A BRIEF HISTORY OF ITALY

PREHISTORY

3300 BCE

Quite sophisticated civilisations developed in the late Bronze Age, like the Terramaricoli in Emilia who built villages beside rivers and worked metal to make tools. Other tribes left traces of their civilisations like the Ligurians, in the north of Italy, and the Sards, who farmed and raised livestock in Sardinia and built the muragla, conical-shaped stone huts

GREEK AND ETRUSCANS

700 BCE

The area where Greek settlers estabilished colonies was called Magna Grecia. Another important civilisation was the Etruscans who were technically advantaced. In the 6th century BC they became the most powerful population in central and northern Italy

THE ROMAN EMPIRE

395 BCE

The myth regarding the birth of Rome is that it was founded by Romulus in 753 BC, in reality, latin communities settled on the Palatine Hill and formed the first nucleus of Rome . In 509 BC, the Romans established a republic. In 27 BC, under the Emperor Augustus, the Roman Empire was born. The Romans quickly became a dominant power, invading much of Europe and taking control of mainland Greece, Spain, as well as parts of North Africa and Asia minor.

THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE

476

Invasions and civil war began to disrupt and weaken to Empire.
In 313 AD,declared Christianity the state religion.
In the 5th century there was the sack of Rome by the Goths.
In 476 the Germanic troops finally deposed the last emperor.

THE MIDDLE AGES

1000

It was a period of repeated invasions and the struggle for domination between the conquerors and the popes who had begun building an independent papal state than at the end of the 11th century, trade started to develop again. The four maritime republics - Genova, Piss, Amalfi and Venice- became important political and commercial powers. Many central and northern Italian cities set up local governments called comment within the Holy Roman Empire.

THE RINAISSANCE

1400

It was a period of prolification of intellectual and artistic ideas. The wealthy families were patrons of art and they financed architectural projects, paintings, sculpture ecc from artists like Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. Tuscan dialect became estabilished as Italy's literary language

FOREIGN RULE

1600

Italy was subject to invasions by the French and Spanish, and later the Austrians. When the Atlantic and Indian Ocean trade routes opened up, Italy lost much of its importance and the country went into economic decline. In 1796, Napoleon invaded Italy and forced the Austrians to retreat. . After the defeat of the Napoleonic Empire, in 1814 the Congress of Vienna divided Italy into ten states and recreated the previous divisions of the country, with most areas under foreign control.

UNIFICATION

1800

there was a foundation of secret societies, like the Carbonari, and rebellions in Sicily, Naples and Piedmont. G.Mazzini and G.Garibaldi, two radical Italian nationalists, played an important role in the Risorgimento, the movement to reform and unite the country. In 1860, Garibaldi and his troops conquered Sicily and moved onto Naples and the rest of the Kingdom of Two Sicilies. The Kingdom of Italy was officially proclaimed on 17th March, 1861 and ten years later Rome became the capital.