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Greeks settled in the southern tip of the Italian peninsula in the eighth and seventh centuries B.C.; Etruscans, Romans, celtic populations, and others inhabited the central and northern mainland. Between the 5th and the beginning of the 3rd centuries B.C., the peninsula was unified under the Roman Republic through a series of wars and alliance pacts. After the victory in the Punic wars against the rival city of Carthage (3rd and 2nd centuries B.C.), Rome controlled most of the Western Mediterranean and its influence was rapidly growing in the East. In the 1st century A.D., the roman state effectively dominated the whole Mediterranean world but was subject to several civil wars, leading to the transformation into the Roman Empire. In the 4th century A.D., the empire was split into eastern and western halves by emperors Diocletian and Constantine; Constantine also stopped opposing the diffusion of the Christian religion, which rapidly became the main religion in the empire. The Eastern part (a.k.a. Byzantine Empire) lasted for another millennium, but the Western part rapidly collapsed, including Italy.
After the 5th century A.D., the peninsula and islands were subjected to a series of invasions (Goths, Byzantines, Longobards, Franks, Arabs, Vikings), and political unity was lost. Italy became an oft-changing succession of small states, principalities, and kingdoms, which fought among themselves and were subject to ambitions of foreign powers. The catholic church was often seen as the only stable institution, and acquired great political power: the Popes of Rome directly ruled over central Italy, but they had a large influence over all the rest of Italy and of christian Europe; rivalries between the popes and the Holy Roman Emperors, who claimed Italy as their domain, often made the peninsula a battleground.
Beginning in the 11th century, Italian cities in the northern and central regions such as Venice, Milan, and Florence enjoyed an era of commercial prosperity and transformed into practically independent city-states, despite the opposition of the Empire (to whom they remained nominally subject); instead the south and Sicily formed a unified kingdom under a series of foreign dynasties (Normans, Hohenstaufen, Angevins, Aragonesess). Despite the everlasting struggles with foreign powers and within themselves, the northern cities wealth continued to grow, leading to great intellectual and artistical achievements such as those Dante, Giotto and of the italian Renaissance masters (such as Michelangelo, Leonardo and Raffaello). This golden age ended in the 16th century, when the italian city-states became prey of larger national states such as France and Spain.
At the beginning of the 16th century Italy started to suffer the effects of an economic crisis due to the move of the main trade routes from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic. Most of the small and weak Italian states were defeated by foreign powers (mainly Spain); some of them (e.g. Milan and Naples) were annexed, others (e.g. Venice and Florence) were reduced to a lesser role. The papacy lost much of its importance both because of military defeats and of Protestant Reformation, which deeply weakened the catholic church.
In order to prevent the further expansion of protestantism, the church endorsed the wars of the emperor Charles V (who was also king of Spain) and his successors, and started the so-called Counter-Reformation, with which it established a strict control over intellectual life in catholic countries. In Italy, this resulted in the condemnations of philosophers Giordano Bruno (who was burned at the stake) and Tommaso Campanella, and of the scientist Galileo Galilei. Such suffocating control, together with the economical crisis, put an end to Italian cultural leadership. As a result, the country steadily declined in the following centuries.
At the end of the 18th century, Italy was almost in the same political conditions as in the 16th century; the only differences were that Austrian empire had replaced Spain as the dominant foreign power, and that the dukes of Savoy (a mountainous region at the border between Italy and France) had largely increased their italian possessions, which now included the north-western region of Piedmont and the island of Sardinia. This situation deeply changed in 1796, when french armies led by Napoleon invaded Italy; even if the states they created (such as the Cisalpine Republic) were essentially satellites of France, they started a nationalist movement.
