Curated playlist
Italian states
- Republic of GenoaThe Republic of Genoa earned four nicknames over its long life: la Superba, la Dominante, la Dominante dei mari, and la Repubblica dei magnifici. That last one translates to the Republic of the Magnificents, and it was not an idle boast.…
- Corsican RepublicThe Corsican Republic came into being in July 1755, proclaimed on a Mediterranean island that most of Europe had long dismissed as a Genoese possession. Pasquale Paoli, its founder, drafted a constitution in the Italian language at a time…
- Roman RepublicThe Roman Republic began with an act of violence and ended with one. In 509 BC, according to Roman tradition, a noblewoman named Lucretia was raped by Sextus Tarquinius, son of the king. The outrage that followed swept the monarchy from…
- Italian Republic (Napoleonic)The Italian Republic existed for just three years, from 1802 to 1805, a northern Italian state with Napoleon Bonaparte as its president and Milan as its capital. It raises a question that sounds almost paradoxical: what does a republic…
- Kingdom of ItalyOn the 17th of March 1861, Victor Emmanuel II of Sardinia was proclaimed King of Italy in Turin. This event marked the birth of a new state from decades of struggle known as the Risorgimento. The movement to unite the Italian peninsula…
- Italian Social RepublicThe Italian Social Republic existed for just 19 months, yet its name carries a weight that still shapes Italian politics today. Proclaimed on the 23rd of September 1943 in the chaos following Italy's armistice with the Allies, it was a…
- Western Roman EmpireThe Western Roman Empire did not fall in a single dramatic moment. On the 4th of September 476, a Germanic military leader named Odoacer deposed a teenage emperor named Romulus Augustulus in the city of Ravenna. Barely anyone noticed. No…
- Ligurian RepublicThe Ligurian Republic was born from a moment of violent upheaval, announced by Napoleon on the 6th of June 1797 after conflict had already torn through Genoa the previous month. One of Europe's oldest independent trading states had just…
- Republic of VeniceThe Republic of Venice endured for over 1,100 years, longer than any other major European state of its era. At its peak, between the 13th and 16th centuries, it controlled Crete, Cyprus, the Peloponnese, scattered Greek islands, and ports…
- Duchy of MilanThe Duchy of Milan came into being on the 11th of May 1395, when a single document signed in Prague changed the shape of Northern Italy forever. Wenceslaus of Bohemia put his name to a diploma that handed Gian Galeazzo Visconti the title…
- Kingdom of NaplesThe Kingdom of Naples bore an official name that almost nobody used: the Kingdom of Sicily on this side of the lighthouse. That lighthouse was the Punta del Faro, the headland marking the Strait of Messina, and it split a centuries-long…
- Roman EmpireThe Roman Empire was one of the most expansive and enduring political structures the ancient world produced, stretching from Hadrian's Wall in drizzle-soaked northern England to the sun-baked banks of the Euphrates in Syria. At its height…