History of early modern Italy
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The history of early modern Italy roughly corresponds to the period from the Renaissance to the Congress of Vienna in 1814. 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.
Overview
The Italian Renaissance covered the 15th and 16th centuries of Italian history and brought about considerable economic and cultural development of the country. After 1600, however, Italy experienced an economic decline. In 1600 Northern and Central Italy comprised one of the most advanced industrial areas of Europe. There was an exceptionally high standard of living.[1] By 1814 Italy was an economically backward and depressed area; its industrial structure had almost collapsed, its population was too high for its resources, its economy had become primarily agricultural. Wars, political fractionalization, limited fiscal capacity and the shift of world trade to north-western Europe and the Americas were key factors.[2][3]
Following the
Piedmont returned to the Savoy from France due to the role played by the duke Emmanuel Philibert in the battle of St Quentin during the Italian War of 1551–1559. The House of Savoy was "Italianized" at the end of the Italian wars, as Emmanuel Philibert made Turin the capital of the savoyard state and Italian the official language.[6] The House of Medici kept ruling Florence, thanks to an agreement signed between the Pope and Charles V in 1530, and was later recognized as the ruling family of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany by Pope Pius V.[7] The same Pope arranged the Holy League, a coalition of Venice and other maritime states that defeated the invading Ottoman forces at the naval battle of Lepanto (1571).
The
Despite the victory at Lepanto, the
The
The
Napoleon, far more Italian than French, Italian by race, by instinct, imagination, and souvenir, considers in his plan the future of Italy, and, on casting up the final accounts of his reign, we find that the net loss is for France and the net profit is for Italy.[9]
16th to 18th centuries
The
Spanish and Austrian hegemony was not always based on direct rule; states such as Venice, Genoa, the Papal States, the duchies of Este, and Duchy of Savoy, were the only independent states, while a large part of the rest of Italy relied on the protection of Spain or Austria against external aggression. Furthermore, those areas under direct Spanish and (later) Austrian control were theoretically independent principalities bound to Spain and Austria through personal unions alone.
Italy began to experience an economic and social decline as the 16th century progressed. The Age of Discovery had shifted the center of trade in Europe from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, and so the Italian states lost much of their previous importance.[11] Venice continued to fight bitterly with the Ottoman Empire for control of outposts in the eastern Mediterranean. It participated in the great naval Battle of Lepanto in 1571, and in the following century battled the Turks in the Cretan War, when it gained control of the Peloponnese in Greece but lost Crete, Venice's largest and richest overseas possession. Venice experienced one last great martial triumph by helping to defeat the Ottoman Empire in the war of 1683–1699. By the 18th century, economic activity dwindled as the city withdrew in on itself and fell into stagnation, becoming easy pickings for the French revolutionary armies in 1796.[12]
The Papal States also lost much of their former power as the Protestant Reformation divided Europe into two camps. The remaining Catholic princes increasingly sought to be the masters in their own houses and often clashed with the papacy over jurdistrictional matters. During the unceasing rivalry between France and Spain, Europe's two great Catholic powers, the popes often acted as mediators.