These states did not survive the fall of Napoleon, and the Congress of Vienna left Italy divided between Austria (in the north-east and Lombardy), the kingdom of Sardinia in the northwest and in Sardinia, the kingdom of the two Sicilies in the south and in Sicily, and the Tuscany, the Papal States and some other minor states in the centre. After several unsuccessful revolutionary attempts (the most important of which was in 1848, when the revolutionaries united their forces with those the king of Sardinia Carlo Alberto but were defeated nonetheless), the situation changed rapidly between 1859 and 1861: in 1859 the prime minister of the kingdom of Sardinia, Cavour, forged an alliance with the french emperor Napoleon III, and defeated Austria, conquering Lombardy; this led also to the annexation some territories in central Italy, including Tuscany. In 1860 Giuseppe Garibaldi led the a revolutionary expedition to Sicily and southern Italy, where he repeatedly defeated the Bourbon army, overthrowing the king and offering his conquests to king Victor Emmanuel II of Sardinia. In 1861 the kingdom of Italy was solemnly proclaimed.
At the beginning the new state did not include Rome (which remained under papal rule until 1870) and the north-eastern provinces around Venice (most of which were annexed in 1866, after a new war with Austria).
From 1861 until 1922, Italy was a constitutional monarchy with a parliament, mostly elected with restricted suffrage (in 1913, the first universal male suffrage election was held). The so called Statuto Albertino, which Carlo Alberto conceded in 1848 remained unchanged, even if the kings usually abstained from abusing their extremely large powers (for example, senators were not elected but chosen by the king).
The new state faced immense problems, both because of the widespread poverty and illiteracy (especially in the south), and the deep cultural differences between the various parts of Italy: there were even peasant insurrections asking for the return of former rulers.
Although there was no real political party, the political life was dominated by liberals, divided into two factions, Destra (right) and Sinistra (left). In 1882 Italy signed the defensive Triple Alliance with Austria-Hungary and Germany, and some years later it started colonial expansion in the african territory of Eritrea and then of part of Somalia, but the attempt to conquer neighbouring Ethiopia failed miserably in 1896. This, together with social unrest in 1898 and the assassination of king Umberto I in 1900 almost led to an authoritarian regime. Instead, the figure of Giovanni Giolitti emerged. Despite widespread corruption, his governments accelerated the modernization of the country (for example, they introduced universal male suffrage). However in 1911 he bowed to nationalist pressure and started a successful war with the Ottoman empire, conquering Lybia and some islands in the Aegean Sea.
At the beginning of World War I Italy remained neutral, since the war was started by Austria, and the Triple Alliance had only defensive purposes. However, both the central empires and the Entente tried to attract Italy on their size, and in 1915 the italian government agreed to declare war on Austria in exchange for several territories (Trento, Trieste, Istria, Dalmatia). The italian parliament, initially against the intervention, approves this pact only after king Victor Emmanuel III threatens to abdicate. On May 23, 1915, Italy entered the war on the side of the Entente.
Despite the numerical superiority, the poorly equipped italian army was unable to achieve significant progress on the north-eastern border with Austria, and the military situation rapidly reached a stalemate, with trench warfare on the whole front. In october 1917 the Austrian broke the italian lines at Caporetto, but the italians (helped by their allies) stopped their advance on the river Piave. After another year of trench warfare, and a successful italian offensive in autumn 1918, the exhausted Austria surrendered to the allies, soon followed by Germany.
Under the postwar settlement, Italy received most of the territories which were promised in the 1915 agreement, except for Dalmatia, which was given to the newly formed Yugoslavia. This was enough to generate a lot of discontent between nationalists, who started talking about "crippled victory". Furthermore, the parliament elected in 1919 had strong socialist and catholic parties, which effectively prevented the formation of a stable government, and the years 1919-1920 are called "il Biennio rosso" - the two red years because some Italian workers, inspired by the Russian revolution began taking over their factories, mills, farms and workplaces. The liberal establishment, for fear of a socialist revolution started to endorse the small Fascist Party, led by Benito Mussolini (a former socialist turned nationalist), whose opposition to the strikes by means of a violent party militia (the "Black shirts") was often compared to the relatively pacific reactions of the government, whose forces refrained from unnecessary violence. After several years of struggle, in october 1922 the fascists attempted a coup (the so-called March upon Rome) but the king, rather than crushing them, decided to form an alliance with Mussolini, who became prime minister with the endorsement of the liberal party. Over the next few years, he eliminated political parties (including the liberals) and curtailed personal liberties with the pretext of the fear of a revolution. The fascists finally installed a dictatorship termed the Corporate State. The king Victor Emmanuel III endorsed the change and remained titular head of state.
