Italy

Though it is immersed in the theological ideas of the Middle Ages, the cosmology of Dante’s Divine Comedy is sophisticated, sceptical and tolerant, argues James Burge.

Berlusconi is a product of the country's incomplete unification, argues Alexander Lee.

Chris Wickham revisits an article by J.B.Morrall, first published in History Today in 1959, on the strange, shortlived emperor who in the tenth century sought to rule the lands we now call Germany and Italy.

During the disturbed tenth century in Western Europe, royal power held its ground and extended its authority only in Germany-whence the Emperor Otto III sallied into Italy with the purpose of reviving Roman classical tradition and combining it with the dream of a Christian Commonwealth under imperial aegis. By J.B. Morrall.

Mussolini’s colonial land grab in Abyssinia provoked a political storm in Britain. The links between fascism and imperialism were not lost on the British left nor by the empire’s black subjects.

Stephen Gundle examines the political demise and commercial rebirth of the Italian dictator.

Few events in history have proved as momentous as Galileo's discovery of the moons of Jupiter. David Wootton explains why.

The modern Olympic movement was inspired by the classical world. But, says Richard Bosworth, when the Italian capital hosted the Games in 1960, the organisers had to offer an image of the city that also took account of its Christian, Renaissance and Fascist pasts.

Richard Cavendish describes the attack, on August 24th 410, that signalled the beginning of the end of the Western Roman empire 

Russell Tarr sees similarities but also important contrasts in the foreign policies of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy