How would the Italians have colonized America if they had sponsored expeditions?

Okay, so historical accuracy aside, I have recently watched Borgia, The Agony and the Ecstasy, and The Conquest of Paradise and I am left with extremely ambivalent feelings towards Italian culture because they are distinctly different than almost any other European culture in both good and bad ways. I find myself wondering "what if" the Italians had sponsored expeditions to the Americas like almost every other European power? How would they have ruled? How different would the world look?

Consider this before you answer:
A.) The Italians appear distinct in the fact that their culture is depicted as a ruthless meritocracy, in which position is secured by power struggle.
B.) Power is not reliably hereditary.
C.) The power struggles create political instability: a near constant fracturing and then collusion of Italian factions.
D.) Despite Italy being the epicenter for Religion in Europe, religion isnt featured as being the foundation of life as other European powers. Take for example Spain, or even France -- in the 500 years previous, both were major crusading powers. Let face it, it wasn't merely that the Italians were to fractured internally to project force outwards and yet they were some of the wealthiest people in the world.
E.) Which brings me to the point of how insular and internally focused they were -- as pointed out above, nearly every other power sponsored expeditions, and yet they seemed to care less. Venice certainly had the capability to maintain a vast over seas empire because of their ships, and yet smaller European powers like Portugal managed to sponsor expeditions.

Would they have been kind to the natives (like the French), or would it have been a crusade (like the Spaniards)?

Would conversion have been a major focus of their activities?

Assuming they did co-operate with the natives, do you think they would have favored large empires, like the Incas and Aztecs, or the more primitive tribes such as those on the islands?

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--consider for example the relative gathering capacities of an empire vs a tribe. From what I have seen depicted in these movies, I think the Italians would have tried to co-opt the native governments, and get THEM to mine the gold. Get THEM to grow and carry the spices to port. Got THEM to occupy expand and occupy, and work land that had goods the Europeans would trade for. -- In conquest of paradise, I think we may have gotten a taste of how Italians would have ruled through Columbus. He tried instituting a gold quota for natives, to get THEM to bring it to him.

Consider that it seems like colonial powers operated on a two axis objective system. Extraction vs Investment and Population Replacement vs Conversion/Integration Now all colonial powers were concerned with expansion and wealth, but the means they did that by were wildly different. You had cultures that were concerned with getting out (like the English), where their wealth was supposed to be derived from increasing the governed mass of Europe essentially, bringing Europe to America. A perfect re-creation of their culture. So basically, for the English, it was about enriching their colonies and then trading with those colonies.

The French took a different approach. They were about wealth extraction, but favored integration with the natives. Look at the interbreeding between fur-trappers and native women. They wanted the trappers and traders to gather resources from their territories, and funnel those goods towards a port that had a population of white settlers. Many native tribes cited the Frenches non-expansionist tendencies as why they preferred them over the English. Additionally, those trappers and frontiersmen basically adopted native customs and culture. While I am certain missionaries were present, maybe even sponsored by the government, it wasn't LAW like with the Spanish.

The Spanish and Portugees were a completely different ball game. These empires focused on Extraction and Assimilation of the natives. There was seemingly only a secondary emphasis on establishing towns, and making real economies and self sustaining colonies. Look at the emphasis on precious metal extraction: gold and silver. The Spanish wanted to get wealthy by shipping all of that gold back home, and then buying shit from other Europeans to enhance their power. Contrast that with the English, where their wealth was supposed to come from tax revenue, and finished goods shipped back to Europe and sold for higher value, coupled with a reduction in prices back in Europe for basic necessities due to the importing of those necessities from America --like fish.

I wonder if this difference in objectives, doesn't actually have a basis in tax policy, and whom the primary recipient of the wealth was. For example: did all that Aztec gold go directly to the Spanish Royal Family? Maybe that was what drove looting behavior, meanwhile, in places like England, that were dominated by mercantile special interests, the volume of exports would have benefited them. I would evidence justification for this speculation as referenced by Adam Smith, whom claimed in a commentary on Colonial Secession/Independence that the British Empire set up a shipping monopoly that benefited the merchant class, to the disadvantage of the consumer.

The sociological and cultural differences weren't significant and are vastly overinflated for entertainment purposes.

Italy did provide many famous explorers so it is feasible they could have participated more if say the Italian wars went differently and they had more connections to Spain via Sicily and Aragon. They'd probably tag team with Portugal and Spain, though lacking a tradition of long voyages like those down the coast of Africa they would likely only grab some meme islands in the Carribean before being superseded by the English. French and Dutch.

Another possibility I speculate might actually drive the difference in colonial behavior might actually be the organization of finance capital or the lack there of. I was once talking with a friend about the seeming proclivity of island nations to become offshore tax havens for seemingly uncertain reasons. I thought it might be based in a lack of resource diversity, and the fact banking is a service and can be conducted globally from any location, and only relies on prudent management as the input. His rebuttal while I cant substantiate, I thought, was very insightful. He told me that he thought finance capital was tied to maritime interests because it had something to do with the danger of losing ships and the difficulty of trading with foreign nations. He said that he though he remembered JP Morgan or some other finance mogul ordering his children to "go forth and found banks in every nation" and that it was directly related to shipping and trade activity. While, as stated above, I cant substantiate this, It does make sense to me for the reasons of something in economics called the "dollars to dollars paradox", which states that a foreign currency literally has no value in an economy until a bank creates a conversion between two currencies, and this is the reason for the wild swings in currency value (like by 60% or more statistically) even when nations have a relatively stable GDP ratio and Trade Balance. This is a concept I still have a very hard time wrapping my head around, because it seems to undermine the notion when fully reasoned out that a trade deficit is a bad things for reasons I will not discuss here.

I take your point that generally movies tend to exaggerate for dramatic effect, but I think there is a general problem with saying that other nations had court politics that were just as complex, or that somehow the italians were not that shift when Niccolo Machiavelli literally wrote the book on politics during the Italian Wars, which are so outlandish in complexity that we now have the phrase "Machiavellian" to describe extremely convoluted politics. Perhaps your right though that politics in other courts were just as bad and the Itallians politics were simply the most visible for various reasons. Could you give me a reference to such politics in some of the Monarchies? --you would help me by doing so, because i have a general notion that the reason why the Monarchies were able to consolidate their governments better was because the bloodline methodology serves to create a more stable, predictable environment for special interests to rally around, and served to "integrate" governance (if thats even possible in Europe)

As with everything else;

With pasta and inefficency

Kek op why ask if you gave all the answers below

The Italians??

Half of Italy was property of Spain at the time.