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Concept
Italian city-states
Summary
The Italian city-states were numerous political and independent territorial entities that existed in the Italian Peninsula from antiquity to the formation of the Kingdom of Italy in the late 19th century.
The ancient Italian city-states were Greek (Magna Graecia), Etruscan (Dodecapolis), and Latin, most famously Rome, but also of Umbrian, Celtic and other origins. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, urban settlements in Italy generally enjoyed a greater continuity than settlements in western Europe. Many of these cities were survivors of earlier Etruscan, Umbrian and Roman towns which had existed within the Roman Empire. The republican institutions of Rome had also survived.
Some feudal lords existed with a servile labour force and huge tracts of land, but by the 11th century, many cities, including Venice, Milan, Florence, Genoa, Pisa, Lucca, Cremona, Siena, Città di Castello, Perugia, and many others, had become large trading metropoles, able to obtain independence from their formal sovereigns. Some of these cities grew in importance and became duchies and maritime empires.
The cities of Magna Graecia and of Etruria are among the earliest examples of city-states in Italy. The Latin settlement of Rome also was a city-state, founded in the 753 BC. Rome eventually created many colonies and municipi on earlier Etruscan, Umbrian, or Celtic settlements throughout Italy. The network of Roman cities in Italy survived the fall of the Western Roman Empire and provided the basis for the re-emergence of city-states in the Medieval period.
Among the earliest Medieval city-states of Italy, that already started to emerge in the 7th century, were the Duchy of Naples, Duchy of Amalfi, Gaeta and the Republic of Venice which, although nominally under Byzantine control, were effectively independent. The Duchy of Spoleto and the Duchy of Benevento were under Lombard control.
The other early Italian city-states to appear in northern and central Italy arose as a result of a struggle to gain greater autonomy during the rule of the Holy Roman Empire.
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