History of Italy during foreign domination and the unification
Encyclopedia
The history of Italy
in the Early Modern period
was partially characterized by foreign domination:
Following the Italian Wars
(1494 to 1559), Italy saw a long period of relative peace, first under Habsburg Spain
(1559 to 1713) and then under Habsburg Austria (1713 to 1796). During the Napoleonic era
, Italy was a client state of the French Republic (1796 to 1814). The Congress of Vienna
(1814) restored the situation of the late 18th century, which was however quickly overturned by the incipient movement of Italian unification
. The Italian Renaissance
ended in around 1600, but Italy remained an important centre of Western culture throughout the period. However the economic importance of Italy declined, as the Italian states played little part in the opening up of the New World
, or the early stages of the Industrial Revolution
.
saw 65 years of French attacks on the Italian states, starting with Charles VIII's
invasion of Naples in 1494. However the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis (1559) saw almost all of Italy fall under the direct or indirect control of the Spanish.
saw control of much of Italy pass from Spain to Austria, culminating in the Treaty of Utrecht
of 1713. The Spaniards regained Naples and Sicily following the Battle of Bitonto
in 1738.
Spanish and Austrian hegemony was not always based on direct rule; states such as Venice
, 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 the Spanish and Austrian empires 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. 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 for 25 years until 1669, when it gained control of the Peloponnese in Greece. 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.
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. Relations with Paris deteriorated sharply during the reign of Louis XIV, until he and the papacy found common ground in suppressing Jansenism. Even in Italy itself, the political importance of the Papal States declined. The Counter-Reformation popes largely concerned themselves with religious matters and church reform, and so had little time for politics. They worked to fight brigandage, long endemic in the Papal States, reformed the court system, and embellished Rome with many buildings. Gregory XIII introduced the calendar that bears his name, and the papal fleet participated in the Battle of Lepanto. In addition to its loss of political power, the Church came under increasing attack during the Age of Enlightenment in the 18th century.
As Spain declined in the 17th 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. 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. 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. 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. 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.
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.
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 Austria
had replaced Spain
as the dominant foreign power after the War of Spanish Succession (and that too was not true with regards to Naples and Sicily), and that the dukes of Savoy
(a mountainous region between Italy and France) had become kings of Sardinia
by increasing their Italian possessions, which now included Sardinia and the north-western region of Piedmont
.
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 intelligensia, away from the clumsy efforts mentioned above.
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 Bonouarti, 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. 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 Army of Italy
under Napoleon
invaded Italy, with the aims of forcing the First Coalition
to abandon Sardinia
(where they had created an anti-revolutionary puppet-ruler
) and forcing Austria to withdraw from Italy. The first battles came on April 9 between the French and the Piedmontese and within only two weeks Victor Amadeus III of Sardinia
was forced to sign an armistice. On May 15 the French general then entered Milan, where he was welcomed as a liberator. Subsequently beating off Austrian counterattacks and continuing to advance, he arrived in the Veneto
in 1797. Here occurred the Veronese Easters
, an act of rebellion against French oppression, that tied down Napoleon for about a week.
On October 1797 Napoleon signed the Treaty of Campo Formio
, by which the Republic of Venice was annexed to the Austrian state, dashing Italian nationalists' hopes that it might become an independent state. This treaty gave Austrian recognition to the existence of the Cisalpine Republic
(made up of Lombardy
, Emilia Romagna and small parts of Tuscany and Veneto), and annexed Piedmont to France. Even if, like the other states created by the invasion, the Cisalpine Republic
was just a satellite of France, these satellites sparked a nationalist movement. The Cisalpine Republic was converted into the Italian Republic
in 1802, under the presidency of Napoleon. As all of these republics were imposed by an outside force, none had any popular support in Italy, especially since the peasantry was alienated by Jacobin anti-clericalism. It would take a true grassroots movement to bring change. In addition, even native republicans became disillusioned when they realized that the French expected them to be obedient satellites of Paris, which included frequent interference in local affairs and massive taxes. Return to the old feudal order was however equally undesirable, and so the republican movement would gradually establish its goals as nationalism and a unified Italian state.
