Italian city-states in the context of "City-state"

Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern and Western Europe. It consists of a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land border, as well as nearly 800 islands, notably Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares land borders with France to the west; Switzerland and Austria to the north; Slovenia to the east; and the two enclaves of Vatican City and San Marino. It is the tenth-largest country in Europe by area, covering 301,340 km (116,350 sq mi), and the third-most populous member state of the European Union, with nearly 59 million inhabitants. Italy's capital and largest city is Rome; other major cities include Milan, Naples, Turin, Palermo, Bologna, Florence, Genoa, and Venice.

The history of Italy goes back to numerous Italic peoples – notably including the ancient Romans, who conquered the Mediterranean world during the Roman Republic and ruled it for centuries during the Roman Empire. With the spread of Christianity, Rome became the seat of the Catholic Church and the Papacy. Barbarian invasions and other factors led to the decline and fall of the Western Roman Empire between late antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. By the 11th century, Italian city-states and maritime republics expanded, bringing renewed prosperity through commerce and laying the groundwork for modern capitalism. The Italian Renaissance flourished during the 15th and 16th centuries and spread to the rest of Europe. Italian explorers discovered new routes to the Far East and the New World, contributing significantly to the Age of Discovery.

The Republic of Florence (Latin: Res publica Florentina; Old Italian: Republica di Fiorenza), known officially as the Florentine Republic, was a medieval and early modern state that was centered on the Italian city of Florence in Tuscany, Italy. The republic originated in 1115, when the Florentine people rebelled against the Margraviate of Tuscany upon the death of Matilda of Tuscany, who controlled vast territories that included Florence. The Florentines formed a commune in Rabodo's (Matilda’s successor) successors' place. The republic was ruled by a council known as the Signoria of Florence. The signoria was chosen by the gonfaloniere (titular ruler of the city), who was elected every two months by Florentine guild members.

During the Republic's history, Florence was an important cultural, economic, political and artistic force in Europe. Its coin, the florin, was the dominant trade coin of Western Europe for large scale transactions and became widely imitated throughout the continent. During the Republican period, Florence was also the birthplace of the Renaissance, which is considered a fervent period of European cultural, artistic, political and economic "rebirth".

The Italian Renaissance (Italian: Rinascimento [rinaʃʃiˈmento]) was a period in Italian history during the 15th and 16th centuries. The period and place are known for the initial development of the broader Renaissance culture that spread from Italy to the rest of Europe (and also to extra-European territories ruled by colonial powers or where Christian missionaries and/or traders were active). The period was one of transition: it sits between the Middle Ages and the modern era. Proponents of a "long Renaissance" argue that it started around the year 1300 and lasted until about 1600. In some fields, a Proto-Renaissance, beginning around 1250, is typically accepted. The French word renaissance (corresponding to rinascimento in Italian) means 'rebirth', and defines the period as one of cultural revival and renewed interest in classical antiquity after the centuries during what Renaissance humanists labelled as the "Dark Ages". The Italian Renaissance historian Giorgio Vasari used the term rinascita ('rebirth') in his Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects in 1550, but the concept became widespread only in the 19th century, after the work of scholars such as Jules Michelet and Jacob Burckhardt.

The Renaissance began in Tuscany in Central Italy and centered in the city of Florence. The Florentine Republic, one of the several city-states of the peninsula, rose to economic and political prominence by providing credit to European monarchs and by laying the groundwork for developments in capitalism and banking. Renaissance culture later spread to Venice, the heart of a Mediterranean empire controlling trade routes with the east since its participation in the Crusades and following the journeys of Marco Polo between 1271 and 1295. Thus Italy renewed contact with the remains of ancient Greek culture, which provided humanist scholars with new texts. Finally the Renaissance had a significant effect on the Papal States and on Rome, largely rebuilt by humanist and Renaissance popes, such as Julius II and Leo X, who frequently became involved in Italian politics, in arbitrating disputes between competing colonial powers and in opposing the Protestant Reformation, which started c. 1517.

