by a strong showing of the Five Star Movement and the League and the university professor
Giuseppe Conte became the Prime Minister at the head of a populist coalition between these two parties.
In February 2021, after a government crisis within his majority, Conte was forced to resign and Mario Draghi, former president
of the European Central Bank, formed a national unity government supported by almost all the main parties.
On 22 October 2022, Giorgia Meloni was sworn in as Italy's first female prime minister. Her Brothers of Italy party formed a
right-wing government with the far-right League and Berlusconi's Forza Italia.
I visited Italy in march 2011
Due to problems with the Argentina radar-system at the airport of Buenos Aires
i was stuck for one day at the airport in Rome.
During this stop, i visited Ostia
My last visit was in juli 2019
During this trip, i visited Vall d'Aosta
Please let me know when you're having questions.
i would be pleased to help you.
Things to do and other tips
