Italy Essay Research Paper Italy Italy

Italy Essay, Research Paper

Italy Italy is a very exciting country to write a paper about because of its very active political history. I hope that the political history, conditions, and framework will be evident in this paper. After the expulsion of the Etruscans from what is now central Italy, ancient Italian history is largely that of the Roman Empire, of which Italy was the core. Like the rest of the empire, Italy was overrun by barbarian tribes in the early 5th century A.D. The Eastern emperors struggled over its remains, but Byzantine rule was soon displaced by that of the Lombards, except Rome, where Pope Gregory I laid the foundation for the Papal States. The persisting of Lombard threat against Rome brought the intervention of Pepin the short and Charlemagne, who established Frankish hegemony over Italy. The German king Ottoi invaded Italy and was crowned emperor by the pope; this union of Italy and Germany marked the beginning of the Holy Roman Empire. Southern Italy, conquered by the Normans, eventually passed to the Angevins of Naples and the Aragonese kings of Sicily. North and central Italy saw the rise of separate city-states; these, despite constant internecine warfare, built huge commercial empires, dominated European finance, and produced the treat cultural flowering known as the Renaissance. Europe s Renaissance period began in Italy during the 14th and 15th centuries. Literary achievements such as the poetry of Petrarch, Tasso, and Ariosto and the prose of Boccaccio, Machiavelli, and Castiglione exerted a tremendous and lasting influence on the subsequent giants such as da Vinci, Raphael, Bottecelli, Fra Angelico, and Michelangelo. The musical influence of Italian composers Monteverdi, Palestrina, and Vivaldi proved epochal; in the 19th century, Italian romantic opera flourished under composers Gioacchino Rossini, Giuseppe Verdi, and Giacomo Puccini. Contemporary Italian artists, writers, filmmakers, architects, composers, and designers contribute significantly to Western culture. Beginning in the late fifteenth century, Italy became the battleground of French, Spanish, and Austrian imperialism. By the eighteenth century Italian subjection to foreign rule, notably by the Spanish Bourbans and the Austrian Hapsburgs, was complete and remained so until the French Revolutionary Wars and Napoleon I redrew the map of Italy. After the Congress of Vienna, Austria, whose influence in Italy was now paramount, could not long suppress the efforts of Cavour, Garibaldi, and Victor Emmanuell II, who became king of Italy in 1861. Italy later acquired Venetia in 1866, and Rome and its environs in 1870. Though a member of the Triple Alliance, Italy entered World War I on the Allied side and in the peace treaty obtained additional territory, including Tyrol, Trieste, and Istria. After the war, political and social unrest encouraged the growth of fascism, and in 1922 Mussolini seized power. He created a totalitarian corporative state, conquered Ethiopia in 1936, seized Albania in 1939, and entered World War II in 1940 as an ally of Germany. In 1943 Italy surrendered to the Allies. Italy became a republic in 1946, and the king was exiled. the 1947 peace treaty deprived Italy of its colonies and considerable territory. Trieste was regained in 1954. The postwar era has seen a succession of short-lived, pro-Western coalition governments: the Communists although strong electorally, have been excluded from ministerial positions. The Mafia and organized crime have had a persistent corruption influence on postwar Italian society, and in the late 1970 s leftist guerrilla terrorism plagued the country, most notably in the kidnapping and murder of former premier Aldo Moro in 1978. The 1992 parliamentary elections resulted in centrist, four-party minority government led by Giuliano Amato, a Socialist. Corruption probes, begun in 1992, led to the arrest of hundreds of business and political figures and the investigation of many others, including several party leaders and former prime ministers. A large vote, in a 1993 referendum, in favor of ending proportional representation in Italy s senate was regarded as a call for political change, and Premier Amato resigned. Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, head of Italy s central bank, succeeded him, and legislation was passed that largely ended proportional representation in parliament. In new elections in 1994, a coalition of conservatives and neo-fascists won a majority of the seats in parliament, and silvio Berlusconi became premier. Fascism philosophy of government that glorifies the nation-state at the expense of the individual. Major concepts of fascism include opposition to democratic and socialist movements; racist ideologies, such as anti-Semitism; aggressive military policy; and belief in an authoritarian leader who embodies the ideals of the nation. Fascism generally gains support by promising social justice to discontented elements of the working and middle classes, and social order to powerful financial interests. While retaining class divisions and usually protecting capitalist and landowning interests, the fascist state exercises control of all levels of individual and economic activity, employing special police forces to instill fear. The term was first used by the party started by Mussolini, who ruled Italy from 1922 until the Italian defeat in World War II, and has also been applied to other right-wing movements, such as National Socialism in Germa