# The Chronicle of Italy: From the legend of Rome to a modern republic forged in the Risorgimento. History of Italy: From the legend of Rome to a modern republic forged in the Risorgimento. 6 eras and 26 sourced events, every claim traceable to a named… Canonical: https://terralore.co/country/ITA/chronicle Updated: 2026-06-13 Founding: Proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy (Risorgimento) — 17 March 1861. Modern Italy dates its political founding to 17 March 1861, when the first Italian parliament in Turin proclaimed Victor Emmanuel II of Savoy King of Italy, the climax of the Risorgimento unification movement. Italians also remember the legendary foundation of Rome itself, traditionally dated to 753 BCE. Unification was completed only with the capture of Rome on 20 September 1870, after which Rome became the capital. Following the fall of Fascism and the Second World War, a referendum on 2 June 1946 abolished the monarchy and established the Italian Republic. Italy's history reaches from the Italic peoples, Etruscans and Greek colonists of the early peninsula, through the world-shaping Roman Republic and Empire, into a fragmented medieval and Renaissance era of papacy, communes, maritime republics and brilliant city-states. After centuries of foreign domination, the 19th-century Risorgimento welded these pieces into one state: the Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed on 17 March 1861, Rome was taken in 1870, and after the trauma of Fascism and the Second World War, Italians voted in 1946 to become a republic. This file carries the chronicle's sourced event record — every event with its year, summary and source keys (resolved under References below). The full reading narrative lives on the canonical page. ## Italic Peoples and the Rise of Rome — c. 900 BCE – 509 BCE Before Rome, the peninsula was a mosaic of Italic tribes, Etruscan cities and Greek colonies, out of which a small Latin town on the Tiber slowly grew. - 753 BCE (traditional): **Legendary foundation of Rome** — Roman tradition, fixed by the scholar Varro, dates the founding of the city to 753 BCE, with Romulus as first king. The date is legendary, but it long anchored Rome's sense of its own origins. [whe-rome, britannica-italy] - c. 8th century BCE: **Greek colonies of Magna Graecia** — From around the 8th century BCE Greek city-states founded colonies across southern Italy and Sicily, from Cumae to Tarentum, creating the prosperous Hellenic world of Magna Graecia. [whe-magna-graecia, britannica-italic] - c. 7th–6th centuries BCE: **Etruscan ascendancy in central Italy** — The Etruscans developed a sophisticated urban civilization in central Italy and, by tradition, supplied Rome with several of its kings before being gradually absorbed by the Roman state. [britannica-italic] - 509 BCE (traditional): **Founding of the Roman Republic** — Tradition holds that the Romans expelled their last king and established a republic governed by elected magistrates and the Senate, conventionally dated to 509 BCE. [whe-rome, britannica-italy] Figures: - Romulus (Legendary) — Legendary founder and first king of Rome. In Roman myth Romulus, raised with his twin Remus, founded Rome on the Palatine in 753 BCE and became its first king. There is little historical evidence he existed, but the legend was central to Roman identity. ## The Roman Republic and Empire — 509 BCE – 476 CE From a city-state to a Mediterranean superpower, Rome built an empire whose law, language and institutions shaped Western civilization. - 264–146 BCE: **The Punic Wars and Mediterranean supremacy** — In three wars against Carthage, Rome destroyed its great rival and became the dominant power of the western Mediterranean, beginning its rise to imperial dominion. [whe-rome, britannica-italy] - 27 BCE: **Augustus and the founding of the Principate** — The Senate granted Octavian the title Augustus, marking the start of the Roman Empire. As first emperor he established the Principate and ushered in the Pax Romana. [whe-augustus, britannica-augustus] - 80 CE: **Completion of the Colosseum** — The Flavian Amphitheatre, the Colosseum, was inaugurated in Rome, a monument to the engineering and civic spectacle of the imperial city. [whe-rome] - 313 CE: **Edict of Milan and the rise of Christianity** — Constantine and Licinius granted toleration to Christianity, beginning its transformation from a persecuted faith into the dominant religion of the Roman world. [britannica-italy] - 476 CE: **Fall of the Western Roman Empire** — The Germanic leader Odoacer deposed Romulus Augustulus, traditionally regarded as the last Western Roman emperor, ending Roman imperial rule in Italy. [whe-rome, britannica-italy] Figures: - Augustus (63 BCE – 14 CE) — First Roman emperor (r. 27 BCE – 14 CE). Born Octavian, he ended the civil wars of the late Republic and refounded the Roman state as the