Western civilization traces its roots back to Europe and the Mediterranean. It began in ancient Greece, transformed in ancient Rome, and evolved into medieval Western Christendom before experiencing such seminal developmental episodes as the development of Scholasticism, the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Scientific Revolution, the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, and the development of liberal democracy. The civilizations of classical Greece and Rome are considered seminal periods in Western history. Major cultural contributions also came from the Christianized Germanic peoples, such as the Longobards, the Franks, the Goths, and the Burgundians. Charlemagne founded the Carolingian Empire and he is referred to as the "Father of Europe". Contributions also emerged from pagan peoples of pre-Christian Europe, such as the Celts and Germanic pagans as well as some significant religious contributions derived from Judaism and Hellenistic Judaism stemming back to Second Temple Judea, Galilee, and the early Jewish diaspora; and some other Middle Eastern influences. Western Christianity has played a prominent role in the shaping of Western civilization, which throughout most of its history, has been nearly equivalent to Christian culture. (There were Christians outside of the West, such as China, India, Russia, Byzantium and the Middle East). Western civilization has spread to produce the dominant cultures of modern Americas and Oceania, and has had immense global influence in recent centuries in many ways.

Following the 5th century Fall of Rome, Europe entered the Middle Ages, during which period the Catholic Church filled the power vacuum left in the West by the fall of the Western Roman Empire, while the Eastern Roman Empire (or Byzantine Empire) endured in the East for centuries, becoming a Hellenic Eastern contrast to the Latin West. By the 12th century, Western Europe was experiencing a flowering of art and learning, propelled by the construction of cathedrals, the establishment of medieval universities, and greater contact with the medieval Islamic world via Al-Andalus and Sicily, from where Arabic texts on science and philosophy were translated into Latin. Christian unity was shattered by the Reformation from the 16th century. A merchant class grew out of city states, initially in the Italian peninsula (see Italian city-states), and Europe experienced the Renaissance from the 14th to the 17th century, heralding an age of technological and artistic advance and ushering in the Age of Discovery which saw the rise of such global European empires as those of Portugal and Spain.

Italy has been inhabited by humans since the Paleolithic. During antiquity, there were many peoples in the Italian peninsula, including Etruscans, Latins, Samnites, Umbri, Cisalpine Gauls, Greeks in Magna Graecia and others. Most significantly, Italy was the cradle of the Roman civilization. Rome was founded as a kingdom in 753 BC and became a republic in 509 BC. The Roman Republic then unified Italy forming a confederation of the Italic peoples and rose to dominate Western Europe, Northern Africa, and the Near East. The Roman Empire, established in 27 BC, ruled the Mediterranean region for centuries, contributing to the development of Western culture, philosophy, science and art.

During the early Middle Ages, Italy experienced the succession in power of Ostrogoths, Byzantines, Longobards and the Holy Roman Empire and fragmented into numerous city-states and regional polities, a situation that would remain until the unification of the country. These polities and the maritime republics, in particular Venice and Genoa, rose to prosperity. Eventually, the Italian Renaissance emerged and spread to the rest of Europe, bringing a renewed interest in humanism, science, exploration, and art with the start of the modern era. In the medieval and early modern era, Southern Italy was ruled by the Norman, Swabian and Angevin dynasties and the Aragonese, French and Spanish crowns. Central Italy was largely part of the Papal States.

Italy, up until its unification in 1861, was a conglomeration of city-states, republics, and other independent entities. The following is a list of the various Italian states during that period. Following the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the arrival of the Middle Ages (in particular from the 11th century), the Italian Peninsula was divided into numerous states. Many of these states consolidated into major political units that balanced the power on the Italian Peninsula: the Papal States, the Venetian Republic, the Republic of Florence, the Duchy of Milan, the Kingdom of Naples and the Kingdom of Sicily. Unlike all the other Italian states of the medieval and early modern period, the republics of Venice and Genoa, thanks to their maritime power, went beyond territorial conquests within the Italian Peninsula, conquering various regions across the Mediterranean and Black Seas.