AHC/WI: Roman Republic resurrected

Is there any chance for a revival of the Roman Republic at some point after the fall of the Roman Empire? If it's possible, how does such event affect Italian and European history?
 
Is there any chance for a revival of the Roman Republic at some point after the fall of the Roman Empire? If it's possible, how does such event affect Italian and European history?
There had been two nostalgic atempts to restore the Roman Republic in Medival time.
 
Any possible PODs to make them successful?

Can you qualify "successful?" Because "assert and maintain their autonomy," difficult as it would be, is a very different goal than "become a great power" in the mold of the original Roman Republic.
 
Can you qualify "successful?" Because "assert and maintain their autonomy," difficult as it would be, is a very different goal than "become a great power" in the mold of the original Roman Republic.

Independence, primarily. Being a great power is already a stretch, eh?
 
In that case, your main problem with accomplishing that is what to do with the Papacy. The communes of northern Italy often had to emancipate themselves from the rule of their bishops to achieve republican rule, but Rome's bishop is also the Pope. The Vicar of Christ on Earth is not going to willingly surrender civic power in his own city, and he's got plenty of kings who will probably be more than willing to put down a little Roman rebellion in exchange for eternal Papal gratitude (or whatever else they want from the Pope). By the time of the Fall of the Roman Empire (in the west), it's really too late to de-emphasize Rome; it's the Pope's city, like it or not. By the age of Italian communes, his rule over Rome and its environs is well-established and not likely to be successfully contested by Romans.

Rome also suffers from the fact that it doesn't have like-minded peers. Milan would have been squashed flat by the HRE had it not been surrounded by fellow cities whose interests also involved "not being under the thumb of the emperor." But there are comparatively few cities of much size in Latium, and those nearest to Rome in power (Viterbo, Tivoli, Orvieto...?) don't really share its interests; they're perfectly capable of asserting their own communal autonomy from the Papacy even if Rome is ground under the Pope's velvet slipper. Case in point, the 12th century Roman Commune formed as a direct result of the Pope not letting the Romans raze Tivoli to the ground (or at least its walls) - Roman autonomy was obviously not a project the Tiburtini were going to be endorsing anytime soon. The prospect of a renewed Roman civic state was probably about as appealing to the people of Orvieto or Viterbo as an anesthetic-free root canal.

Too weak to gain independence on its own, too isolated to raise a "Lombard Latin League" of its own, and facing the might of the Papacy, the medieval city isn't really getting anywhere without outside help, but that entails its own problems. Which king, exactly, is going to go to bat for the city of Rome (whose friendship is of little value) against the Pope (whose friendship is of great value) and then, having done that, let Rome remain an independent city-state?

There are certainly periods of Papal weakness when you can conjure up an autonomous Roman commune - it was done in the 12th century, and then in an ephemeral, vaguely comic way in the 14th century (Marx's quote about history repeating itself "the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce" comes to mind). Making a "Roman Republic" into a lasting state, however, requires something more than a mere moment of weakness, or else the Republic is going to slide back into the oblivion from whence it came as soon as the Papacy straightens itself out. You've got to fundamentally alter the nature of the Papacy and Papal government to do that.
 
Is there any chance for a revival of the Roman Republic at some point after the fall of the Roman Empire? If it's possible, how does such event affect Italian and European history?

Well, in my current timeline, the Byzantine government collapses during the siege of 717, when its basically just Constantinople, and they re-establish a Republic. My premise is that the Romans have almost completely lost faith in their conception of their place in the world, so anything is on the table.
 
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