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The word Italy derives from the Homeric (Aeolic) word Ital, which
means "bull". Excavations throughout Italy have found proof of
people in Italy dating back to the Palaeolithic period (the "Old
Stone Age") some 200,000 years ago.
The first Greek settlers, who arrived in Italy from Euboea island
the 8th century BC, possibly named their new land "land of bulls".
Italy has influenced the cultural and social development of the
whole Mediterranean area, deeply influencing European culture
as well. As a result, it has also influenced other important cultures.
Such cultures and civilisations have existed there since prehistoric
times.
After Magna Graecia, the Etruscan civilisation and especially
the Roman Republic and Empire that dominated this part of the
world for many centuries, Italy was central to European science
and art during the Renaissance. Center of the Roman civilisation
for centuries, Italy lost its unity after the collapse of the
Roman Empire and subsequent barbaric invasions. Briefly reunited
under Byzantium (552), was occupied by the Longobards in 568,
resulting in the peninsula becoming irreparably divided. For centuries
the country was the prey of different populations, resulting in
its ultimate decadence and misery. Most of the population fled
from cities to take refuge in the countryside under the protection
of powerful feudal lords.
After the Longobards came the Franks (774). Italy became part
of the Holy Roman Empire, later to become the Holy Roman Germanic
Empire. Charles the Great created the first nucleus of the State
of the Vatican, which later became a strong countervailing force
against any unification of the country. Population and economy
started slowly to pick up after 1000, with the resurgence of cities,
trade, arts and literature.
During the later Middle Ages the fragmentation of the peninsula,
especially in the northern and central parts of the country, continued,
while the southern part, with Naples, Apulia and Sicily, remained
under a single domination. Venice created a powerful commercial
empire in the Eastern part of the Mediterranean Sea and Black
Sea. The Black Death (1348) inflicted a terrible blow to Italy,
resulting in one third of the population killed by the disease.
The recovery from the disaster led to a new resurgence of cities,
trade and economy which greatly stimulated the successive phase
of the Humanism and Renaissance (XV-XVI) when Italy again returned
to be the center of Western civilisation, strongly influencing
the other European countries.
After one century where the fragmented system of Italian states
and principalities were able to maintain a relative independence
and a balance of power in the peninsula, in 1494 the French king
Charles VIII opened the first of a series of invasions, due to
last until half of the XVI century, and a competition between
France and Spain for the possession of the country. Ultimately
Spain prevailed (the treaty of Cateau-Cambresis in 1559 recognized
the Spanish possession of the Kingdom of Naples) and for almost
two centuries became the hegemon in Italy. The holy alliance between
reactionary catholic Spain and the Holy See resulted in the systematic
persecution of any protestant movement, with the result that Italy
remained a catholic country with marginal protestant presence.
The Spanish domination and the control of the Church resulted
in intellectual stagnation and economic decadence, also attributable
to the shifting of the main commercial routes from the Mediterranean
to the Atlantic. Austria succeeded Spain as hegemon in Italy after
the Peace of Utrecht (1713), having acquired the State of Milan
and the Kingdom of Naples. The Austrian domination, thanks also
to the Illuminism embraced by Absburgic emperors, was a considerable
improvement upon the Spanish one. The northern part of Italy,
under the direct control of Vienna, again recovered economic dynamism
and intellectual fervor, while the center, under control of the
Pope, stagnated in misery, and the south only marginally improved
its situation.
The French Revolution and the Napoleonic War (1796-1851) introduced
the modern ideas of equality, democracy, law and nation. The peninsula
was not a main field battle as in the past but Napoleon changed
completely its political map, destroying in 1799 the Republic
of Venice, which never recovered its independence. The states
founded by Napoleon with the support of minority groups of Italian
patriots were short-lived and did not survive the defeat of the
French Emperor in 1815. The Restoration had all the pre-Revolution
states restored with the exception of the Republic of Venice (forthwith
under Austrian control) and the Republic of Genoa (under Savoy
domination). Napoleon had nevertheless the merit to give birth
to the first national movement for unity and independence.