In 1929 Mussolini signed the Lateran Pacts with the Catholic Church (with whom Italy was at odds since the annexation of Rome in 1870) which led to the formation of the state of Vatican City, which (despite its tiny size) is recognized by Italy as an independent, sovereign entity. He was initially in friendly terms with France and Britain, but the situation changed in 1935, when Italy invaded Ethiopia despite their opposition, so that Italy strengthened its ties with Nazi Germany. These ties soon transformed into a military alliance, first with the intervention of both powers in the Spanish Civil War, then with the signature (together with Japan) of the Anti-Comintern pact against international communism, and then with the mutual endorsement of the annexations of Austria and parts of Czechoslovakia (by Germany) and of Albania (by Italy).
At the beginning of World War II Italy remained neutral (with the consent of Hitler), but it declared war on France and Britain on June 10, 1940, when the French defeat was apparent. Mussolini believed that Britain would beg for peace, and wanted "some hundred casualties in order to get a seat at the peace table", but it proved to be a huge miscalculation. With the exception of the navy, the Italian armed forces were a major disappointment for Mussolini and Hitler, and German help was constantly needed in Greece and North Africa.
After the declaration of war by the United States at the end of 1941 and the subsequent failed invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 and 1942, the situation for the Axis started to deteriorate. In May 1943 the Allied forces completely defeated the Italians and the Germans in North Africa, and in July they landed in Sicily. King Victor Emmanuel III finally acted by arresting Mussolini and appointing the army chief of staff, Marshal Pietro Badoglio, as Prime Minister.
The new government officially continued the war against the Allies and also started secret negotiations with them. Hitler did not trust Badoglio, and moved a large German force into Italy, with the pretext of fighting the Anglo-American invasion. On September 8, 1943 the Badoglio government announced an armistice with the Allies, but did not declare war on Germany, leaving the army without instructions. Badoglio and the royal family abandoned Rome and fled into the Allied-controlled region. Exploiting the confusion, the Germans quickly occupied all of Italy (except the areas controlled by the Allies). The Germans also freed Mussolini, who then formed the fascist Italian Social Republic, in the German-controlled areas. While the Allied troops slowly pushed the German resistance to the north (Rome was liberated in June 1944, Milan in April 1945) the monarchic government finally declared war on Germany, and an anti-fascist popular resistance movement grew, harassing German forces before the Anglo-American forces drove them out in April 1945.
In the final phases of the war, the discredited king Victor Emmanuel III tried to raise the prestige of the monarchy by nominating his son and heir Umberto II "general liutenant of the kingdom", and promising that after the end of the war the italian people could choose its form of government through a referendum. This referendum was held on June 2, 1946, and it was the first case in which women were allowed to vote, in Italy. Despite the abdication of Victor Emmanuel III one month before (Umberto II was thought to have much better chances), the monarchy lost, and the members of the royal family had to go in exile. A constituent assembly was elected to write a constitution for the new republic, which became law on January 1, 1948.
The birth of the Italian Republic was however object of deep discussion, mainly because of some contested results.
Under the 1947 peace treaty, minor adjustments were made in Italy's frontier with France, the eastern border area was transferred to Yugoslavia, and the area around the city of Trieste was designated a free territory. In 1954, the free territory, which had remained under the administration of U.S.-U.K. forces (Zone A, including the city of Trieste) and Yugoslav forces (Zone B), was divided between Italy and Yugoslavia, principally along the zonal boundary. This arrangement was made permanent by the Italian-Yugoslav Treaty of Osimo, ratified in 1977 (currently being discussed by Italy, Slovenia, and Croatia). Under the 1947 peace treaty, Italy also relinquished its overseas territories (Eritrea, Somalia, Ethiopia and Libya) and certain eastern mediterranean islands.
