Italian city states

>italian city states
BASED
>united italy
Completely incompetent in all aspects

Someone explain to me how this happened

South Italy is shit.

The same reason why South Korea won't be unifying with North Korea anytime soon. No one wants to willingly cripple their economy for decades.

basically this, but to add on, but by the 19th century, the Mediterranean became less relevant for trade as the north atlantic took over european trade

Explain West/East Germany

what fucking question do you think you're answering?

The Italian city states were already in decline for centuries. Napoleon really exposed the collective weaknesses of an italy divided into mutually opposing polities.

"So what we'll do is take completely isolated and vastly different cultures,linguistics and practices based on specific isolated regions and force them to cooperate somehow effectively." t. spaghetti

PAPACY
A
P
A
C
Y

At least in west Germany they had a chance

30 years after, the East Germany is still shit.

> italian city states
> BASED
Maybe in the 14-16th centuries. By the 19th century, even Northen Italy had become economically and culturally irrelevant.

>italian city states
dominated by foreigners

>united italy
colonial empire

>ouga-bouga tribal states
Occupied and dominated by France, Austria, Spain for centuries.
Useless as anything more than puppet states and resorts for inbred European nobles.

>united Italy
An important, even if imperfect country, relatively wealthy, part of G8, that can can defend her own interest on the world stage.

what the fuck did you just say about Milan, Venice, Urbino and fucking Florence you disgusting pleb?

Austrian domination

>Milan,
Ruled by french Valois, spanish and austrian Habsburg for more then 300 years
>Venice,
Completely irrelevant since the end of the 16th century and the movement of european key trade routes out of the mediterrean
>Urbino
Literally who, even before absorbed by the Papacy
>Florence
Irrelevant shithole since the end of the 16th century, ruled by Habsburg for the last century

The Italian cities thrived in the time of feudal chaos and medditerranean trade

when trade shifted to the Atlantic and states became big and centralized, the italian states were outclassed

when Italy united, they became a competing European power again

today it's the 8th largest world economy, 4th largest in Europe, if they were divided, they would be pretty irrelevant IMO

>Milan
Occupied by the French and Germans many of times. Ruled by Habsburg
>Venice
Became less important as Atlantic trade developed, occupied by France, then Austria
>Urbino
Annexed by the Papal States
>Florence
Similar to Milan, but to a lesser extent.

You don't win wars with Renaissance paintings, user.

Why can't people on Veeky Forums come to the realization that the Mediterranean sea was no longer the "center of the world" centuries before the Risorgimento even happened, and as such the economic prosperity of even the richest of the regional states was getting further and futher away into the past?

People living in and around the Italian peninsula, in all these small states, were given two options: to submit to European-based world powers which were far larger, powerful and richer than they were, or to fight against them.

But there was a third option, namely to try to become one such nation, or something closer to it, at least. Which is still an ongoing work in progress.

the Suez channel is the best thing to have happened to Italy in the last 400 years.

Germany was only separated for 40 years, Korea has been separated for over 70. Germany was also already an industrialized and modern nation before the split, whereas Korea had only just begun modernization, only recently has South Korea become a 1st world nation. The East German government was also many times more competent than North Korea.

And even with all that, East Germany is still worse off than West Germany today. Korean reunification would be a massive undertaking.

the idea that the Italian city states were somehow successful mini-powerhouses is a meme, they were rich, but they were by no means powerful, which was one of the main spurs for unification.

The Italian states were kicked around between French and Hapsburg rule as they warred for control of the trade wealth of the region, and the Spanish gobbled up the South at Naples, the only nation that had any real independence was Venice, but they were no match for either france or Austria, so they remained focused on the Adriatic and Aegean for expansion.

It wasn't until the house of Savoy was awarded Sardinia as well as Piedmont was there a real independent Italian nation aside from Venice, which received support from the French to fuel its unification wars, as the French saw a united Italy under the friendly Savoy crown as much more preferable to a Hapsburg Italy.

After unification Italy did go from being small republics that were under constant foreign domination to a nation that could punch in the same weight class as the other great powers in war, with the Italians able to defeat the Austrians, Ottomans, and finally forced the final collapse of the Hapsburgs after defeating Austria-Hungary.

In short, Italy's city states were naturally rich, but they weren't in any way influential in any political sense, while united Italy was recognized as one of the Great Powers of Europe, albeit the weakest of the Great Powers, but one all the same.

>tfw the Papal States are gone