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. 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. 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 Third Coalition
and the Peace of Pressburg
, Napoleon recovered Veneto and Dalmatia
, annexing them to the Italian Republic and renaming it the Kingdom of Italy
. Also that year a second satellite state, the Ligurian Republic
(successor to the old Republic of Genoa
), was pressured into merging with France. In 1806, he conquered the Kingdom of Naples
and granted it to his brother and then (from 1808) to Joachim Murat
, along with marrying his sisters Elisa
and Paolina off to the princes of Massa-Carrara and Guastalla
. In 1808, he also annexed Marche and Tuscany to the Kingdom of Italy.
In 1809, Bonaparte occupied Rome, for contrasts with the pope, who had excommunicated him, and to maintain his own state efficiently, exiling the Pope first to Savona and then to France, and taking the Papal States' art collections back to the Louvre
. With the conquest of the Russia that Napoleon undertook in 1811 marked the end of the apogee of Italians' support for Napoleon, since many Italians died in this failed campaign.
After Russia, the other states of Europe re-allied themselves and defeated Napoleon at the Battle of Leipzig
, after which his Italian allied states, with Murat first among them, abandoned him to ally with Austria. Defeated at Paris on 6 April 1814, Napoleon was compelled to renounce his throne and sent into exile on Elba. The resulting Congress of Vienna
(1814) restored a situation close to that of 1795, dividing Italy between Austria (in the north-east and Lombardy), the Kingdom of Sardinia
, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies (in the south and in Sicily), and Tuscany
, the Papal States
and other minor states in the centre. However, old republics such as Venice
and Genoa
were not recreated, Venice went to Austria, and Genoa went to the Kingdom of Sardinia
.
On Napoleon's escape and return to France (the Hundred Days
), he regained Murat's support, but Murat proved unable to convince the Italians to fight for Napoleon with his Proclamation of Rimini and was beaten and killed. The Italian kingdoms thus fell, and Italy's Restoration period began, with many pre-Napoleonic sovereigns returned to their thrones. Piedmont, Genoa and Nice came to be united, as did Sardinia (which went on to create the State of Savoy), while Lombardy, Veneto, Istria and Dalmatia were re-annexed to Austria. The dukedoms of Parma and Modena re-formed, and the Papal States and the Kingdom of Naples returned to the Bourbons. The political and social events in the restoration period of Italy (1815–1835) led to popular uprisings through-out the peninsula and greatly shaped what would become the Italian Wars of Independence. All this led to a new Kingdom of Italy
and Italian unification
.
History of Italy
Italy, united in 1861, has significantly contributed to the political, cultural and social development of the entire Mediterranean region. Many cultures and civilizations have existed there since prehistoric times....
in the Early Modern period
Early modern period
In history, the early modern period of modern history follows the late Middle Ages. Although the chronological limits of the period are open to debate, the timeframe spans the period after the late portion of the Middle Ages through the beginning of the Age of Revolutions...
was partially characterized by foreign domination:
Following the Italian Wars
Italian Wars
The Italian Wars, often referred to as the Great Italian Wars or the Great Wars of Italy and sometimes as the Habsburg–Valois Wars, were a series of conflicts from 1494 to 1559 that involved, at various times, most of the city-states of Italy, the Papal States, most of the major states of Western...
(1494 to 1559), Italy saw a long period of relative peace, first under Habsburg Spain
Habsburg Spain
Habsburg Spain refers to the history of Spain over the 16th and 17th centuries , when Spain was ruled by the major branch of the Habsburg dynasty...
(1559 to 1713) and then under Habsburg Austria (1713 to 1796). During the Napoleonic era
Napoleonic Era
The Napoleonic Era is a period in the history of France and Europe. It is generally classified as including the fourth and final stage of the French Revolution, the first being the National Assembly, the second being the Legislative Assembly, and the third being the Directory...
, Italy was a client state of the French Republic (1796 to 1814). The Congress of Vienna
Congress of Vienna
The Congress of Vienna was a conference of ambassadors of European states chaired by Klemens Wenzel von Metternich, and held in Vienna from September, 1814 to June, 1815. The objective of the Congress was to settle the many issues arising from the French Revolutionary Wars, the Napoleonic Wars,...
(1814) restored the situation of the late 18th century, which was however quickly overturned by the incipient movement of Italian unification
Italian unification
Italian unification was the political and social movement that agglomerated different states of the Italian peninsula into the single state of Italy in the 19th century...
