A few ideas...

Current ideas;

1. Is there any way to have *Rome* (and -OR - Papal States), as the ancient legacy, lead or hold all the reunification process of Italy?

Like maybe a... 'Japanese Empire' scenario - the Pope as the rallying figure - instead of a repoussoir, like against HRE emperor, maybe, but maybe NO real leading power, the real power being in the hands of a noble warlord (Borgias?)?

Or was the Pope and the Papal States too 'tainted', and the Pope too ambitious?

2. Buddhism and Shinto lived, coexisted since centuries in Japan, often one side having more power or hold...

Is there a way to make Buddhism a definitive winner, then? To 'obliterate'-assimilate SHinto for good, and have a Buddhist Japan?

Maybe with a surviving Yamato rule, Fujiwara and all? Or maybe an alternate, deeply religious shogun? Tokugawa?

3. A bit related, distantly...

Korea have an ancient spirituality, still surviving in a way, a form of Shamanism which was, I heard, compared to SHinto of Japan (specially if maybe the two nations are indeed distantly related..).... Is there a way to make it stronger, surviving deeper amongst the peoples, maybe a 'Royal Shamanism' like there was an official Shinto in Japan?

Shamanistic-based sects in Korea taking hold? syncretism ruling out/pushing away christianism in a nationalistic bent, later? etc?

Anything?
 
Or was the Pope and the Papal States too 'tainted', and the Pope too ambitious?

I think the problem there would be that the papacy sort of belongs to the whole Catholic Church. The Italians who favored unification would want a government that answered to Italians and no one else, and the Pope wouldn't want to risk trading spiritual authority over a huge part of the world for secular authority over one country.
 
The easiest way for a Papal Italy would be for a more liberal Pope than Pius IX, who'd listen to the liberals more during the 1848 to unite Italy as a confederation rather than as a unitary kingdom.
 
Current ideas;

1. Is there any way to have *Rome* (and -OR - Papal States), as the ancient legacy, lead or hold all the reunification process of Italy?

Like maybe a... 'Japanese Empire' scenario - the Pope as the rallying figure - instead of a repoussoir, like against HRE emperor, maybe, but maybe NO real leading power, the real power being in the hands of a noble warlord (Borgias?)?

Or was the Pope and the Papal States too 'tainted', and the Pope too ambitious?

This is essentially what the liberal revolutionaries in 1848 originally wanted. In fact when Pius IX first proposed the idea of a 'League of Italian States' with the Papacy as the ceremonial head the liberals were the most celebratory. It was only after Pius' turn towards reactionary conservatism (as opposed to his previously moderate liberal attitude and reputation), his 'abolishment' of the League, the assassination of Rossi, and Pius' flight from Rome that the radicals took charge. If Pius has maintained his course you who see a united Italy headed by the Pope, with a Savoyard-united North Italy playing an important, but not dominant, role in Italian politics. On the other hand as the war of Italian unification in 1848-49 pitted Catholic Italians against Catholic Austrian Germans, and to a lesser extent Croatians and Hungarians (and Spanish and French in late 1849), and the Italian cause took on the air of a 'holy crusade' for unification against the 'evil' Germans, so you'd likely see a weakened, and possibly fractured, Catholic Church as a result. Which is exactly the reason Pius turned away from that route IOTL; he refused to trade the power of the Papacy as the leader the Catholic world for a Papacy that would lead only Italy.
 
Current ideas;

1. Is there any way to have *Rome* (and -OR - Papal States), as the ancient legacy, lead or hold all the reunification process of Italy?

Like maybe a... 'Japanese Empire' scenario - the Pope as the rallying figure - instead of a repoussoir, like against HRE emperor, maybe, but maybe NO real leading power, the real power being in the hands of a noble warlord (Borgias?)?

Or was the Pope and the Papal States too 'tainted', and the Pope too ambitious?

2. Buddhism and Shinto lived, coexisted since centuries in Japan, often one side having more power or hold...

Is there a way to make Buddhism a definitive winner, then? To 'obliterate'-assimilate SHinto for good, and have a Buddhist Japan?

Maybe with a surviving Yamato rule, Fujiwara and all? Or maybe an alternate, deeply religious shogun? Tokugawa?

3. A bit related, distantly...

Korea have an ancient spirituality, still surviving in a way, a form of Shamanism which was, I heard, compared to SHinto of Japan (specially if maybe the two nations are indeed distantly related..).... Is there a way to make it stronger, surviving deeper amongst the peoples, maybe a 'Royal Shamanism' like there was an official Shinto in Japan?

Shamanistic-based sects in Korea taking hold? syncretism ruling out/pushing away christianism in a nationalistic bent, later? etc?

Anything?
I think a Papal Italy would be a cool idea, the only problem is Venice which is a super power.
 
2. Buddhism and Shinto lived, coexisted since centuries in Japan, often one side having more power or hold...

Is there a way to make Buddhism a definitive winner, then? To 'obliterate'-assimilate SHinto for good, and have a Buddhist Japan?

