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Curated category

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.
  • 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.
  • 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…
  • 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…
  • 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…
  • Italian Social RepublicThe Italian Social Republic existed for just 19 months, yet its name carries a weight that still shapes Italian politics today.
  • 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…
  • 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…
  • 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…
  • 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.
  • Kingdom of NaplesThe Kingdom of Naples bore an official name that almost nobody used: the Kingdom of Sicily on this side of the lighthouse.
  • Roman EmpireListen to the Roman Empire as more than emperors: the roads, the graffiti, and the slow unbraiding of a state that ran from Scotland to the Sahara.