As Spain declined in the 16th century, so did its Italian possessions in Naples, Sicily, Sardinia, and Milan. Southern Italy was impoverished, stagnant, and cut off from the mainstream of events in Europe. Naples was one of the continent's most overcrowded and unsanitary cities, with a crime-ridden and volatile populace.[15] The Neapolitan aristocracy long resented Spanish rule and welcomed the arrival of the Austrians in 1707. However, they were disappointed as Vienna continued the practice of not allowing any autonomy to Naples. While the war raged, Austria imposed huge tax burdens on the city and did not begin to provide it with any adequate administration until peace returned. Graf von Daun (viceroy of Naples from 1713 to 1719) attempted several reforms, but came into dispute with the church over jurisdictional matters. He largely succeeded in making peace with Rome, but international strife caused the Austrian emperors to impose more taxes on Naples and neglect all but the city's traditional feudal lords. Cardinal Michael Friedrich von Althann next became viceroy (1722–1728), but upset the nobility (already reeling from imperial taxes) and the middle class with his pro-clerical stance. Althann's downfall came by attempting to establish a state bank (the Banco di San Carlo) with the intention of acquiring crown lands for the Austrian emperor. He infuriated both the nobility and middle class with this ill-conceived campaign, and after his expulsion Naples suffered several tumultuous years of famine and social unrest, with international problems preventing any attempt at administrative reform. It was with relief that the Spanish born Don Carlos ascended the throne of a reborn Kingdom of Naples in 1734.[16] In 1759, he left to become King Charles III of Spain and was succeeded by his son Ferdinand, who was underage and so government was left to the regent Bernardo Tanucci. In the spirit of the Enlightenment, Tanucci attempted to establish a benevolent despotism by a series of reforms and weakening the power of traditional Neapolitan institutions.[17] Ferdinand came of age in 1767, but had little interest in government and was largely dominated by his wife the Archduchess Maria Carolina, who disliked Tanucci's pro-Spanish stance and managed to replace him with Sir John Acton, an English emigre. When the French Revolution erupted, they allied with Austria and Britain against France.
Sicily on the other hand experienced peaceful relations with Madrid, as the Spanish largely allowed the island to manage its own affairs. Since it was an important outpost in the Mediterranean as well as a significant trading partner of Spain, friendly ties were valued. After Sicily passed under Austrian rule in 1720, trouble erupted as Vienna stationed permanent garrisons of German-born troops on the island, provoking frequent and violent confrontations with the local populace.[18] The corruption and backwardness of Sicilian society made it difficult to establish a working government, and much like Naples Sicily was forced to pay massive taxes and tribute to Vienna.
However, Emperor Charles VI attempted to build up Sicily's economy by turning Messina and other locations into important ports so as to attract foreign commerce, as well as shore up the island's failing grain and silk industries. But the emperor could not offset an economic downturn that was beyond his control, and many of his projects proved unfeasible, ultimately causing a near-total economic meltdown.
Charles had a tricky religious situation in Sicily where the king traditionally served as apostolic legate, which he sought to maintain at all costs while also promising to defend the Catholic faith. He and his ministers successfully debated the legateship with the popes and made peace with the Vatican. In the end however, Austrian rule made little lasting impact on Sicily and Spanish troops took possession of the island in 1734.[18]
Sardinia also was left to itself and many Spaniards settled on the island, which had an economy mostly based on sheepherding and which had little contact with the rest of Italy. Corsica passed from the Republic of Genoa to France in 1769 after the Treaty of Versailles. Italian was the official language of Corsica until 1859.[19]
Age of Enlightenment
The Enlightenment played a distinctive, if small, role in 18th century Italy, 1685–1789.
Italy in the Napoleonic era
At the end of the 18th century, Italy was almost in the same political conditions as in the 16th century; the main differences were that
The French Revolution had attracted considerable attention in Italy since its beginning, inasmuch as the reform attempts of enlightened despots throughout the 18th century proved largely abortive. Masonic lodges sprang up in large numbers during this period where radical changes were discussed by the intelligentsia, away from the clumsy efforts mentioned above.[25]
Predictably, the establishment in Italy was totally hostile to the ideas coming out of France and harsh crackdowns were launched on dissent. As early as 1792, French armies had penetrated Italian soil, and that same year, the impoverished Piedmontese peasants warned their king that he might too face justice as had happened to Louis XVI in France. The middle class in Rome revolted against the Vatican's political power, and their counterparts in Venice along with the nobility denounced that city's government.