. The Italian Renaissance
Italian Renaissance
The Italian Renaissance began the opening phase of the Renaissance, a period of great cultural change and achievement in Europe that spanned the period from the end of the 13th century to about 1600, marking the transition between Medieval and Early Modern Europe...
ended in around 1600, but Italy remained an important centre of Western culture throughout the period. However the economic importance of Italy declined, as the Italian states played little part in the opening up of the New World
New World
The New World is one of the names used for the Western Hemisphere, specifically America and sometimes Oceania . The term originated in the late 15th century, when America had been recently discovered by European explorers, expanding the geographical horizon of the people of the European middle...
, or the early stages of the Industrial Revolution
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times...
.
Aftermath of the Italian Wars
The Italian WarsItalian Wars
The Italian Wars, often referred to as the Great Italian Wars or the Great Wars of Italy and sometimes as the Habsburg–Valois Wars, were a series of conflicts from 1494 to 1559 that involved, at various times, most of the city-states of Italy, the Papal States, most of the major states of Western...
saw 65 years of French attacks on the Italian states, starting with Charles VIII's
Charles VIII of France
Charles VIII, called the Affable, , was King of France from 1483 to his death in 1498. Charles was a member of the House of Valois...
invasion of Naples in 1494. However the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis (1559) saw almost all of Italy fall under the direct or indirect control of the Spanish.
Early Modern Italy
The War of the Spanish SuccessionWar of the Spanish Succession
The War of the Spanish Succession was fought among several European powers, including a divided Spain, over the possible unification of the Kingdoms of Spain and France under one Bourbon monarch. As France and Spain were among the most powerful states of Europe, such a unification would have...
saw control of much of Italy pass from Spain to Austria, culminating in the Treaty of Utrecht
Treaty of Utrecht
The Treaty of Utrecht, which established the Peace of Utrecht, comprises a series of individual peace treaties, rather than a single document, signed by the belligerents in the War of Spanish Succession, in the Dutch city of Utrecht in March and April 1713...
of 1713. The Spaniards regained Naples and Sicily following the Battle of Bitonto
Battle of Bitonto
The Battle of Bitonto was a Spanish victory over Austrian forces near Bitonto in the Kingdom of Naples in the War of Polish Succession...
in 1738.
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
, the papal states
Papal States
The Papal State, State of the Church, or Pontifical States were among the major historical states of Italy from roughly the 6th century until the Italian peninsula was unified in 1861 by the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia .The Papal States comprised territories under...
, the duchies of Este
Este
The House of Este is a European princely dynasty. It is split into two branches; the elder is known as the House of Welf-Este or House of Welf historically rendered in English, Guelf or Guelph...
,and Duchy of Savoy
Duchy of Savoy
From 1416 to 1847, the House of Savoy ruled the eponymous Duchy of Savoy . The Duchy was a state in the northern part of the Italian Peninsula, with some territories that are now in France. It was a continuation of the County 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 the Spanish and Austrian empires 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. 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 for 25 years until 1669, when it gained control of the Peloponnese in Greece. 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.
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. Relations with Paris deteriorated sharply during the reign of Louis XIV, until he and the papacy found common ground in suppressing Jansenism. Even in Italy itself, the political importance of the Papal States declined. The Counter-Reformation popes largely concerned themselves with religious matters and church reform, and so had little time for politics. They worked to fight brigandage, long endemic in the Papal States, reformed the court system, and embellished Rome with many buildings. Gregory XIII introduced the calendar that bears his name, and the papal fleet participated in the Battle of Lepanto. In addition to its loss of political power, the Church came under increasing attack during the Age of Enlightenment in the 18th century.
As Spain declined in the 17th 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. 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. 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. 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. 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.
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.
Italy in the Napoleonic era
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
had replaced Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
as the dominant foreign power after the War of Spanish Succession (and that too was not true with regards to Naples and Sicily), and that the dukes of Savoy
Savoy
Savoy is a region of France. It comprises roughly the territory of the Western Alps situated between Lake Geneva in the north and Monaco and the Mediterranean coast in the south....
(a mountainous region between Italy and France) had become kings of Sardinia
Sardinia
Sardinia is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea . It is an autonomous region of Italy, and the nearest land masses are the French island of Corsica, the Italian Peninsula, Sicily, Tunisia and the Spanish Balearic Islands.The name Sardinia is from the pre-Roman noun *sard[],...
by increasing their Italian possessions, which now included Sardinia and the north-western region of Piedmont
Piedmont
Piedmont is one of the 20 regions of Italy. It has an area of 25,402 square kilometres and a population of about 4.4 million. The capital of Piedmont is Turin. The main local language is Piedmontese. Occitan is also spoken by a minority in the Occitan Valleys situated in the Provinces of...
