Before the Congress of Vienna the French occupation had far reaching affects on Italy. The power of the Church and the Pope was reduced, changes were made in landownership and land was redistributed. A new middle class began to appear. Agriculture was improved and the peasants were freed from their old feudal ties and obligations. Then when Napoleon was defeated and the restoration of the old regime and monarchs was started, Italy again became a country divided into eleven independent states, excluding the tiny principalities and the Republic of San Marino. So Italy was not unified after the Congress of Vienna due to a number of reasons, such as the foreign influence of the Central European Powers, parochialism within the states, the lack of a common language and a strong economy coupled with the poor geography that separated Italy from itself and the rest of Europe.
One of the major factors that contributed to Italy not being unified after the congress of Vienna was the impact of foreign influence. Before the restoration of the old regime in Italy state boundaries were rearranged a number of times, ending up with a division of the peninsula into only three parts instead of eleven states. One third, including Piedmont, was annexed to France, one third became the Kingdom of Italy, and Napoleon’s brother, Joseph, as the Kingdom of Naples, ruled the remainder. Yet at the restoration of the old regime in Italy after the Congress of Vienna, the Pope was among those who regained their positions. During the Napoleonic occupation successive Popes had been taken into exile in France, and the temporal power of the Pope as ruler of an Italian state had been declared at an end. But when the Pope returned he was intent on restoring temporal, as well as spiritual, control. The Papal States were divided into seventeen provinces, five of which were under the authority of Papal Legates, or Cardinals, who acted as provincial governors. The remainder, which were nearer Rome, were controlled by priests known as Delegates. The whole administration of the Papal States was in the hands of the clergy. The lay people had no part in government, apart from a few lay members of advisory bodies called ‘congregations’. Politically, Italy was fragmented. Further, half the states were governed by kings or dukes who already occupied or hoped soon to inherit the thrones of the non-Italian countries.
Next, we will discuss the Risorgimento, a 19th-century movement for unification of Italy that would ultimately establish the Kingdom of Italy in 1861. Before this time, the Italian peninsula
Ginsborg P (1990). ‘A History of Contemporary Italy: Society and Politics: 1943-1980’ Published by Penguin; Reprint edition (27 Sep 1990).
Multiple historians have touched on the change in government during Fascist Italy’s reign in World War II. In Italian Fascism: Its Origins and Development, Alexander De Grand clarifies the many promises Benito Mussolini fabricated for the Italian people in order to get them to join his cause such as the improvement on poverty with the rise of a new Roman Empire. De Grand also gives an opposite view, with some citizens seeing Fascism as a “model of efficiency.” In Melton S. Davis’ Who Defends Rome?, t...
Italy achieved her unification in 1870. She had a constitutional monarchy like that of Great Britain, but democratic society failed to develop in Italy because the government was controlled by corrupt politicians, called the party bosses. They controlled the elections by bribing the voters. Once they were in power, they were more interested in achieving personal gains for themselves than in solving the social and economic problems of the people. As a result of this political corruption, Italy remained a poor country. Industrial progress was slow. Italy was poor in natural resources and lack of fertile land. Many of the farm laborers were landless and were often unemployed, so millions of Italians were forced to emigrate.
To begin with, this is determined by Italy's weak and foreign expansion policy. In 1871, the long-torn apartness of Italy achieved unity, providing favorable conditions for the development of capitalism. But the reunification is completed from top to bottom, retaining a large number of feudal remnants, which seriously hindered the further development of the Italian economy, resulting in the backwardness of Italy, mainly in three aspects: First, backward agriculture, food production is extremely
Italy embarked on a long rebuilding journey. No matter how hard Italy tries to forget Fascism, it will always leave an everlasting mark on society there, and it will go down in history as the
Only thirty years after the Piedmontese army marched into Rome to unite Italy under one government, the country suddenly found itself on the brink of the twentieth century and a rapidly changing world. The twentieth century would mark the beginning of great changes throughout Europe, and Italy would not be left untouched. What set the stage for these changes, though, were the years just prior to, and directly after 1900.
During the late 1800's Italy became one of the most overcrowded countries in Europe. Many Italians began to consider the possibility of leaving Italy to escape the new low wages and high taxes. For centuries the entire Italian peninsula was divided into quarreling states, with foreign powers often controlling several states. In this chaotic situation, the feudal system ruled above the economic system, leaving money only in the hands of a select few (Wikepedia.com, 2007).
By 1498 the situation in Italy was one of chaos and turmoil. Charles died in 1498, which meant that there wasn’t going to be a re-invasion. Popular uprisings in Milan and Florence saw the Medicis and the Sforzas overthrown. Civil war was raging on between Pisa and Florence and the accession of Louis VIII as French King meant that the prospects for peace did not look too good.
The Reformation spurred a wave of political devolution throughout Europe in the early 1500s, the most obvious example being that of the Holy Roman Empire. Although the nobility of the Holy Roman Empire had managed to keep hold of its power throughout a time of political unification, the Reformati...
The map of Europe was redrawn after World War I such that the countries that desired independence had their own self-governing nation. This caused the German Empire, for instance, to grow smaller and not encompass the small countries that had previously been a part of the empire. Although these territorial changes were seemingly beneficial to some, they ultimately did not work in practice for various reasons. The countries that achieved independence were not successful for reasons such as their failure to establish diplomatic relations with other countries and weak infrastructure; these reasons combined resulted in a weak country.
...m agreement on religion. In Italy the Catholic Church exercised a strong influence on the people.
During this period of Italian history, Catholicism was the dominant religion, and reigned supreme among others. Advancement in the Catholic faith was used as a means to secure political power in a divided region. With religion and politics being strongly interconnected, the Pope was often seen as the most influential political f...
the power of the Roman Catholic Church in Italy or to work with it. He
In the early years of the twentieth century, Italy has created a new system of government, however suffered social and economic conditions. Improvements were made however, poverty and literacy were still problems that have not been solved well. While entering World War I, the nation was neutral up until joining the British and French in exchange for certain advantages. However, it was unsuccessful as Italy failed to take control of the territories that it claimed at the Versailles Peace Conference, and suffered significant losses. The ideology of fascism occurred when the power of Italy was shrinking and the idea of being a pacifist became weak.