However, most of these protests accomplished little outside of Piedmont and Naples, and in the south a conspiracy hatched by pro-republican Freemasons was discovered and the ringleaders executed. Dozens of dissenters fled to France in the aftermath of the trials. One of these dissenters, Filippo Buonarroti, a member of an ancient Tuscan noble family, returned to Italy along with the French armies and briefly set up a revolutionary government in the Ligurian town of Oneglia.[26] The privileges of the nobility were abolished and the Church establishment replaced by a universalist cult of the Supreme Being. But after Robespierre (whom Bonouarti modeled his government on) fell from power in France, he was summoned back home and his experiment quickly ended.
This situation was shaken in 1796, when the French
In October 1797 Napoleon signed the
After the War of the First Coalition ended, French aggression in Italy continued unabated, and in 1798 they occupied Rome, sent the Pope into exile, and set up a republic there. When Napoleon left for Egypt, King Ferdinand VI of Sicily retook Rome and reinstated the papacy. But almost as soon as his armies departed, the French returned and occupied Naples. Ferdinand's court was taken into exile by a British fleet. Another republic was set up (the Parthenopean) which governed in a more radical and democratic fashion than the others. But Ferdinand skillfully organized a counterrevolt led by his agent Cardinal Fabrizio Ruffo, who landed in Italy and rallied a peasant mob, which then retook Naples and proceeded to pillage and destroy the manor homes of the hated nobility. There were also mass murders of bourgeois who had supported the French. Afterwards, Ferdinand returned to his capital in triumph. 100 revolutionary leaders were summarily tried and executed.
In northern Italy, the French occupied Tuscany during the spring of 1799 until another peasant uprising drove them out. Jews and suspected Jacobins were lynched en masse by the mob, and the nobility and Church quickly regained power.[28] That fall, the Roman Republic also collapsed and the French were by now virtually cleared from Italy.
After seizing power as consul in France, Napoleon launched a renewed invasion of Italy. Milan fell on June 2, 1800 and Austrian defeats there and in Germany ended the War of the Second Coalition. Austria retained only control of Venetia, while France dominated the whole rest of northern Italy, leaving only the weak papal and Neapolitan states in the south. Napoleon over the next few years coalesced his Italian possessions into a single Republic of Italy, ruled by one Francesco Melzi d'Eril. But in 1805, he decided to convert the republic into a kingdom ruled by his stepson Eugene D'Beauharnais. The Kingdom of Italy was gradually expanded as Austria relinquished Venetia in 1806 and other bits of territory were added. Still other Italian regions were annexed directly into France. In 1809, the French reoccupied Rome and took Pope Pius VII prisoner.
Ferdinand VI's dominions in southern Italy remained independent for the first few years of the 19th century, but they were too weak to resist a concerted attack, and a French army swiftly occupied Naples in early 1806. Ferdinand's court fled to Sicily where they enjoyed British protection.[29] Napoleon appointed his brother Joachim as king of Naples, but he governed only the mainland as Sicily and Sardinia remained outside of French control. During the years of Bourbon exile in Sicily, the British came to exercise political control over the island and forced Ferdinand to impose several democratic reforms. But when the Napoleonic Wars ended in 1815 and the king returned to Naples, he resumed governing as an absolute monarch.
Joachim Bonaparte meanwhile pursued an independent policy from France, instituting several reforms that strengthened the middle class in Naples. However, he along with the rest of Napoleon's satellite rulers fell from power in 1814–15.
In 1805, after the French victory over the
In 1809, Bonaparte occupied Rome, and conflicted with the pope, who had excommunicated him. To maintain the efficiency of the state[30] he exiled the Pope first to Savona and then to France, and taking the Papal States' art collections back to the Louvre. The conquest of Russia that Napoleon undertook in 1811 marked the end of the apogee of Italians' support for Napoleon, because many Italians died in this failed campaign.
After Russia, other states of Europe re-allied themselves and defeated Napoleon at the
On Napoleon's escape and return to France (the
Aftermath
With the fall of Napoleon (1814) and the restoration of the
Between 1820 and 1861, a sequence of events led to the
See also
- Sister republic
- 130 departments of the First French Empire (including former Italian territories annexed by the First French Empire)
- List of historic states of Italy
- King of Italy (including the list of the modern kings of Italy)
References
- S2CID 219359647.