Maybe with a surviving Yamato rule, Fujiwara and all? Or maybe an alternate, deeply religious shogun? Tokugawa?
I can't cite sources, but I remember that there was a distinct Shinto revival at some point in the early modern past (I think the Ashikaga shogunate, but I could be wrong.) Prior to that point, IIRC, it had syncretized to the point that it was classed as a sect of Buddhism.

I'm not sure what it'd take to derail that revival, though. (Or which book I read it in, although it was a credible source.)
 
I think it may be at least Meiji, who broke feudal things all around, and with the rise of the importance brought on the Emperor anew, maybe have resurected.. more.. the Official Imperial form of SHinto, at least.
 
maybe the old imperial court in old days, siding with entrenched buddhist sects? Or a Tokugawa finding a religious experience, and going Ashoka?
 
4. Could Finland, the distant nation of northeast Europe, become a local power with a distant POD? Or the climate, geography and all is too hard?

Would it need a drastic thing like very different migrations and settlements of Slavic/Baltic IE?


5. The Ryukyu and Okinawa. It was once an indepedant nation and kingdom, a part of chinese 'vassal nations'.

Could it's fate be different? Could it had been seized by occidental powers before the southern Daimyo did?

A power in Taiwan or Philipines could act in there, and defend it? 'Finlandised'?
 

PhilippeO

Banned
On Okinawa :

its easy to make it have different fate.

USA could refuse to return it to Japan, and make it independent. US occupy Okinawa until 1972

Tokugawa shogunate could refuse to acknowledge Satsuma invasion. perhaps to weakening Shimazu clan power.
 
2. It's not in the nature of Buddhism to suppress other beliefs; it's pretty flexible regarding claims about the supernatural. There's no commandment saying "Thou shalt not venerate thy ancestors, nor the spirits of streams or of mountains." Now, a sincerely practicing Buddhist would not make a good warrior, but this didn't stop Ashikaga era Japanese Buddhist monks from being known as Yamabushi (mountain warriors), and they were highly valued as mercenaries.

So, it's not necessary for either religion to drive out the other. Neither demands it by ordinance, and ordinary human hypocrisy is more than sufficient to resolve all differences.
 
2. It's not in the nature of Buddhism to suppress other beliefs; it's pretty flexible regarding claims about the supernatural. There's no commandment saying "Thou shalt not venerate thy ancestors, nor the spirits of streams or of mountains." Now, a sincerely practicing Buddhist would not make a good warrior, but this didn't stop Ashikaga era Japanese Buddhist monks from being known as Yamabushi (mountain warriors), and they were highly valued as mercenaries.

So, it's not necessary for either religion to drive out the other. Neither demands it by ordinance, and ordinary human hypocrisy is more than sufficient to resolve all differences.

I know the later, but even buddhism can act this way - Nichiren's way, by example, of it got official religion...
 
Current ideas;

1. Is there any way to have *Rome* (and -OR - Papal States), as the ancient legacy, lead or hold all the reunification process of Italy?

Like maybe a... 'Japanese Empire' scenario - the Pope as the rallying figure - instead of a repoussoir, like against HRE emperor, maybe, but maybe NO real leading power, the real power being in the hands of a noble warlord (Borgias?)?

Or was the Pope and the Papal States too 'tainted', and the Pope too ambitious?

2. Buddhism and Shinto lived, coexisted since centuries in Japan, often one side having more power or hold...

Is there a way to make Buddhism a definitive winner, then? To 'obliterate'-assimilate SHinto for good, and have a Buddhist Japan?

Maybe with a surviving Yamato rule, Fujiwara and all? Or maybe an alternate, deeply religious shogun? Tokugawa?

3. A bit related, distantly...

Korea have an ancient spirituality, still surviving in a way, a form of Shamanism which was, I heard, compared to SHinto of Japan (specially if maybe the two nations are indeed distantly related..).... Is there a way to make it stronger, surviving deeper amongst the peoples, maybe a 'Royal Shamanism' like there was an official Shinto in Japan?

Shamanistic-based sects in Korea taking hold? syncretism ruling out/pushing away christianism in a nationalistic bent, later? etc?

Anything?

Well, for Rome, how about making this guy a competent military leader?

Cola di Rienzo!

He took over Rome briefly in the 14th century and wanted to unify Italy under his leadership from Rome
 
On Okinawa :

its easy to make it have different fate.

USA could refuse to return it to Japan, and make it independent. US occupy Okinawa until 1972

Tokugawa shogunate could refuse to acknowledge Satsuma invasion. perhaps to weakening Shimazu clan power.

Eh... 'Occupy' it is too much a word; it's kinda like Guantanamo at max...

Good idea for the shogunate side, though.


For Rome, someone here made a thread about.. the Borgia lord reuniting Itally. Could work, I guess.
 
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