AHC: Italian-Centered HRE

Challenge: make Italy the central pivot point of the HRE instead of Germany, with the Imperial court in Italy, preferably Rome. Bonus points if it can form a neo-Roman identity and gets acknowledged by the Byzantine Empire.
 
Challenge: make Italy the central pivot point of the HRE instead of Germany, with the Imperial court in Italy, preferably Rome. Bonus points if it can form a neo-Roman identity and gets acknowledged by the Byzantine Empire.

Maybe the Kings/Emperors think, that they want to be "a little bit closer" to the pope, so they govern the Empire from Milan or another city. A problem would be the controll over all the Germanic principalities North of the Alps. Maybe the Holy Emperor introduces a Roman information system and road system based on the High Age of the Roman Empire, so he is automatically informed instead being forced to travel himself all the time.
 
Maybe the Kings/Emperors think, that they want to be "a little bit closer" to the pope, so they govern the Empire from Milan or another city. A problem would be the controll over all the Germanic principalities North of the Alps. Maybe the Holy Emperor introduces a Roman information system and road system based on the High Age of the Roman Empire, so he is automatically informed instead being forced to travel himself all the time.

Didn't Frederick II get into conflict with the Pope for moving court into Italy, though? I think perhaps the HRE would need to crush the power of the Pope first, right?
 
Didn't Frederick II get into conflict with the Pope for moving court into Italy, though? I think perhaps the HRE would need to crush the power of the Pope first, right?

Could revoking Pippin´s gift been possible without risking to get excommunicated ? Would be interested, if the Papal States are dissolved by a Emperor, thought.
 
Challenge: make Italy the central pivot point of the HRE instead of Germany, with the Imperial court in Italy, preferably Rome. Bonus points if it can form a neo-Roman identity and gets acknowledged by the Byzantine Empire.

Didn't Frederick II get into conflict with the Pope for moving court into Italy, though? I think perhaps the HRE would need to crush the power of the Pope first, right?

Some episodes in OTL might be "tweaked" to create the scenario you pointed out in the OP. To name a few:

1) After the Carolingian kingdom started breaking up, some two or three "Roman Emperors" (before the traditional formation of the German-centered Holy Roman Empire) were Italians, albeit from Frankish descent - the most notorious were Berengar I and II, and Guy of Spoleto.

2) Of all the HREmperors, Otto III was likely the most interesting archetype of the "neo-Roman" ruler you mentioned in the OP. He moved the capital to Rome, installed a Senate (of sorts...), used adminstrative offices that invoked the Roman administration, and was even son of the Byzantine princess Theophanu. Really, his premature death changed the course of the Holy Roman Empire (and the end of the Ottonians).

3) Frederick II, as it was mentioned, was more an Italian monarch ruling over a German nation than the opposite, his court was in Palermo (arguably the most geographically remote place of his empire :D). If I remember correctly, he for sometime entertained the ambition of taking Constantinople during the Frankokratia (after the 4th Crusade), but he never attempted it.

Regarding the Papacy, I agree with what has been said: the survival of a "Roman Emperor" must come at the price of the taming of the Popes, similarly to what the Patriachate of Constantinople became to the Byzantine Empire.
 
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