.
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 intelligensia, away from the clumsy efforts mentioned above.
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 Bonouarti, 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. 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 Army of Italy
Army of Italy (France)
The Army of Italy was a Field army of the French Army stationed on the Italian border and used for operations in Italy itself. Though it existed in some form in the 16th century through to the present, it is best known for its role during the French Revolutionary Wars and Napoleonic...
under Napoleon
Napoleon I of France
Napoleon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader during the latter stages of the French Revolution.As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1815...
invaded Italy, with the aims of forcing the First Coalition
First Coalition
The War of the First Coalition was the first major effort of multiple European monarchies to contain Revolutionary France. France declared war on the Habsburg monarchy of Austria on 20 April 1792, and the Kingdom of Prussia joined the Austrian side a few weeks later.These powers initiated a series...
to abandon Sardinia
Sardinia
Sardinia is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea . It is an autonomous region of Italy, and the nearest land masses are the French island of Corsica, the Italian Peninsula, Sicily, Tunisia and the Spanish Balearic Islands.The name Sardinia is from the pre-Roman noun *sard[],...
(where they had created an anti-revolutionary puppet-ruler
Kingdom of Sardinia
The Kingdom of Sardinia consisted of the island of Sardinia first as a part of the Crown of Aragon and subsequently the Spanish Empire , and second as a part of the composite state of the House of Savoy . Its capital was originally Cagliari, in the south of the island, and later Turin, on the...
) and forcing Austria to withdraw from Italy. The first battles came on April 9 between the French and the Piedmontese and within only two weeks Victor Amadeus III of Sardinia
Victor Amadeus III of Sardinia
Victor Amadeus III was King of Sardinia from 1773 until his death. Although he was politically conservative, he carried out numerous administrative reforms until declaring war on revolutionary France in 1792...
was forced to sign an armistice. On May 15 the French general then entered Milan, where he was welcomed as a liberator. Subsequently beating off Austrian counterattacks and continuing to advance, he arrived in the Veneto
Veneto
Veneto is one of the 20 regions of Italy. Its population is about 5 million, ranking 5th in Italy.Veneto had been for more than a millennium an independent state, the Republic of Venice, until it was eventually annexed by Italy in 1866 after brief Austrian and French rule...
in 1797. Here occurred the Veronese Easters
Veronese Easters
The Veronese Easters were a rebellion during the Italian campaign of 1797, in which inhabitants of Verona and the surrounding areas revolted against the French occupying forces under Antoine Balland, whilst Napoleon Bonaparte was fighting in Austria...
, an act of rebellion against French oppression, that tied down Napoleon for about a week.
On October 1797 Napoleon signed the Treaty of Campo Formio
Treaty of Campo Formio
The Treaty of Campo Formio was signed on 18 October 1797 by Napoleon Bonaparte and Count Philipp von Cobenzl as representatives of revolutionary France and the Austrian monarchy...
, by which the Republic of Venice was annexed to the Austrian state, dashing Italian nationalists' hopes that it might become an independent state. This treaty gave Austrian recognition to the existence of the Cisalpine Republic
Cisalpine Republic
The Cisalpine Republic was a French client republic in Northern Italy that lasted from 1797 to 1802.-Birth:After the Battle of Lodi in May 1796, Napoleon Bonaparte proceeded to organize two states: one to the south of the Po River, the Cispadane Republic, and one to the north, the Transpadane...
(made up of Lombardy
Lombardy
Lombardy is one of the 20 regions of Italy. The capital is Milan. One-sixth of Italy's population lives in Lombardy and about one fifth of Italy's GDP is produced in this region, making it the most populous and richest region in the country and one of the richest in the whole of Europe...
, Emilia Romagna and small parts of Tuscany and Veneto), and annexed Piedmont to France. Even if, like the other states created by the invasion, the Cisalpine Republic
Cisalpine Republic
The Cisalpine Republic was a French client republic in Northern Italy that lasted from 1797 to 1802.-Birth:After the Battle of Lodi in May 1796, Napoleon Bonaparte proceeded to organize two states: one to the south of the Po River, the Cispadane Republic, and one to the north, the Transpadane...
was just a satellite of France, these satellites sparked a nationalist movement. The Cisalpine Republic was converted into the Italian Republic
Italian Republic (Napoleonic)
The Italian Republic was a short-lived republic located in Northern Italy. It was a vassal state of the First French Republic of Napoleon.-The republic:...
in 1802, under the presidency of Napoleon. As all of these republics were imposed by an outside force, none had any popular support in Italy, especially since the peasantry was alienated by Jacobin anti-clericalism. It would take a true grassroots movement to bring change. In addition, even native republicans became disillusioned when they realized that the French expected them to be obedient satellites of Paris, which included frequent interference in local affairs and massive taxes. Return to the old feudal order was however equally undesirable, and so the republican movement would gradually establish its goals as nationalism and a unified Italian state.
