From the twelfth century to the eighteenth century several Popes called Innocent stand out: they are:- Innocent III (Lotario dei Conti di Signi). He was Pope from 1198…
Category: Italian History
The Committee for the Liberation of Upper Italy
(Comitato di Liberazione nazionale Alta Italia) Rather a mouthful both in English and Italian, this was a committee established in January, 1944 in an attempt to coordinate anti-Nazi…
The Czechoslovakian Crisis
Many years before The Czech Republic and Slovakia freed themselves from the yoke of being simply Czechoslovakia, this crisis evolved from territorial demands made by Adolf Hitler. One…
Giuseppe Mazzini
Giuseppe Mazzini was an Italian revolutionary, born in Genoa, a son of a medical doctor whose radical views were impressed on Giuseppe as a boy. He was born…
Revolutions of 1830
France, Belgium, Poland & Central Italy: The July Revolution in France expelled Charles X and replaced him as King with Louis-Philippe. The Austrian Netherlands belonging to Belgium were…
The Blackshirts
This was an early 20th century nickname or expression facilely describing the ‘Action Squads’ or ‘Squadre d’Azione. These were ‘fascist’ paramilitary groups formed in Italy before 1920. They…
Juan Prim y Prats
If he had not been assassinated, this 19th century Spanish soldier and politician would probably have been forgotten, but as his death added to the unattractive list of…
What was the ‘Risorgimento’?
The word means ‘resurgence’ but that will not mean much to students. It was a nineteenth century movement designed to unite Italy, which had not been united since…
Switzerland and the Swiss Guards
Originally named Helvetia, this is a landlocked democratic European republic, with boundaries to the east with Liechtenstein and Austria, to the south with Italy; the west by France…
Esquilache: attempts at reform in 18th century Spain
Leopoldo de Gregorio, Marqués de Esquilache was born around the beginning of the 18th century, perhaps 1700? He became that most difficult of objects – a Spanish politician…