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Emperor Barbarossa vs. the Lombard League

Written by Don Giovanni Bosco (Extracted from “ A Compendium of Italian History From the Fall of the Roman Empire ” by Don Giovanni Bosco.) Thirty years had passed without the German emperors attempting to interfere in the affairs of Italy, when the famous Frederick, surnamed Barbarossa, ascended the imperial throne. He was young, handsome, brave, and prudent, and had not yet abandoned himself to those impulses of pride which afterwards made him abhorred throughout the whole of Italy. Frederick considered that his predecessors had acted a cowardly part in yielding to the pretensions of Gregory VII., and in allowing the reins of the government in Italy to slip from their hands; and now determining, at whatever cost, to regain his right, he made a descent upon Lombardy (in the year 1154) with a numerous army. But becoming aware that the Italians were prepared to offer resistance, he thought it better only at first to seize upon the small cities which were incapable of making any vigoro
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The Political State of Italy Under the Ottonian Emperors

Written by Don Giovanni Bosco (Extracted from “ A Compendium of Italian History From the Fall of the Roman Empire ” by Don Giovanni Bosco.) Before proceeding further with our history, it is necessary to take a brief glance at the political state of Italy at the accession of the German emperors as lords paramount of the country. It must not be imagined that when Italy came nominally under the power of the Empire, the country was really governed from the imperial court. The great vassals (dukes, counts, marquises) had made themselves practically independent, and each ruled his own dominions according to the feudal laws, merely doing homage to the emperor as the supreme authority. The principal of the great vassals who had established themselves firmly in their respective governments were the duke of Benevento in the south, the duke of Tuscany in Central Italy, and the duke of Spoleto on the Adriatic, with the marquises of Ivrea, Susa, and Friuli in the north. The country around Rome wa
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The Fall of Italy and Rise of the Holy Roman Empire

Written by Don Giovanni Bosco (Extracted from “ A Compendium of Italian History From the Fall of the Roman Empire ” by Don Giovanni Bosco.) After the dissolution of the Western [Carolingian] Empire, several kingdoms arose, some smaller, some larger; and while these states were growing up out of the ruins of the Frankish empire, every kingdom divided itself into little states, entitled dukedoms or countships, according as they were governed by dukes or counts. At first, these feudal lords were simply military chieftains, to whom the kings or the emperors had entrusted the government of provinces, and who had taken possession of them by the consent of their superiors. Then, again, there were bishops or abbots of monasteries, who in the name of the Church took possession of the lands or castles which the princes of that time were accustomed to present as alms to the churches or convents, mostly in expiation of their sins. But, in short, all who possessed a little castle, built on a mou
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The National Idea in Italian Literature: Patriotism and Italian Identity Before the Risorgimento

Preface Without appealing to the ancients, from whom there is an abundance of national patriotic material and expressions of italianità to be found, particularly in Virgil and many other ancient Italian authors, we will instead begin with Dante Alighieri, who is generally considered the first modern Italian patriot. I. — Dante Alighieri The national idea came to Dante as part of that essential continuity between ancient Rome and modem Italy which is the key to Italian civilisation. Virgil himself had defined the national aspirations of Italians throughout the centuries, when he placed upon the lips of Aeneas the pregnant words: Italiam quaero patriam . There was never a time, from the day on which a barbarian conqueror dethroned the last of the old Roman emperors in the west to that on which Victor Emanuel assumed the crown of the united kingdom in 1861, when Italy—in the notorious phrase of the anti-Italian Metternich—was “a mere geographical expression.” As surprising as it m
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Brief History of Italy and the Italian People

Ancient Italics and Roman Period The Italians are an old nation—one of the oldest in Europe—which can be traced back to the time of the Romans, and even farther back to the early Italic tribes and pre-Indo-European aboriginals of the Italian peninsula (from whom the Romans, and therefore modern Italians, descend). The Italian nation is very ancient, as is the existence of a unified Italian state. Italy, in fact, was the first unified nation-state in European history. Although Italy was unified most recently in 1861, this was not the first time Italy was united. Italy was first unified over 2,000 years ago in 222 BC under the Romans, making Italians the first unified people in the history of Europe. With the extermination of the Gauls in the north and the expulsion of the Greeks from the southern shores of the peninsula—thus eliminating from Italy the two major foreign and hostile powers—the Romans were able to join and unite all the native tribes of Italy into a single unit, with
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Brief History of the Name ‘Italy’

Written by an unknown author Presentation This booklet is a simple collection of historical, linguistic and literary information on the name ‘Italy’ beginning in the sixth century BC. The key point is that I wanted to have an overview on the history of the name ‘Italy’ but could not find an adequate synopsis, therefore I tried to summarize the essential points of the subject myself. And why was I looking for an overview of the history of the name ‘Italy’? Because today many people are convinced that Italy is an “artificial” nation, created in 1861 following an event known as the “Risorgimento”, which supposedly forcibly united different regions with separate traditions and languages ​​(which we today call dialects) and imposed a new language called Italian, which until then was almost unknown. This contradicts everything we were taught in school, yet many people today actually believe this to be true. Evidently they are unaware of the fact that the history depicting Italy as a
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The Concept of the Italian National State: From Antiquity to the Risorgimento

Written by an unknown author The feast of March 17th commemorates the date in which the Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed under Vittorio Emanuele II in 1861. It is sometimes said that this was the beginning of Italy itself because, according to some people, the Italian nation did not exist at all prior to this date, or at least an Italian State supposedly did not exist. Such claims, which are particularly dear to the secessionists and to those who contest the national state by preaching its dissolution and disappearance, have no historical foundation whatsoever. It is hardly necessary to state that ‘nation’ and ‘state’ are not synonymous and that the fatherland or ethnic group continues to exist regardless of the political form in which it is found. Italy has a more than two thousand-year-old existence that is expressed on the level of language, onomastics, toponymy, literature, architecture, urban planning, music, juridical structures, collective consciousness, etc. It was therefore
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