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. 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. 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 Third Coalition
Third Coalition
The War of the Third Coalition was a conflict which spanned from 1803 to 1806. It saw the defeat of an alliance of Austria, Portugal, Russia, and others by France and its client states under Napoleon I...
and the Peace of Pressburg
Peace of Pressburg
The Peace of Pressburg refers to four peace treaties concluded in Pressburg . The fourth Peace of Pressburg of 1805 during the Napoleonic Wars is the best-known.-First:...
, Napoleon recovered Veneto and Dalmatia
Dalmatia
Dalmatia is a historical region on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea. It stretches from the island of Rab in the northwest to the Bay of Kotor in the southeast. The hinterland, the Dalmatian Zagora, ranges from fifty kilometers in width in the north to just a few kilometers in the south....
, annexing them to the Italian Republic and renaming it the Kingdom of Italy
Kingdom of Italy (Napoleonic)
The Kingdom of Italy was a state founded in Northern Italy by Napoleon, fully influenced by revolutionary France, that ended with his defeat and fall.-Constitutional statutes:...
. Also that year a second satellite state, the Ligurian Republic
Ligurian Republic
The Ligurian Republic was a short-lived French client republic formed by Napoleon on 14 June 1797. It consisted of the old Republic of Genoa which covered most of the Ligurian region of Northwest Italy, and the small Imperial fiefs owned by the House of Savoy inside its territory...
(successor to the old Republic of Genoa
Republic of Genoa
The Most Serene Republic of Genoa |Ligurian]]: Repúbrica de Zêna) was an independent state from 1005 to 1797 in Liguria on the northwestern Italian coast, as well as Corsica from 1347 to 1768, and numerous other territories throughout the Mediterranean....
), was pressured into merging with France. In 1806, he conquered the Kingdom of Naples
Kingdom of Naples
The Kingdom of Naples, comprising the southern part of the Italian peninsula, was the remainder of the old Kingdom of Sicily after secession of the island of Sicily as a result of the Sicilian Vespers rebellion of 1282. Known to contemporaries as the Kingdom of Sicily, it is dubbed Kingdom of...
and granted it to his brother and then (from 1808) to Joachim Murat
Joachim Murat
Joachim-Napoléon Murat , Marshal of France and Grand Admiral or Admiral of France, 1st Prince Murat, was Grand Duke of Berg from 1806 to 1808 and then King of Naples from 1808 to 1815...
, along with marrying his sisters Elisa
Elisa Bonaparte
Maria Anna Elisa Bonaparte Baciocchi Levoy, Princesse Française, Duchess of Lucca and Princess of Piombino, Grand Duchess of Tuscany, Countess of Compignano was the fourth surviving child and eldest surviving daughter of Carlo Buonaparte and Letizia Ramolino, making her the younger sister of...
and Paolina off to the princes of Massa-Carrara and Guastalla
Camillo Filippo Ludovico Borghese
Don Camillo Filippo Ludovico Borghese, Prince of Sulmona and of Rossano, Duke and Prince of Guastalla was a member of the Borghese family, best known for being brother-in-law to Napoleon.- Biography :...
. In 1808, he also annexed Marche and Tuscany to the Kingdom of Italy.
In 1809, Bonaparte occupied Rome, for contrasts with the pope, who had excommunicated him, and to maintain his own state efficiently, exiling the Pope first to Savona and then to France, and taking the Papal States' art collections back to the Louvre
Louvre
The Musée du Louvre – in English, the Louvre Museum or simply the Louvre – is one of the world's largest museums, the most visited art museum in the world and a historic monument. A central landmark of Paris, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement...
. With the conquest of the Russia that Napoleon undertook in 1811 marked the end of the apogee of Italians' support for Napoleon, since many Italians died in this failed campaign.