Principate, ruling as its first emperor and inaugurating the Pax Romana. ## Medieval Italy: Papacy, Communes and Normans — 476 – c. 1300 Fragmented after Rome, Italy became a contested ground of popes and emperors, self-governing communes, and Norman kings in the south. - 568 CE: **Lombard invasion of Italy** — The Lombards swept into Italy, fragmenting the peninsula into a patchwork of Lombard duchies and Byzantine territories and shaping its long political division. [britannica-italy] - Christmas, 800 CE: **Charlemagne crowned emperor in Rome** — Pope Leo III crowned the Frankish king Charlemagne emperor in Rome, binding Italy to the Frankish and later Holy Roman imperial order and to the papacy. [britannica-italy] - Christmas Day, 1130: **Roger II crowned King of Sicily** — Norman conquests in the south were united when Roger II was crowned King of Sicily, creating a wealthy multicultural kingdom of Latins, Greeks and Arabs. [wiki-kingdom-sicily, metmuseum-italy-1000-1400] - 1176: **Lombard League defeats Frederick Barbarossa at Legnano** — The allied northern communes defeated the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa at Legnano, securing recognition of communal liberties in northern Italy. [britannica-italy, metmuseum-italy-1000-1400] Figures: - Roger II of Sicily (1095 – 1154) — First King of Sicily (crowned 1130). Norman ruler who united southern Italy and Sicily into the Kingdom of Sicily, presiding over an unusually cosmopolitan court that fused Latin, Greek and Arabic culture. ## The Renaissance and the City-States — c. 1300 – 1550 In the wealthy city-states of Italy, a rebirth of classical learning and an explosion of art reshaped European culture. - 1401: **Competition for the Florence Baptistery doors** — The famous contest for the bronze doors of the Florence Baptistery, won by Lorenzo Ghiberti, is often taken as a symbolic opening of the artistic Renaissance. [metmuseum-florence-1400-1600, britannica-renaissance] - 1434: **Medici ascendancy in Florence** — Cosimo de' Medici returned to dominate Florentine politics, beginning the family's long patronage of art and learning that helped define the Renaissance. [britannica-renaissance] - 1494: **French invasion and the Italian Wars** — The French invasion of 1494 opened decades of warfare in which France and Spain fought for control of Italy, exposing the weakness of its divided states. [britannica-italy] - 1508–1512: **Michelangelo paints the Sistine Chapel ceiling** — Commissioned by the papacy in Rome, Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling became one of the supreme achievements of High Renaissance art. [metmuseum-florence-1400-1600] Figures: - Lorenzo de' Medici (1449 – 1492) — Florentine statesman and patron ('the Magnificent'). The effective ruler of Renaissance Florence, Lorenzo was a poet, diplomat and lavish patron whose support helped sustain the city's golden age of art and learning. - Niccolo Machiavelli (1469 – 1527) — Florentine official and political thinker. A Florentine diplomat whose treatise 'The Prince' analysed power with unsentimental realism, helping to found modern political philosophy. ## Foreign Domination and the Risorgimento — 1550 – 1871 After centuries divided under foreign crowns, a 19th-century movement for unity, the Risorgimento, forged a single Italian kingdom. - 1796–1814: **Napoleonic reorganization of Italy** — Napoleon's campaigns swept aside the old states and spread revolutionary, legal and national ideas across Italy, before the powers restored the former rulers in 1815. [britannica-italy] - 1860: **Garibaldi's Expedition of the Thousand** — Giuseppe Garibaldi's volunteers conquered Sicily and southern Italy, bringing down the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and clearing the way for unification. [britannica-italy, ebsco-kingdom] - 17 March 1861: **Proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy** — The first Italian parliament in Turin proclaimed Victor Emmanuel II King of Italy, the founding act of the unified Italian state and climax of the Risorgimento. [ebsco-kingdom, britannica-italy] - 20 September 1870: **Capture of Rome** — Italian troops breached the Aurelian Walls at Porta Pia and took Rome from the Papal States; after a plebiscite, Rome became Italy's capital, completing unification. [britannica-rome-venetia, britannica-italy] Figures: - Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807 – 1882) — Revolutionary general of the Risorgimento. A charismatic military leader whose 1860 Expedition of the Thousand conquered the south and delivered it to the cause of a united Italy under the House of Savoy. - Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour (1810 – 1861) — Architect of unification, Prime Minister of Piedmont-Sardinia. The leading statesman of the Risorgimento, Cavour used diplomacy and war to expand Piedmont-Sardinia and engineer