History

Recent History

Italy's parliament has a reputation for scandal and resignation, and at times it has left Italy virtually ungoverned and utterly chaotic. The explosion of corruption cases in the Mani Pulite (Clean Hands) and Tangentopoli (Bribesville) cases in the 1990s threw the traditional political parties into chaos and eventually led to Italy's richest man, entrepreneur Silvio Berlusconi, becoming prime minister in alliance with the former Fascist party and northern Italian secessionists in 2001. Berlusconi, plagued by fraud and other charges, spent much of his term concocting laws to suit his private and business interests. His most lasting legacy was probably the nationwide ban on smoking in all enclosed public spaces in early 2005. With his coalition looking brittle and many Italians desperately disillusioned with his cavalier approach to politics, the ever disunited left wing snatched power in a neck-and-neck election in 2006. Romano Prodi was named the new prime minister.

Though Prodi was less fond of football than Berlusconi, the Italians took out the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany. However, investigations back home into the national league revealed entrenched corruption in the sport. Five Serie A teams received sanctions for their role in match-rigging and bribery. One of these teams, AC Milan, put the furore behind them and went on to win the 2007 Champions League. Meanwhile, AC Milan's owner, one Silvio Berlusconi, began regaining political ground in regional and municipal elections across the country.

Modern Day History

Economic crisis and fickle politics dogged the new nation in the ensuing decades, as Italy muddled through WWI and became riddled with industrial unrest in the early 1920s. In a memorably unwise employment decision, the king asked one Benito Mussolini to take the reins of government under the auspices of his Fascist Party. Il Duce soon became head of state, outlawed the opposition, controlled the press and trade unions and cut franchise by two-thirds. His relationship with Hitler soured after a series of military disasters during WWII and Italian capitulation in 1943, eventually culminating in a fatal dose of rough justice at the hands of partisans in April 1945.

The postwar years were coloured by extremism: the extreme violence of terrorists such as the Brigatte Rosse (Red Brigades), extreme centre-right politics, extreme economic boom and economic crisis, extreme corruption and bribery in extremely high places - and an extremely cynical and fatigued public.

Pre 20th Century History

While Italy's status as a single political entity is relatively recent (1861), its strategic Mediterranean position made it a target for colonisers and opportunists fairly early on in human history. The Etruscans were the first people to rule the peninsula, arriving somewhere between the 12th and 8th century BC. They were eventually subsumed within the mighty Roman Empire, leaving little cultural evidence, other than the odd tomb. The ancient Greeks, their contemporaries, set up a few colonies along the southern coast that became known as Magna Graecia and developed into independent city states. Thus the greater glory that was Rome was itself the offspring of Etruscan and Greek cultures.

The first Roman Republic was founded in 509 BC, and eventually bequeathed us the idea of a common European identity, a language that has spawned many of Europe's contemporary tongues and one of the largest empires the world has ever seen. The Republic's defeat of Carthage (near present-day Tunis) and Hellenic Macedonia during the three Punic Wars cleared the way for ultimate expansion into Spain, Britain, North Africa and present-day Iraq. Meanwhile, relative peace at home enabled the infrastructure of civilisation - roads, aqueducts, cities - to spread. A slave-driven lifestyle and economy triumphed over the concept of people power, and the reigns of the Republic were increasingly taken in hand by the military and, ultimately, the dictatorship.

The empire grew so large, it was eventually divided into eastern and western sectors. Already, however, the bloodthirsty theatrics of regicide and intrigue were planting the seeds of its eventual destruction. Christianity was embraced by Constantine in 313, and the empire's capital was moved from Rome to Constantinople (present-day Istanbul). The western arm of the empire was undone by plague, famine and tribal incursions from the north, and was officially declared null and void in 476 when Odovacar, a German warrior, dubbed himself ruler. The Eastern Roman Empire clung on, even prospering in fits and starts, until overrun by the Turks in 1453.

After the fall of Rome the peninsula entered the Dark Ages and suffered repeated barbarian invasions. Among the more effective of these hordes were the Lombards who successfully controlled large parts of the north before being defeated by the Franks. In 800, the Frankish king Charlemagne was crowned Holy Roman Emperor as symbolic Christian successor to ancient Rome. The south came to be dominated by Muslims until usurped by Normans in the early 11th century. This ethnic cocktail began to settle in the 12th century, just when the next big chapter in textbook history was taking shape. Powerfully combative and competitive city states arose in the north, supporting either the Pope, who represented spiritual power in Christendom but also had considerable political power within Italy(the Papal States), or the Holy Roman Emperor, a foreign leader who claimed secular sovereignty over all Christian Europe (including Italy). The rise of cities and a merchant class culminated in the Renaissance of the 15th century. Painters, architects, poets, philosophers and sculptors produced unsurpassed works of genius, despite the turmoil of intercity warfare and invasion by countries to the north. First Spain and then Austria controlled the peninsula during the ensuing centuries, followed briefly by Napoleon's imperial flourish.

The post-Napoleon shake-up led to the drive for unification of the 19th century, led by Garibaldi, Cavour and Mazzini. The Kingdom of Italy was declared in 1861, although Venice was not prised away from Austria until 1866 and papal claims remained an issue until 1870, when Rome officially joined the young nation. No label of unity, however, could hide the huge cultural and social differences that split the industrialised north from the poverty-stricken south.