History of Italy (Rise of Roses)

The Kingdom of Italy is a nation on Western and Southern Europe. It was originally a group of city-states, until a Duce of Tuscany unified Italy.

XVI Century
Until 1589, Italy was divided into several city-states, most notably the Lombard ones in the north of Italy, which were:


 * Piedemont


 * Lombardy


 * Genoa


 * Tuscany


 * Venezia


 * Tirol.

Most of the nations on the north spoke the Francolatino dialect of Italian, while the Tuscans talked the Toscano dialect (the standard Italian derives from Toscano). Tuscany quickly became the most notable region, mostly due to the many cultural and artistic developments of many Tuscan artists, such as Michellangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, and to scientific improvement (Galileo Galilei lived in Pisa, for example). Tuscany was a fairly modernistic but still extremely religious, due to the fact that the leaders both patronized arts and science but mostly were part of some cardinal's or (most notably) pope's family (for example, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorenzo_de%27_Medici Lorenzo "the Great" de'Medici (1449-1492) patronized most important Florentine artists and scientists, but one of his children became [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Leo_X Pope Leo X.) That he was a familiar of an earlier Pope and many cardinals (also because he defeated several enemies of the Papal States) was one of the main causes the Duchy of Florence became the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. Cosimo de'Medici, on 1589 (his last year of life, which on this TL was prolonged 15 years), was able to convince the Lombard nations to join Tuscany. He proclaimed the Kingdom of Italy, with the capital on Florence. ]]

His son, Francesco I de'Medici, was a despotic ruler, who left the Holy Roman Empire after forcing Austria to cede the Trentino region. Francesco also menaced the Papal States, who because of that and the fear of rebellion, had to move to Avignon and give the Italian territories to Italy.

The XVI Century ended with rising tensions between Spain and Italy, because Spain controlled the Two Sicilies and Sardinia, but Italy had laid claim to it.