Italy

VI

History

For the history of Italy to the 5th century ad, see Rome, Kings of; Roman Republic; Roman Empire. For additional data on the development of modern Italy, see Etruscan Civilization; Florence; Genoa; Lombardy; Milan; Naples; Papal States; Savoy, House of; Sicily; Tuscany; Venice.

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The Middle Ages

In ad 476 the last independent Roman Emperor of the West, Romulus Augustulus, was dethroned by the invading Germanic chieftain Odoacer, who thereupon succeeded to the throne. In 488 Theodoric, King of the Ostrogoths, invaded Italy and, after defeating and slaying Odoacer, became the sole ruler in Italy. Theodoric ruled until his death in 526. In 535 Justinian I, Emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire (see Byzantine Empire), dispatched the great general Belisarius to expel the Germanic invaders from Italy. A fierce war ensued, ending in 553 with the death of Teias, the last of the Gothic kings. The Byzantine rule was of short duration, however, for in 572 Italy was invaded by the Lombards, another Germanic tribe. Alboin, their king, made Pavia the capital of his realm, and from that city he launched a series of campaigns that eventually deprived the Byzantine power in Italy of everything except the southern portion of the province and the exarchate of Ravenna in the north. The country’s most important religious leaders of the time were the archbishops of Ravenna.

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Religious Conflict

After the death of Alboin in 572, the Lombards for a time had no king. Separate bands thereupon united under regional leaders known as duci. The Lombards, like the Goths before them, espoused the heretical creed called Arianism, with the result that they were in perpetual religious conflict with the native Italians, who overwhelmingly supported orthodox Christianity. This conflict was intensified as the temporal power of the popes increased. At length, Agiluf, a new Lombard king who reigned from 590 to 615, was converted to orthodox Christianity, and for some time comparative harmony prevailed. To consolidate their political power, however, the Lombards began to encroach on papal territory, even threatening Rome, the centre of Church authority. In 754 Pope Stephen II summoned help from the Franks, who had accepted the spiritual authority of the Church a century earlier. Under the vigorous leadership of Pepin the Short and his son, Charlemagne, the Franks conquered the Lombards, deposing the last Lombard king in 774. On Christmas Day, 800, Charlemagne was crowned Emperor of the West by Pope Leo III.

When the Saracens subdued Sicily and threatened Rome in the 9th century, Pope Leo IV called on King Louis II, Charlemagne’s great-grandson, who checked the progress of the invaders. The Muslims overran southern Italy after Louis died and compelled the popes to pay tribute. For many years thereafter, the history of Italy is the record of the rise and fall of successive petty kings. Chief among them were Guido of Spoleto; Berengar I of Friuli, Holy Roman Emperor; and Hugh of Provence. The period of anarchy ended in 962, when the Germanic leader Otto I, after obtaining possession of northern Italy and the Lombard crown, was crowned Emperor by Pope John XII. This event is considered by some to mark the establishment of both the Holy Roman Empire and the German nation.

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The Papacy Versus the Holy Roman Empire

Until the close of the Middle Ages the Holy Roman emperors claimed and, in varying degrees, exercised sovereignty over Italy, but for practical purposes imperial authority became completely nominal by the beginning of the 14th century. Meanwhile, the south of Italy had remained under Byzantine and Lombard sway. In the 11th century, however, the Normans broke the Byzantine power and expelled the Lombards. The Normans united their territorial conquests in Italy in 1127 with Sicily, which they had wrested from the Saracens. These developments coincided with a resurgence of papal power, long secondary to that of the emperors. Imperial and papal friction reached a peak in the Investiture Controversy. By the Concordat of Worms, negotiated in 1122, the emperor surrendered to the college of cardinals the right to elect the pope. Simultaneous with the increasing influence of the papacy, strong opposition to the continued rule of the Holy Roman emperors appeared in the form of the rising Italian city-states. In Italy the feudal system had never attained the high degree of development characteristic of France and Germany. The relative weakness of Italian feudalism was due in great part to the survival of Roman traditions and to the large number of cities in Italy, for feudalism was a rural rather than an urban phenomenon. The northern cities in particular defied the power of Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I, who fought fierce but inconclusive wars with them. At length the Lombard League, an alliance of Italian cities, was formed in 1167; Frederick was vanquished at Legnano in 1176, and in 1183, with the signing of the Peace of Constance, the cities of northern Italy secured virtual autonomy. A final and unsuccessful attempt to crush both the papacy and its allies was made by Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, the last great ruler of the royal House of Hohenstaufen. Italy itself was divided by the struggles between imperial partisans (the Guelphs) and their opponents (the Ghibellines). These names continued to be the designations of fiercely contending parties long after the Holy Roman emperors had lost their hold on the country.

Meanwhile, in 1266, southern Italy and Sicily came under the domination of the French House of Anjou. In 1282, however, Sicily threw off the French yoke and placed itself under the power of Aragón. See Sicilian Vespers.

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The Rise of The City-States

Through commerce, some of the northern Italian cities had meanwhile grown wealthy and had established oligarchical governments that were tending to become democratic. The prosperous merchants of these cities, having secured their independence from the authority of the Holy Roman emperors, soon began to contest the authority of their powerful nobles. Gradually, these nobles were divested of their power and compelled to abandon their extensive landholdings. Venice, by its participation in the Fourth Crusade, had secured extensive possessions in the Byzantine East and had developed a far-reaching trade empire. Pisa, Genoa, Milan, and Florence had likewise become powerful. A bitter struggle for ascendancy soon developed between Genoa and Venice. The conflict ended with a Venetian victory towards the close of the 14th century.

In every city of northern and central Italy the population had long been divided into Guelphs and Ghibellines. The former party was substantially progressive in character, the latter conservative. Civil strife was almost incessant, and the triumph of one party frequently resulted in the banishment of members of the other. On occasion, the banished party sought to regain power with the aid of other cities, so that city often warred against city, producing a shifting succession of alliances, conquests, and temporary truces. This turbulence was highly disadvantageous to commerce and industry, the chief interests of the northern cities. In consequence, the office of podesta, or chief magistrate, was established to mediate the differences of the contending parties. It proved ineffective, however, and the podesta came in time to be primarily a judicial officer. His place as head of the city was taken by a “captain of the people”, representing the dominant party. This position was usually held by a noble. The people, longing for peace, acquiesced in the establishment of centralized authority. Thus, almost every city came to have its despot, or absolute ruler; the office in many cases became hereditary in some noble families, such as the Scala at Verona, the Este at Ferrara, the Malatesta at Rimini, and the Visconti and later the Sforza at Milan. Under the rule of the despots, wealth increased, life became more luxurious, and literature and the arts flourished. Gradually, the smaller cities passed under the influence of the larger ones.