Italian+City+States

Learn more at: [] During the early Renaissance, there were five major Italian city-states: The three republics of Venice, Milan and Florence were all in the northern part of modern-day Italy, while the Papal States took up the central portion of the peninsula. The Kingdom of Naples took up the southern portion of Italy and included the Island of Sicily. Minor city-states that also played a crucial role in the European Renaissance included Ferrara and Modena.
 * The Republic of Venice
 * The Republic of Milan
 * The Republic of Florence
 * The Papal States
 * The Kingdom of Naples

The Peace of Lodi
The first half of the 1400s saw incessant war among the Italian States. However, increased threats from foreign countries, such as France and Spain helped unite the Italian States. In 1454, Milan, Venice and Florence signed the Peace of Lodi, which brought about a delicate balance of power. The Peace of Lodi also coincided with the end of the Hundred Years War and the Fall of Constantinople, helping to spur the Italian Renaissance.

The phenomenal growth of wealth in the Italian cities eventually led to the growth of a series of **city-states**, that is, individual regions ruled centrally from a single city. In contrast to cities in central and northern Europe which were ruled by monarchs, the Italian cities were allowed a high degree of autonomy and expanded their political influence over the areas surrounding them. Some of these states, such as Firenze (Florence), were named after the city from which they were ruled. This growth in power of the city-states was fueled by the money pouring into the cities from trade and from banking. Little was done to stop the growth of these autonomous states; Italy had through most of the late middle ages been fought over by the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor; each of these was so intent on the other that both permitted the growth of powerful autonomous regions to further their own aims. By the beginning of the Renaissance, there were five major players in city-state politics: the Papal States (or Romagna) ruled by the Pope, the republics of Firenze (Florence) and Venezia (Venice), the kingdom of Napoli (Naples), and the duchy of Milano (Milan). In general, Renaissance Italian society consisted of five classes which varied in nature and number depending on which area of Italy you were in. At the top of the class hierarchy were the old nobility and the merchant class that had traditionally ruled the cities. Below them were the emergent capitalist and banker class that identified with the lower classes and wished to become as powerful as the top class. Below them were the less wealthy merchants and tradespeople and below them, the poor and destitute. This final group probably made up one fourth to one third of the urban population in Italy during the Renaissance. Finally, there were the domestic slaves; though few in number, they represent the first attempts by post-classical European society to institute slavery as an economic practice. The forms of government that the various city-states assumed was as varied as the number of states. The Kingdom of Naples, consisting of the entire southern half of the Italian peninsula, was a standard monarchy. Milan and Savoy, however, were autonomous duchies; the area around Rome and the northeastern Italian peninsula, Romagna, were a series of semi-autonomous states under the control of the pope—the Papal States. The popes of the later middle ages and the Italian Renaissance could scarcely be considered churchmen; drawn from the nobility, they were ruthless politicians whose central goal was the expansion of their political power. Finally, Venice and Florence were republics, nominally ruled by senates but in reality ruled by a small group of nobility and wealthy capitalists.