Albeit formed by small groups with almost no contact with the
masses, the Italian patriots and liberals staged several uprisings
in the decades up to 1860. Mazzini and Garibaldi were the most
famous and influential activists in this period, who combined
the hope of unity with social and economic reform for the impoverished
masses. From 1848 onwards the Italian patriots were openly supported
by Vittorio Emanuele II, the king of Sardinia, who put his arms
in the Italian tricolor dedicating the house of Savoy [[2]] to
the Italian unity.
The unification of Italy was obtained on March 17, 1861, after
a successful war (the Second War of Independence) against Austria
with the support of France, and after Giuseppe Garibaldi organized
an invasion of the Kingdom of Two Sicilies (Naples and Sicily)
in 1860. Vittorio Emanuele II became the first king of the united
Italy. The first unified state was plagued by a gruesome rebellion
of the Southern populations opposed to the new domination, by
economic stagnation, misery, illiteracy and a weak national consciousness.
Italian was spoken by a small part of the population while the
rest spoke local dialects which were mutually incomprehensible.
In 1866 Italy, albeit defeated by Austria in the Third War of
Independence (in that case Italy was allied with Prussia), obtained
Veneto and Venice from Austria. Rome itself remained for a little
less than a decade under the Papacy, and became part of the Kingdom
of Italy only on September 20, 1870, after Italian troops stormed
the city, until now protected by the French.
In 1878 Umberto I succeeded his father Vittorio Emanuele II as
King of Italy. He was killed by an anarchist in 1900 and succeeded
by his son Vittorio Emanuele III. Industrialisation and modernisation,
at least in the northern part of the country, started in the last
part of the XIX century under a protectionist regime. The south,
in the meanwhile, stagnated under overpopulation and underdevelopment,
so forcing millions of people to search for employment and better
conditions of life abroad. This lasted until 1970. It is calculated
that more than 26 million Italians migrated to France, Germany,
Switzerland, United States, Argentina, Brazil and Australia. Democracy
moved its first steps at the beginning of the XX century.
The 1848 Constitution provided for basic freedoms but the electoral
laws excluded the disposed and the uneducated from voting. Only
in 1913 the male universal suffrage was allowed. The Socialist
Party resulted the main political party, outclassing the traditional
liberal and conservative organizations. The path to a modern liberal
democracy was interrupted by the tragedy of the First World War
(1915-18), which Italy fought along with France and Great Britain.
Italy was able to beat the Austrian-Hungarian Empire in November
1918. It obtained Trento and Trieste and few territories on the
Dalmatian coast (Zara) and was considered a great power, but the
population had to pay a heavy human and social price.
The war produced more than 600,000 dead, inflation and unemployment,
economic and political instability, which in the end favoured
the fascist movement to reach power in 1922 with the tacit support
of King Vittorio Emanuele III who feared civil war and revolution.
The fascist dictatorship of Benito Mussolini lasted from 1922
to 1943 but in the first years Mussolini maintained the appearance
of a liberal democracy. After rigged elections in 1924 gave to
Fascism and its conservative allies an absolute majority in the
Parliament, Mussolini cancelled all democratic liberties on 3
January 1925.
He then proceeded to establish a totalitarian state, imposing
the control of the state upon all single social and political
activity. Political parties were banned, independent trade unions
were closed. The only permitted party was the National Fascist
Party. A secret police (OVRA) and a system of quasi-legal repression
(Tribunale Speciale) ensured the total control of the regime upon
Italians who, in their majority, either resigned or welcomed the
dictatorship, many considering it a last resort to stop the spread
of communism.
While relatively benign in comparison with Nazi Germany or Stalinist
Russia, several thousands people were incarcerated or exiled for
their opposition and several dozens were killed by fascist thugs
(Carlo Rosselli) or died in prison (Antonio Gramsci). Mussolini
tried to spread his authoritarian ideology to other European countries
and dictators such as Salazar in Portugal, Franco in Spain and
Hitler in Germany were heavily influenced by the Italian examples.