- ^ Carlo M. Cipolla, “The Decline of Italy: The Case of a Fully Matured Economy.” abFZxxxx Economic History Review 5#2 1952, pp. 178–187. online
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- ^ "Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis | European history". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved February 7, 2021.
- ^ "Treaty Of Cateau-cambresis | Encyclopedia.com". www.encyclopedia.com. Retrieved February 7, 2021.
- ^ "Emanuele Filiberto (Chambery, 1528 - Torino, 1580)" (in Italian). Retrieved December 18, 2021.
- ^ "Papa Pio V incorona Cosimo de' Medici granduca di Toscana" (in Italian). Retrieved December 18, 2021.
- ISBN 9780520081161– via Google Books.
- ^ Taine, H. A. (May 1, 1891). "Napoleon's Views of Religion". The North American Review – via Internet Archive.
- ^ A Military History of Italy. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 19.
- ^ "La scoperta dell'America e l'arrivo dei conquistadores nel Nuovo mondo" (in Italian). May 3, 2018. Retrieved December 18, 2021.
- ^ "Venezia1600. Dalla Serenissima Signoria all'annessione al Regno d'Italia" (in Italian). April 17, 2021. Retrieved December 18, 2021.
- ^ "Leóne XI papa" (in Italian). Retrieved December 18, 2021.
- ^ "Voltaire e gli illuministi francesi" (in Italian). Retrieved December 18, 2021.
- ISBN 9788835102878. Retrieved December 18, 2021.
- ^ "CARLO III di Borbone, re di Spagna" (in Italian). Retrieved December 18, 2021.
- ^ "Tanucci, Bernardo" (in Italian). Retrieved December 18, 2021.
- ^ a b "La storia della Sicilia" (in Italian). Retrieved December 18, 2021.
- ^ Abalain, Hervé, (2007) Le français et les langues historiques de la France, Éditions Jean-Paul Gisserot, p.113
- ^ Dino Carpanetto and Giuseppe Ricuperati, Italy in the Age of Reason, 1685–1789 (1987).
- ^ Burr Litchfield, "Italy" in Kors, ed., Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment (2003) 2:270-76
- ^ Niccolò Guasti, "Antonio genovesi's Diceosina: Source of the Neapolitan Enlightenment." History of European ideas 32.4 (2006): 385-405.
- ^ Pier Luigi Porta, "Lombard enlightenment and classical political economy." The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought 18.4 (2011): 521-550.
- ^ Anna Maria Rao, "Enlightenment and reform: an overview of culture and politics in Enlightenment Italy." Journal of Modern Italian Studies 10.2 (2005): 142-167.
- ^ "La Rivoluzione francese inspirata dall'ideologia massonica" (in Italian). June 23, 2018. Retrieved December 18, 2021.
- ^ "Buonarroti, Filippo" (in Italian). Retrieved December 18, 2021.
- doi:10.4000/diacronie.3476. Retrieved December 18, 2021.)
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has extra text (help - ^ "IL VIVA MARIA - GIACOBINI E REALISTI - STORIA DEL 1799 IN TOSCANA CON DOCUMENTI INEDITI" (PDF) (in Italian). Retrieved December 18, 2021.
- ^ "FERDINANDO II di Borbone, re delle Due Sicilie" (in Italian). Retrieved December 18, 2021.
- ^ Dalle grandi rivoluzioni alla Restaurazione. La biblioteca di Repubblica, 2004. pp.342
- ^ Dalle grandi rivoluzioni alla Restaurazione. La biblioteca di Repubblica, 2004. pp.349
- ISBN 978-88-04-50946-2.
