The Renaissance and centuries of foreign rule
Florence, Rome and Venice lead a rebirth of art and learning that changes Europe, but from 1494 a divided Italy becomes the battleground and possession of foreign powers.
- The Italian Renaissance: Culture and Society in Italy — Peter Burke, Polity Press (1986)
- Leonardo da Vinci: The Marvellous Works of Nature and Man — Martin Kemp, Oxford University Press (2006)
- The Pursuit of Italy: A History of a Land, its Regions and their Peoples — David Gilmour, Allen Lane (2011)
In fifteenth-century Florence, wealthy patrons such as the Medici funded artists and scholars who looked back to ancient Rome and Greece. Brunelleschi raised the dome of Florence cathedral, Botticelli painted, and humanists revived classical learning. In the decades around 1500 Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael worked in Florence, Milan and Rome, and Venice produced Titian. The new art and ideas spread across Europe.
- The Italian Renaissance: Culture and Society in Italy — Peter Burke, Polity Press (1986)
- Leonardo da Vinci: The Marvellous Works of Nature and Man — Martin Kemp, Oxford University Press (2006)
But Italy’s states were rivals, and in 1494 the French king Charles VIII invaded. The Italian Wars that followed brought French, Spanish and imperial armies; in 1527 imperial troops sacked Rome. Niccolò Machiavelli wrote The Prince (1513) partly in despair at Italy’s weakness, ending with a plea to free Italy “from the barbarians”.
- The Pursuit of Italy: A History of a Land, its Regions and their Peoples — David Gilmour, Allen Lane (2011)
- The Italian Renaissance: Culture and Society in Italy — Peter Burke, Polity Press (1986)
From 1559 Spain dominated much of the peninsula, ruling Milan, Naples, Sicily and Sardinia directly; in the eighteenth century Austria replaced Spain in the north. Only Venice, the Papal States, Piedmont-Savoy and a few smaller states kept some independence. Napoleon’s armies swept in from 1796, abolishing old states and creating a “Kingdom of Italy” in the north, a taste of unity that outlived him.
- The Pursuit of Italy: A History of a Land, its Regions and their Peoples — David Gilmour, Allen Lane (2011)
- The Force of Destiny: A History of Italy since 1796 — Christopher Duggan, Allen Lane (2007)
Why it matters today
The Renaissance is the heart of Italian cultural pride and the reason the country vies with China for the most UNESCO World Heritage Sites of any country. Italians grow up among its churches, piazzas and paintings. The centuries of foreign rule that followed are part of why many Italians have a sceptical, self-ironic view of the state and of power, and why the dream of a united Italy carried such force in the nineteenth century.