1. FROM THE SIGNORIE TO THE GAME OF EUROPEAN SOVEREIGNS (XV-XVI sec.)

After the peace of Lodi Italy remained divided into big states which, more or less, would have marked it until its unity: the Republic of Venice, the Dukedom of Milan, the Dukedom of Savoy, the Republic of Florence, the Republic of Siena, the State of the Church, the Kingdom of Neaples, and other small states competed by these powers. This balance however lasted less than a century.

1492 was, more than the year of the discovery of America, the year of the break of Italian political and military balnce, because of some elements. First of all it is necessary to remember the death of two great kings and diplomats who had marked their century: Pope Innocent VIII and above all Laurence de’ Medici, nicknamed The Magnificent. This fact the already prcarious italian situation of alliances even more unsteady, instigating the expansionistic ambitions of Venice, Milan ond of the Papal State, govened by Alexander VI (Rodrigo Borgia), one among the popes who mostly pursued the policy of nepotism. For this purpose we can remember what Machiavelli told in his The Prince, about Cesare Borgia (the Valentino) a relative of the powerful Pope. But there is at last an other reason which compromised quickly the Italian political balances: the ascent and the reinforcement of the great European monarchies. Since time the monarchies of France and Spain, and the imperial one, were actually reinforcing their power and then they were getting ready for an expansionistic policy, beginning a game of wars and clashes which would have marked Europe for two centuries.

The conquest of Italy was begun by the king of France Charles VIII, but the roughest struggle happened between Francis I (king of France) and Charle V (king of Spain and German Emperor).
Italy welcomed the nvaders, hoping in a liberation from the oppressive governments of the seigniories, but soon the Italians realized that their international policy was by then becoming passive.This situation became more difficult because of a German Augustinian monk, who placarded his ninetyfive thesis against the Catholic Church on the door of the cathedral, on the 31st October 1517. The answer of thw Church was hard: after the excommunication, it applied to the institution of the Inquisition and to the Conter-Reformation, that is to say an alomst total control on the Italian and foreign (in catholic counties) Catholics’ life.

The Counter-Reformation, the Inquisition and the Index Librorum Prohibitorum had considerable repercussions on the culture and on the Italian science, with effects which lasted for centuries.

Italy after the pace fo Lodi (1454)

2. ITALY BETWEEN '600 AND '700

The Seventeenth century was the epoch of one of the longest and bloodiest wars in human history. For thirty years (1618 - 1648) a wide part of central Europe and of the central-nothern Itlay were the theatre of militaliry and political clashes, often hidden behind religious aims. The end of the war brought the beginning of an epidemic of plague. Italy was in a situation of gret crisis and in demographic decline, moreover the control exercised by the Church on the intellectual activity was still opposing the influence of modern and revolutionary ideas like, for example, those of Galileo. 

In spite of the decline of other Italian States, the Sixteenth century ended with the birth of a new state, which was active in international politics: the Dukedom of Savoy. Just in this epoch the Dukedom chose its belonging to the Italian culture (rather than the French one) moving its capital in Turin and decreeing Italian as an official language. These choices came out as decisive for the future lot of Italian indipendence.

The Republic of Venice was not any more the commercial centre of Europe: since time the Turks dominated the Mediterranean Sea threatening the Venetian garrisons in Istria and Dalmatia, while its commercial role had rapidly declined after the discovery of America and the circumnavigation of Africa, which had brought new markets and more reasonable prices than those of Venice.

he Great Dukedom of Tuscany was not in a good condition, after the ending of the Medici’s dynasty also the Gret Dukedom began a fast decline, due to the stagnant trades. The situation improved when the government was took on by the Asburgo-Lorena, who raised again, at least partially, the lot of the Great Dukedom.

The State of the Church was by then losing his international (both temporal and spiritual) prestige, the economy of the temporal state had non dynamic field and the revenues often came from the confiscation of goods which belonged to religious orders. The State of the Church sided for long time with Austria and Spain, and so against French sovereigns.

During the Spanish domination the Kingdom of Neaples became a Vicekingdom. But the decline was not due only to the political subordination, in the vicekingdom did not exist any active social class and the major part of the population was constituted by very poor people (the socalled lazzari) who were subdued to a feudal aristocracy. This aristocracy wanted to maintain its privileges and exerted an imposing pressure on the viceroy, preventing him from any form of renewal. The tensions seldom found their expression in social revolts (the one of Masaniello in the XVII century is famous), but nothing was upset until the conquest by Savoy.

In spite of these worse introductions of the Seventeenth century, the Eighteenth century was a century of resumption for the Italian states. However European ideas began to circulate. But Italian international policy was by then "all water under the bridge" and the only state which was preparing to appear in Europe was the Dukedom of Savoy; in the meanwhile the Austrian power appropriated the Republic of Venice and the Lombardy, changing them into regions of the empire (Lombard - Venetia).