History of Italy | Wikipedia audio article
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Date: 2018-11-03

This is an audio version of the Wikipedia Article:
History of Italy

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SUMMARY
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In archaic times, ancient Greeks, Etruscans and Celts established settlements in the south, the centre and the north of Italy respectively, while various Italian tribes and Italic peoples inhabited the Italian peninsula and insular Italy. The Italic tribe of the Latins formed the city of Rome as a Kingdom, which eventually became a Republic that united Italy by the third century BC and emerged as the dominant power of Europe and the Mediterranean Sea as a consequence of the military victories of generals such as Scipio, Aemilius Paullus, Scipio Aemilianus, Gaius Marius, Lucius Sulla, Pompey and Julius Caesar.
In 27 BC, Augustus established the Roman Empire and inaugurated the Pax Romana, two centuries of stability and relative peace in which Italy flourished as the leading political and economic centre of the known world. The death of the last of the good emperors, Marcus Aurelius, and the crisis of the third century marked the beginning of the decline of Rome. The Empire went through major changes in the following centuries, including the establishment of a tetrarchy in 293 under Diocletian and the end of the persecutions of Christians with the Edict of Milan of 313 under Constantine. The Bishop of Rome was granted religious primacy with the Edict of Thessalonica in 380 and the West collapsed amid barbarian invasions in 476, when Odoacer deposed Romulus Augustus.
During the early middle ages, the Italian peninsula suffered a series of wars of conquest by the Goths, the Byzantines and the Lombards, until Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne Holy Roman Emperor the day of Christmas of the year 800 in Rome. The Roman Pontiff and the German Emperor became the universal powers of Italy and Europe, but then entered in conflict for the investiture controversy and the clash between their factions: the Guelphs and Ghibellines. The struggle for power between the Papacy and the Empire led to the decline of Imperial influence in Italy, especially after the Humiliation of Canossa of Emperor Henry IV and the victory of Italian forces over Friedrich Barbarossa in the Battle of Legnano: by the 12th century Italy was organized in independent city-states.
The crusades launched by Pope Urban II and his successors proved to be successful for the maritime republics: Italy first experienced the Commercial Revolution, which caused the European economy to shift from agriculture to trade, and became the birthplace of banking and universities. Venice entered in control of the mediterranean trade routes and consolidated a maritime empire after the Sack of Constantinople of the Fourth Crusade and the Venetian-Genoese wars. Furthermore, Frederick of Sicily made Italy the cultural and strategic centre of a large reign that included Imperial Germany and, following the Sixth Crusade, the Kingdom of Jerusalem. These socio-economic factors paved the way for the beginning of the Renaissance in Florence, Tuscany, in the 14th century.
Renaissance philosophy, art, science and exploration marked the transition to the modern era and notable figures such as Leonardo, Dante, Giotto, Marco Polo, Machiavelli, Michelangelo, Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci, and Galileo made important contributions in their fields between the Trecento and the Seicento. The period was also characterised by the activities of the condottieri in the Italian Renaissance Wars (1494-1559), a long conflict that broke the Peace of Lodi maintained by Lorenzo de Medici and began a period of domestic disputes and foreign invasions. The peace of Cateau-Cambresis established Habsburg Spain as the ruler of the South of Italy and Milan, while the Duchy of Florence and the Venetian Republic remained independent.
Meanwhile, the Papacy reached its zenith of political power by reacting to protestantism with the Catholic Reformation, a movement that resulted in: the Council of Trent, the Christianization of large parts of the world, the activities of the Roman Inquisition, the adoption of the G ...