Brief Review

History of Italy

While there is evidence of human life on Italian soil dating back to the Bronze Age (1400-700 BCE), the Etruscans (Etrusci) are considered to be the first people to have developed Italy. Their influence spread from the north to as far as Rome. To this day, there exist walled towns, sarcophagi, and highly advanced wall paintings and frescoes, all tributes to their lasting influence on Italian life. Unfortunately, there are no written documents remaining which could give a hint to their life, only references to it in later works.

In the following centuries, before the birth of the Roman Empire, the Greeks immigrated and settled into Sicily and other southern regions of Italy. It was during this time that the cities of Naples and Syracuse were founded.

Two brothers, Romulus and Remus, founded Rome, the capital of Italy and the seat of the Roman Empire, in 753 BCE. Romulus went on to be the first King of Rome. The Roman Empire came into full swing in the 5th century BCE and lasted until its fall in the 5th century CE. Over that millennium, Rome spread its power as it conquered foreign enemies including France, Carthage and Syria, and gained control of the entire Mediterranean region. However, internal struggles among Rome's leaders, beginning with the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 BCE, led to hundreds of years of civil wars, the alignment with Christianity, and the eventual fall of the Empire at the hands of its rival city Constantinople in the mid-6th century CE.

In the vacuum left by the fall of the Empire, the Catholic Church stepped forward and became the leading voice in Italy throughout the Middle Ages, culminating in the birth of the Holy Roman Empire in the 9th and 10th centuries. The subsequent invasions by Byzantine and Lombard armies marked the beginning of the end of the Middle Ages, giving rise to the Renaissance upon the move of the Papacy to southern France. The Church’s return in the late 15th century influenced the Italian art world greatly. It is because of the Church’s support of many artists during that time that we have several notable masterpieces by such great artists as Michelangelo, Raphael, Giambologna and Titian.

Over the next several centuries, Italy was invaded many times over with wars being fought on all fronts. This led to the first true unification of previously independent states, to become the nation of Italy in 1861 under the rule of King Victor Emmanuel II. The monarchy reigned until 1946, when King Victor Emmanuel III abdicated his throne so that the Italian Republic, the Italy known today, could be born.