Conservative but democratic leaders in Great Britain and United
States were at the beginning favourable to Mussolini. Mussolini
tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to spread fascism amongst the millions
on Italians living abroad.
In 1929 Mussolini realised a pact with the Holy See, resulting
in the rebirth of an independent state of the Vatican for the
catholic church in the heart of Rome. In 1935 he declared with
a pretext war to Ethiopia which was subjugated in few months.
This resulted in the alienation of Italy from its traditional
allies, France and Great Britain, and its nearing to Nazi Germany.
A first pact with Germany was concluded in 1936 and then in 1938
(the Iron Pact). Italy supported Franco's revolution in Spanish
civil war and Hitler's pretensions in central Europe, accepting
the annexation of Austria to Germany in 1938, although the disappearance
of a buffer state between mighty Germany and Italy was the least
favourable for the country.
In October 1938 Mussolini managed to avoid the eruption of another
war in Europe, bringing together Great Britain, France and Germany
at the expense of Czechoslovakia's integrity. In April 1939 Italy
occupied Albania, a de-facto protectorate for decades, but in
September 1939, after the invasion of Poland, Mussolini wisely
decided not to intervene on Germany's side, due to the poor preparation
of the armed forces. Italy entered in war in June 1940 when France
was almost defeated. Mussolini hoped for a quick victory but Italy
showed from the very beginning the poor nature of its army and
the scarce ability of its generals.
Italy invaded Greece in October 1940 via Albania but after a few
days was forced to withdraw. After conquering British Somalia
in 1940, a counter-attack by the Allies led to the loss of the
whole Italian empire in the Horn of Africa. Italy was also defeated
in Northern Africa and saved only by the German armed forces leaded
by Rommel. After several defeats, Italy was invaded in May 1943.
In July 1943 King Vittorio Emanuele III staged a coup d'etat against
Mussolini, having him arrested. In September 1943 Italy surrendered.
It was immediately invaded by Germany and for nearly two years
the country was divided and became a battlefield. The Nazi-occupied
part of the country, where a puppet fascist state under Mussolini
was reconstituted, was the theatre of a savage civil between freedom
fighters (partigiani) and Nazi and fascist troops.
The country was liberated by a national uprising on 25 April 1945.
Particularly in the north agitation against the king ran high,
leftwing and communist armed partisans wanting to depose him as
being responsible for the fascist regime. Vittorio Emanuele gave
up the throne to his son Umberto II who again faced the possibility
of civil war. The Birth of the Italian Republic was created by
a rather hastily organised and makeshift popular referendum under
pressure of armed groups on 2 June 1946. Under these circumstances
the north of Italy voted for a republic, the south predominantly
for the monarchy.
The Republican Constitution was approved and entered into force
on 1 January 1948, the republican politicians being so unsure
of its legitimacy that they wrote the banning of all male members
of the house of Savoy from Italy explicitly into the constitution.
This stipulation was redressed in 2002. Since then Italy has experienced
a strong economic growth, particularly in the 50s and 60s, while
lifted the country among the most industrialized nations in the
world, with a perennial political instability. The Christian Democratic
Party and its liberal and social democratic allies ruled Italy
without interruptions from 1948 until 1994, marginalising the
main opposition party, the Italian Communist Party, until the
end of the cld war. In 1992-94 a series of scandals destroyed
the post-war political system.
New parties and coalition emerged: on the right, Forza Italia
of the media-mogul Silvio Berlusconi is the main successor of
the Christian Democrat party. On the left the Democrats of the
Left are the moderate successor of the Communist Party, while
the most liberal and progressive catholic politicians belong to
the Daisy (Margherita). In 1994 Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia
and its allies (National Alliance and the Northern League) won
the elections but the government collapsed because of its inconsistency
and incompetence after only a few months. In 1996 Romano Prodi's
center-left coalition won the election.
In 2001 the center-right took the government and Berlusconi was
able to remain in power for a complete five year mandate. The
last elections in 2006 returned Prodi in the government with a
slim majority. Italy is a founding member of the European Community,
European Union and NATO.
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