- ^ The tri-coloured standard.Getting to Know Italy, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (retrieved 5 October 2008) Archived 23 February 2008 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Article 1 of the law n. 671 of 31 December 1996 ("National celebration of the bicentenary of the first national flag")
- ^ Ferorelli, Nicola (1925). "La vera origine del tricolore italiano". Rassegna Storica del Risorgimento (in Italian). XII (fasc. III): 662. Archived from the original on March 31, 2019. Retrieved October 1, 2021.
- ISBN 88-15-07163-6.
- ^ Villa, Claudio (2010). I simboli della Repubblica: la bandiera tricolore, il canto degli italiani, l'emblema (in Italian). Comune di Vanzago. p. 10. SBN IT\ICCU\LO1\1355389.
- ISBN 978-88-04-50946-2.
- JSTOR 1843352
- ^ Villa, Claudio (2010). I simboli della Repubblica: la bandiera tricolore, il canto degli italiani, l'emblema (in Italian). Comune di Vanzago. p. 18. SBN IT\ICCU\LO1\1355389.
Further reading
- Black, Christopher F. (2000). Early Modern Italy: A Social History. London and New York, NY: ISBN 978-0-415-10935-2.
- ——— (2004). Church, Religion and Society in Early Modern Italy. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-333-61844-8.
- ISBN 978-0-521-32041-2.
- Carpanetto, Dino, and Giuseppe Ricuperati. Italy in the Age of Reason, 1685–1789 (1987).
- Cavallo, Sandra (1995). Charity and Power in Early Modern Italy: Benefactors and their Motives in Turin, 1541–1789. Cambridge: ISBN 978-0-521-46091-0.
- Cocco, Sean (2013). Watching Vesuvius: A History of Science and Culture in Early Modern Italy. Chicago, IL: ISBN 978-0-226-92371-0.
- Dooley, Brendan (1999). The Social History of Skepticism: Experience and Doubt in Early Modern Culture. Baltimore, MD: ISBN 978-0-8018-6142-0.
- Findlen, Paula (1994). Possessing Nature: Museums, Collecting and Scientific Culture in Early Modern Italy. Berkeley, CA: ISBN 978-0-520-07334-0.
- ———; Fontaine, Michelle; Osheim, Duane J., eds. (2003). Beyond Florence: The Contours of Medieval and Early Modern Italy. Stanford, CA: ISBN 978-0-8047-3934-4.
- Frigo, Daniella, ed. (2000). Politics and Diplomacy in Early Modern Italy: The Structure of Diplomatic Practice, 1450–1800. Cambridge: ISBN 978-0-521-56189-1.
- ISBN 978-0-674-09555-7.
- Hanlon, Gregory (2000). Early Modern Italy, 1550–1800. London: ISBN 978-0-333-62002-1.
- ——— (2012). Early Modern Italy 1550–1800: A Comprehensive Bibliography of Titles in English and French (10 ed.). Lists more than 15,000 titles
- Jacobson Schutte, Anne (2001). Aspiring Saints: Pretense of Holiness, Inquisition, and Gender in the Republic of Venice, 1618–1750. Baltimore, MD: ISBN 978-0-8018-6548-0.
- Mallett, Michael; Christine, Shaw (2012). The Italian Wars, 1494–1559: War, State and Society in Early Modern Europe. Harlow: ISBN 978-0-582-05758-6.
- Marino, John A., ed. (2002). Early Modern Italy: 1550–1796. Oxford: ISBN 978-0-19-870041-8.
- Oresko, Robert (1989). "Power and Politics in Early Modern Italy". History Today. 39 (9).
- Wood, Jeryldene M. (2011) [1996]. Women, Art, and Spirituality: The Poor Clares of Early Modern Italy. Cambridge: ISBN 978-0-521-29489-8.
External links
- Text of the "Albertine Statute" (Constitution of the Kingdom of Sardinia from 1848 to 1861, and of the Kingdom of Italy from 1861 to 1946) (in Italian)
- "Italy." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2006. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. April 30, 2006.