Author: Charles River Editors
Narrator: KC Wayman
Unabridged: 1 hr 42 min
Format: Digital Audiobook
Publisher: Findaway Voices
Published: 03/03/2023
Genre: History - Europe - Italy
In 1494, there were five sovereign regional powers in Italy: Milan, Venice, Florence, the Papal States and Naples. In 1536, only one remained: Venice. These decades of conflict precipitated great anxiety among Western thinkers, and Italians responded to the fragmentation of Latin Christendom, the end of self-governance for Italians, and the beginning of the early modern era in various ways. They were always heavily influenced by the lived experience of warfare between large Christian armies on the peninsula. The diplomatic and military history of this 30-year period is a complex one that one eminent Renaissance historian, Lauro Martines, has described as "best told by a computer, so many and tangled are the treatises, negotiations and battles." At the same time, the fighting went in tandem with the Renaissance and was influenced by it.
Before 1494, death tolls were counted in hundreds rather than thousands, but that would change over the next generation, and among the many battles fought, few stood out like the Battle of Ravenna in 1512. Ravenna is an ancient city in northern Italy on the Adriatic Coast that replaced Rome as capital of the Western Roman Empire for much of the 5th century and continued to serve as a regional center for its successor states, including the Ostrogoths, Byzantines, and Papal States. On April 11 of that year, two great armies met near Ravenna, which had been the site of conflict at least six times before on account of its strategic importance. It was a well-protected city with connections to rich Mediterranean ports, and it guarded the routes to central and southern Italy. Over 44,000 troops gathered, a vast number for the time, to fight over Italy’s destiny, which had become important to France, Austria, and Spain, the great powers of the time.
On March 25, 1957, Italy signed the Treaty of Rome, which established the European Economic Community (EEC), a forerunner of the European Union (EU) that was promoted as a guarantor of future peace in Europe. For the soldiers on both sides of World ...
However diverse Sicily might be, it is also paradoxically considered to be an emblem of Italy itself, a paradox it shares with Naples. In fact, Frederick II was the last ruler of a fully autonomous Sicily, and his son, Manfred (r. 1254-1258), was t...
According to archaeological diggings, presence of modern human date back to 200,000 years ago to the Palaeolithic time. The Greek colonies settled in the southern portion of the peninsula and the Sicily in the 8th and 7th centuries BCE. By 6th and 5...
Naples (or, in Italian, Napoli) is the local capital of Campania and Italy's third-largest city, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 967,069 people living within the city's administrative limits since 2017. With a population of 3,115,320 peop...
This book contains the following topics:LourdesThe GaulsThe HuguenotsFlorenceNaplesSt. Catherine of SienaVaticanVenetian Empire
This valuable deal contains multiple titles in one book. The topics are the following:Florence: Florence was a major center of middle ages European trade and banking, and also one of the most affluent cities in the world at the time. A lot of academ...
Florence was a major center of middle ages European trade and banking, and also one of the most affluent cities in the world at the time. A lot of academics believe it was the beginning of the Renaissance, and it has been called "the Athens of the M...
??? Gone in an instant ???Pompeii was one of the most advanced cities of its time; it had a complex water system, gymnasium, and amphitheater. Despite its advancements, there was one thing it wasn't ready for: Mount Vesuvius--the volcano that led to...
When we think of Venice, we think of masks, canals, murals and frescoes, and little “gondoliers” with picturesque boats. Venice, indeed, has an impressive artistic history. But did you know that Venice was also, for a while, a considerab...