the unification of Italy under Victor Emmanuel II. ## Liberal Italy, Fascism, War and the Republic — 1871 – 1948 A young kingdom passed through liberal politics and the First World War into Fascist dictatorship, catastrophic war, and finally a democratic republic. - October 1922: **March on Rome and Mussolini's rise to power** — After the Fascist March on Rome, King Victor Emmanuel III appointed Mussolini prime minister, beginning the transition to a Fascist dictatorship. [britannica-march-rome, ushmm-italy] - 1938: **Fascist racial laws** — Mussolini's government enacted antisemitic racial laws that stripped Italian Jews of rights and citizenship, foreshadowing later deportations under German occupation. [ushmm-italy] - 10 June 1940: **Italy enters the Second World War** — Italy declared war on Britain and France, entering the Second World War as Germany's Axis ally, a decision that brought defeat, occupation and devastation. [ushmm-italy, britannica-italy] - 8 September 1943: **Mussolini's fall and the armistice** — Mussolini was ousted in July 1943 and Italy signed an armistice with the Allies on 8 September; Germany then occupied the north, and a violent civil war and Resistance followed. [ushmm-italy, britannica-italy] - 2 June 1946: **Birth of the Italian Republic** — In a referendum, Italians voted to abolish the monarchy and establish a republic; the new democratic constitution took effect on 1 January 1948. [difesa-2-june, britannica-italy] Figures: - Benito Mussolini (1883 – 1945) — Fascist dictator of Italy (1922–1943/45). Founder of Italian Fascism who seized power in 1922 and ruled as dictator, abolishing democracy, enacting racial laws and allying with Nazi Germany. He was overthrown in 1943 and executed by partisans in 1945. Machine-readable claims — every event above as an addressable claim ID (TL:ITA:event::) with its sources and a ready citation string: https://terralore.co/country/ITA/chronicle.claims.json ## References - [britannica-italy] Italy (country overview and history) — Encyclopaedia Britannica · https://www.britannica.com/place/Italy - [britannica-italic] Ancient Italic people (Etruscans, Latins, Samnites) — Encyclopaedia Britannica · https://www.britannica.com/topic/ancient-Italic-people - [britannica-augustus] Augustus, Roman emperor — Encyclopaedia Britannica · https://www.britannica.com/biography/Augustus-Roman-emperor - [britannica-march-rome] March on Rome — Encyclopaedia Britannica · https://www.britannica.com/event/March-on-Rome - [britannica-rome-venetia] Italy: The acquisition of Venetia and Rome — Encyclopaedia Britannica · https://www.britannica.com/place/Italy/The-acquisition-of-Venetia-and-Rome - [britannica-renaissance] Italy from c. 1380 to c. 1500 (Renaissance, city-states, humanism) — Encyclopaedia Britannica · https://www.britannica.com/place/Italy/Italy-from-c-1380-to-c-1500 - [whe-rome] Ancient Rome — World History Encyclopedia · https://www.worldhistory.org/Rome/ - [whe-magna-graecia] Magna Graecia — World History Encyclopedia · https://www.worldhistory.org/Magna_Graecia/ - [whe-augustus] The Principate of Augustus — World History Encyclopedia · https://www.worldhistory.org/article/2363/the-principate-of-augustus/ - [metmuseum-italy-1000-1400] Italian Peninsula, 1000–1400 A.D. (Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History) — The Metropolitan Museum of Art · https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ht/07/eust.html - [metmuseum-florence-1400-1600] Florence and Central Italy, 1400–1600 A.D. (Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History) — The Metropolitan Museum of Art · https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ht/08/eustc.html - [wiki-kingdom-sicily] Kingdom of Sicily (Norman conquest; coronation of Roger II, 1130) — Wikipedia · https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Sicily - [ushmm-italy] Italy (Fascism, racial laws and the Second World War) — United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia · https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/italy - [ushmm-mussolini] Benito Mussolini — United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia · https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/benito-mussolini-1 - [ebsco-kingdom] Italy Is Proclaimed a Kingdom (1861) — EBSCO Research Starters · https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/italy-proclaimed-kingdom - [difesa-2-june] Towards 2 June (1946 referendum and Republic Day) — Italian Ministry of Defence · https://www.difesa.it/eng/primo-piano/towards-2-june/32062.html - [wikipedia-unification-italy] Unification of Italy — Wikipedia · https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unification_of_Italy Citation template: Terralore, "The Chronicle of Italy: From the legend of Rome to a modern republic forged in the Risorgimento.", terralore.co/country/ITA/chronicle, retrieved .