After Russia, the other states of Europe re-allied themselves and defeated Napoleon at the Battle of Leipzig
Battle of Leipzig
The Battle of Leipzig or Battle of the Nations, on 16–19 October 1813, was fought by the coalition armies of Russia, Prussia, Austria and Sweden against the French army of Napoleon. Napoleon's army also contained Polish and Italian troops as well as Germans from the Confederation of the Rhine...
, after which his Italian allied states, with Murat first among them, abandoned him to ally with Austria. Defeated at Paris on 6 April 1814, Napoleon was compelled to renounce his throne and sent into exile on Elba. The resulting Congress of Vienna
Congress of Vienna
The Congress of Vienna was a conference of ambassadors of European states chaired by Klemens Wenzel von Metternich, and held in Vienna from September, 1814 to June, 1815. The objective of the Congress was to settle the many issues arising from the French Revolutionary Wars, the Napoleonic Wars,...
(1814) restored a situation close to that of 1795, dividing Italy between Austria (in the north-east and Lombardy), the Kingdom of Sardinia
Kingdom of Sardinia
The Kingdom of Sardinia consisted of the island of Sardinia first as a part of the Crown of Aragon and subsequently the Spanish Empire , and second as a part of the composite state of the House of Savoy . Its capital was originally Cagliari, in the south of the island, and later Turin, on the...
, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies (in the south and in Sicily), and Tuscany
History of Tuscany
Tuscany is named after its pre-Roman inhabitants, the Etruscans. It was ruled by Rome for many centuries. In the Middle Ages, it saw many invasions, but in the Renaissance period it helped lead Europe back to civilisation. Later, it settled down as a grand duchy...
, the Papal States
Papal States
The Papal State, State of the Church, or Pontifical States were among the major historical states of Italy from roughly the 6th century until the Italian peninsula was unified in 1861 by the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia .The Papal States comprised territories under...
and other minor states in the centre. However, old republics such as Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
and Genoa
Genoa
Genoa |Ligurian]] Zena ; Latin and, archaically, English Genua) is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria....
were not recreated, Venice went to Austria, and Genoa went to the Kingdom of Sardinia
Kingdom of Sardinia
The Kingdom of Sardinia consisted of the island of Sardinia first as a part of the Crown of Aragon and subsequently the Spanish Empire , and second as a part of the composite state of the House of Savoy . Its capital was originally Cagliari, in the south of the island, and later Turin, on the...
.
On Napoleon's escape and return to France (the Hundred Days
Hundred Days
The Hundred Days, sometimes known as the Hundred Days of Napoleon or Napoleon's Hundred Days for specificity, marked the period between Emperor Napoleon I of France's return from exile on Elba to Paris on 20 March 1815 and the second restoration of King Louis XVIII on 8 July 1815...
), he regained Murat's support, but Murat proved unable to convince the Italians to fight for Napoleon with his Proclamation of Rimini and was beaten and killed. The Italian kingdoms thus fell, and Italy's Restoration period began, with many pre-Napoleonic sovereigns returned to their thrones. Piedmont, Genoa and Nice came to be united, as did Sardinia (which went on to create the State of Savoy), while Lombardy, Veneto, Istria and Dalmatia were re-annexed to Austria. The dukedoms of Parma and Modena re-formed, and the Papal States and the Kingdom of Naples returned to the Bourbons. The political and social events in the restoration period of Italy (1815–1835) led to popular uprisings through-out the peninsula and greatly shaped what would become the Italian Wars of Independence. All this led to a new Kingdom of Italy
Kingdom of Italy (1861–1946)
The Kingdom of Italy was a state forged in 1861 by the unification of Italy under the influence of the Kingdom of Sardinia, which was its legal predecessor state...
and Italian unification
Italian unification
Italian unification was the political and social movement that agglomerated different states of the Italian peninsula into the single state of Italy in the 19th century...
.
See also
- List of Holy Roman Emperors
- List of Popes
- Historical states of ItalyHistorical states of ItalyItaly, until the present era, was a conglomeration of city-states and other small independent entities. The following is a list of the various states that made up what we now know as Italy during the past...
- House of SavoyHouse of SavoyThe House of Savoy was formed in the early 11th century in the historical Savoy region. Through gradual expansion, it grew from ruling a small county in that region to eventually rule the Kingdom of Italy from 1861 until the end of World War II, king of Croatia and King of Armenia...
(including the list of the modern kings of Italy)