After the war, Italian politics was dominated by the Democrazia Cristiana (DC), and his leader De Gasperi, who won the decisive 1948 elections against am leftist front composed of the Partito Comunista Italiano (PCI, led by Togliatti) and the Partito Socialista Italiano (PSI, led by Nenni). However, the DC soon needed help from other parties, and starting in the fifties it found several allies: the liberals, the republicans, the social democrats and, most important of all, the socialists of the PSI, after they abandoned their alliance with the communists. With their help, the DC held the government for about 45 years, despite the perennial internal struggles after the death of De Gasperi. The main opposition party was the PCI; it was probably the largest communist party in western Europe but it was never able to break the DC hegemony. Another relevant opposition party (although much smaller than the PCI) was the Movimento Sociale Italiano (MSI), which was mainly composed of ex-fascists.
In the fifties Italy became a member of the NATO alliance and an ally of the United States, who helped to revive the Italian economy through the Marshall Plan. In the same years, Italy also became a member of the European Economical Community (EEC), which later transformed into the European Union (EU). Despite problems such as criminal organizations (such as the mafia) and the deep corruption of the Italian political system, the country benefited from rapid economic growth and reached levels comparable with those of other advanced economies such as France and Britain. After the student agitations at the end of the sixties, in the seventies Italy faced a severe internal terrorism campaign, mostly from the extreme left movement of the Red Brigades, but also from extreme right movements and uncontrolled parts of the secret services, which was stopped only in the early eighties.
In the eighties, for the first time, two governments were led by a republican and a socialist (Bettino Craxi) rather than by a member of DC (which anyway remained the main force behind the government). The Craxi government was particularly notable for the 1984 revision of the Lateran Pacts with the Vatican, which included the end of Roman Catholicism as Italy's formal state religion.
At the beginning of the nineties the italian political world was deeply shaken by a series of corruption scandals (collectively known as Mani Pulite, "Clean Hands") involving all the major parties, but especially those in the government coalition: between 1992 and 1994 the DC underwent a severe crisis and split up into several pieces, while the PSI (and other minor parties such as republicans, liberals and social democrats) literally melted away. The PCI no longer existed, having recently split into the Partito Democratico della Sinistra (Left Democratic Party; PDS), which was moving towards the centre of the political spectrum, and the Partito della Rifondazione Comunista (Communist Refoundation Party; PRC), which vowed to remain communist. The void on the center-right side was filled by the MSI, which changed its name into Alleanza Nazionale (National Allience; AN) and by two new parties, the Lega Nord (Northern League), which ran on a semi-racist platform (sometimes advocating even the formation of a separate northern italian state), and, most importantly, by Forza Italia ("Come on, Italy!"; FI), the populist party formed by the media tychoon Silvio Berlusconi, which became a polarizing figure in italian politics.
This "revolution" of the italian political landscape, happened at the time when some minor institutional reforms (such as changes in the electoral laws intended to diminish the power of political parties) were taking place. For this reason, italian politic commentators indicate the post 1992 period as "Second Republic", even if this term is not completely appropriate since there was no major constitutional amendment.
Berlusconi, allied with the Lega Nord, AN and some former christian democrats managed to win the 1994 elections, but his government lasted less than one year because of the defection of Lega Nord, which for a year endorsed a new "technical" government with large parts of Berlusconi's opponents.
The 1996 elections were won by a loose center-left coalition formed by PDS, Partito Popolare Italiano (Italian Popular Party; PPI), one of the largest surviving pieces of the former DC, and several other small parties, with the "external endorsement" of the communists of PRC. Despite the good economical results which allowed Italy to participate to the formation of the common european currency (the Euro), Prime Minister Romano Prodi (from the PPI) had to resign in 1999 because of internal quarrels; his successors were Massimo D'Alema (leader of PDS) and Giuliano Amato (a former socialist who survived the corruption scandals).
Because of the divisions inside the center-left coalition, and of a renewed alliance with the Lega Nord, the coalition led by Berlusconi (formed by Forza Italia, AN, Lega Nord and some "pieces" of the former DC) easily won the 2001 elections, and Silvio Berlusconi is the current italian prime minister (february 2004).
The Romans
The Middle Ages and the Renaissance
Foreign domination
Italian unification
From unification to world war
The First World War
The Fascist Regime
The Second World War
Birth of the Italian Republic
Italian Politics after World War II: The DC years
The "Second Republic"
References
