Italy
From Metapedia
Italy (Italian: Italia) is located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe, and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia. The independent states of San Marino and the Vatican City are enclaves within the Italian Peninsula, while Campione d'Italia is an Italian exclave in Switzerland. Italy has been the home of many European cultures, such as the Etruscans and the Romans, and later was the birthplace of the movement of the Italian Renaissance. Italy's capital Rome has been the center of Western Civilization, and is the center of Roman Catholic Church.
After the deposition of Western Roman Emperor Romulus Augustus in 476, Heruli leader Odoacer was appointed dux Italiae (Duke of Italy) by the reigning Eastern Roman Emperor Zeno. Later, he titled himself rex Italiae, though he always presented himself as an officer of the eastern government. In 483, Ostrogothic leader Theodoric the Great defeated Odoacer, and set up a new dynasty of kings of Italy. Ostrogothic rule ended with the death of Teias (552), when Italy was reconquered by the Byzantine Empire.
This state of affairs did not last long. In 568, the Lombards entered the peninsula under Alboin, who ventured to recreate a barbarian kingdom in opposition to the Byzantines. For the next two centuries, the Lombards and Greeks fought for dominance in the peninsula, with the Lombards establishing their authority over the whole of the region (especially Lombardy) except the duchies of Venetia, Rome, and Naples and the tips of the “heel” and “toe”.
In 774, the Lombards were defeated by the Franks under Charlemagne and their king, Desiderius, deposed. Charlemagne took up the Lombard title, rex Langobardorum, meaning “king of the Lombards,” which was used interchangeably with rex Italiae. The old kingdom of Italy survived within the Frankish Empire as a separate entity until 962, when the Holy Roman Emperor Otto I himself took the title. All subsequent emperors used the title and most were crowned at some time in the ancient Lombard capital of Pavia before their imperial coronation in Rome.
In 1805, Napoleon Bonaparte endeavoured to attach the Lombard heritage to France again and was crowned with the Iron Crown of Lombardy in Pavia. The next year, the Emperor Francis II abdicated his Italian royal title. From the deposition of Napoleon (1814) until the Italian Unification (1861), there was no Italian monarch claiming the overarching title. The Risorgimento successfully established a dynasty, the House of Savoy, over the whole peninsula, uniting the kingdoms of Sardinia and the Two Sicilies. The monarchy was superseded by the Italian Republic (Italian: Repubblica Italiana) in 1946.
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