'King's supreme ability is to imagine himself into the past. The scope of his knowledge is staggering' JOHN CAREY, SUNDAY TIMES From Michelangelo to Mussolini, Nero to Meloni, Galileo to Garibaldi, here is the sparkling story of the world's most influential peninsula. The calendar, the university, the piano; the Vespa, the pistol and the pizzeria... It is easy to assume that inventions like these could only come from somewhere sure of its place in the world. Yet these pages reveal a land rife with uncertainty even as its influence spread. From the rise of the Roman Republic to the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, from the glories of Renaissance Florence to the long struggle for unification, from Europe's first operas to the world's first ghettos, Ross King nimbly charts the checkered course of Italian history. In the last hundred years, film, fashion and Fiat - once bigger than Volkswagen - have emerged from the horrors of fascism and world war. The Shortest History of Italy is a majestic sweep across three millennia of history that not only shaped Europe but the wider world.
Ross King is a world-renowned expert on the Italian Renaissance. He is the author of numerous bestselling and acclaimed books, including The Bookseller of Florence, Brunelleschi's Dome, Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling and Leonardo and the Last Supper. He lives just outside Oxford.
King
The Shortest History of Italy jetzt bestellen!
Weitere Infos & Material
| ARCHAIC PERIOD | c.1184 BCE | Legendary arrival of Aeneas in Italy following the Trojan War |
| 753 BCE | Legendary founding of Rome |
| 509 BCE | Founding of the Roman Republic |
| ROMAN REPUBLIC | 264–41 BCE | First Punic War |
| 218 BCE | Hannibal crosses the Alps and invades Italy |
| 146 BCE | Roman destruction of Carthage and Corinth |
| 60 BCE | First Triumvirate founded |
| 44 BCE | Assassination of Julius Caesar |
| 30 BCE | Deaths of Antony and Cleopatra |
| 27 BCE | Octavian proclaimed ‘Augustus’ by the Senate |
| ROMAN EMPIRE | 14 CE | Death of Augustus; Tiberius becomes Emperor |
| 79 CE | Eruption of Vesuvius |
| 80 CE | Completion of the Colosseum |
| 117 | The Empire reaches its greatest expanse under Trajan |
| 180 | Death of Marcus Aurelius, last of the ‘Five Good Emperors’ |
| 235–284 | ‘Crisis of the Third Century’ |
| 293 | Diocletian establishes the Tetrarchy |
| 312 | Battle of the Milvian Bridge |
| 410 | Sack of Rome by the Visigoths |
| 452 | Huns under Attila invade Italy |
| 476 | End of the Roman Empire in the West |
| LATE ANTIQUITY | 493 | Beginning of the Kingdom of the Ostrogoths (until 553) |
| 568 | Lombard invasion of Italy |
| 800 | Charlemagne proclaimed Holy Roman Emperor |
| MIDDLE AGES | 831 | Emirate of Sicily established (until 1061) |
| 1061 | Beginning of Norman conquest of Sicily |
| 1176 | Lombard League defeats Frederick Barbarossa at Battle of Legnano |
| 1209 | St Francis of Assisi gains papal approval for his order |
| 1302 | Dante exiled from Florence; he begins The Divine Comedy |
| 1309 | Pope Clement V moves the papal court to Avignon (until 1376) |
| 1378 | Beginning of the Western Schism (until 1417) |
| RENAISSANCE | 1417 | Donatello completes his sculpture of St George in Florence |
| 1452 | Birth of Leonardo da Vinci |
| 1492 | Birth of Vittoria Colonna |
| 1494 | Invasion of Italy by King Charles VIII of France |
| 1512 | Michelangelo completes his fresco on the vault of the Sistine Chapel |
| 1527 | Sack of Rome by the troops of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V |
| 1545 | The Council of Trent opens (until 1563) |
| 1593 | Birth of Artemisia Gentileschi |
| 1632 | Galileo publishes Dialogo Sopra i Due Massimi Sistemi del Mondo; a year later he is forced to abjure his ‘errors’ |
| ILLUMINISMO | 1734 | Beginning of Bourbon rule in Naples |
| 1764 | Cesare Beccaria publishes On Crimes and Punishments |
| 1796 | French forces led by Napoleon invade Italy |
| 1797 | End of the Venetian Republic |
| 1805 | Napoleon crowns himself King of Italy in Milan |
| RISORGIMENTO | 1848 | First Italian War of Independence |
| 1859 | Second Italian War of Independence |
| 1860 | Expedition of The Thousand under Giuseppe Garibaldi... |
