Challenge: Earlier Italian Industrialization

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Despite being at the forefront of industry, organization, and finance around the 13-16th centuries the various Italian states stagnated economically due to foreign taxation, war, poor administration, the failure of city state polities to scale to size, and shifting international trade.

Challenge create a POD that leads to an earlier Italian industrialization and maintain the relative Italian standard of living within Europe.

Resources available in Italy:

Iron deposits on Elba islands.
Uneconomical coal deposits in Sardinia.
Marble.
Alum deposits in Rome. (dye deposit discovered in the 16th century)
Relatively more population and pre-existing capital/infrastructure during the 14-15th century.
 
As much as I like Italians, having spent many happy drunken arguments with them discussing how the French somehow manage to dominate the world wine market with their inferior vintages, I'm not sure how it can happen.

I think the main obstacle requires an earlier Italian Unification?
(Even if its just of the North, excluding Naples and the Papal States)
 
The main problem are the lack of coal and steel. Even if Italy somehow unified earlier, it would not change the fact that Italy lacked the raw materials to be at the forefront of the Industrial Revolution. This doesn't mean that Italy didn't have a lot of economic potentials, but there's no way that Italy can avoid to become less relevant as a manufacturer in the early Industrial Revolution.
 
Other than make some clever water-power techniques, all I can think of is if Italy invades the Balkans to take control of any coal reserves there.

Alternatively, the basic technique behind solar power could be used, but that needs electrification to work.
 
I've recently read that the Two Sicilies had some manufacture and Ferdinand IV was a reformist in the pre-Revolutionary era, but his goodwill was squandered after the Partenopean republic debacle. Maybe if the South is less affected by the Revolutionary wars it could catch up to the North more easily. A more peaceful unification would definitely help. The big problem remains the lack of coal and the like.
 
I've recently read that the Two Sicilies had some manufacture and Ferdinand IV was a reformist in the pre-Revolutionary era, but his goodwill was squandered after the Partenopean republic debacle. Maybe if the South is less affected by the Revolutionary wars it could catch up to the North more easily. A more peaceful unification would definitely help. The big problem remains the lack of coal and the like.

Make Italian labor cheaper than British labor, and raise investor confidence through a more stable political climate, and general promotion by the body politic.

Italy may not be able to spur industrialization domestically, but it might be able to through British capital.
 
There was some decent proto industry, a very solid financial market a trade connections.

So what happened? Well, the large agrarian states, France, Spain... got their shit together. Before they were in their own turmoil and couldn't mobilize resources as efficiently as the City states. From the late XVth, they can consolidate. After that, Italy was just too nice a prize.

On top, the breaking of the spice monopoly and the American gold going to Northern Europe instead probably didn't help
 
The Atlantic and spice trade are overstated, leaving aside that much ofthe gold found its way into Italian bankers' coffers (and also Ming China), and that the spice trade hardlydestroyed the traditional routes due to how dangerous it was the major difficulties were political division, the strong artisanal classes, and the lack of any raw materials. The Italians focused too much on luxury manufacture, which hurt them when raw production started kicking in.

The presence of the Pope and the Emperors are the two biggest impediments to unification, as it were.

Actually if one could strengthen the South it would provide and alternate kernel for unification. Could the Sicilian Vespers be avoided? If Charles of Anjou is able to keep Sicily and restore the Arelate in union, that would give him strong base from which his defendants might expand north. In any case the 1300-1500 period is key, as this is when the Pope came into his own as a secular ruler, the Emperors rule collapsed, and French and Spanish claims to the South originate. If any state managed to become hegemonic in this period then that would allow them to enter the early modern era on a stronger footing.
 
Much depends on what you mean by industrialisation: if it's heavy industry based on coal and steel I don't see Italy being one of the first countries to industrialise because of the lack of raw materials that others have pointed out. Italian heavy industry needs hydroelectrical power to be really viable (and a friendly Britain to import coal from) and there are no good deposits in the areas where an earlier united italian state could realistically expand to. Italy is really better suited to industrialisation in the xx century as iotl.

But imo Italy doesn't need earlier heavy industrialisation, rather to avoid the degradation of agriculture in the southern half (not sure if it is possible because of progressively drier climates there) and to achieve political union earlier and or in a different way than otl.

If the Po valley becomes the center of an independent state in the xv century (Giangaleazzo Visconti comes to the mind) instead of a battleground it will likely retain an higher level of economic developement than iotl.

For the South one possibility is having Manfred Hohenstaufen defeat Charles d'Anjou therefore avoiding the sicilian vespers and likely being able to expand in the March of Ancona, stifling papal expansion in that direction. The Kingdom of Sicily was relatively centralised for the time and if it remained politically stronger it could make a serious play for almost complete unification in the late xiv or xv centuries.
 
Much depends on what you mean by industrialisation: if it's heavy industry based on coal and steel I don't see Italy being one of the first countries to industrialise because of the lack of raw materials that others have pointed out. Italian heavy industry needs hydroelectrical power to be really viable (and a friendly Britain to import coal from) and there are no good deposits in the areas where an earlier united italian state could realistically expand to. Italy is really better suited to industrialisation in the xx century as iotl.

I agree, I saw a land of heavy tariffs and water powered workshops nestled in rolling hills as the richest possibility.

But imo Italy doesn't need earlier heavy industrialisation, rather to avoid the degradation of agriculture in the southern half (not sure if it is possible because of progressively drier climates there) and to achieve political union earlier and or in a different way than otl.

The reason IOTL was a combination of really really feudal rulers, malicious neglect by the French/Spanish, and a century of malaria that reduced southern agriculture to uncultivated swamps (preventable if you had enlightened rulers/merchants that drained the swamp at the cost of more erosion and landslides).
 
I agree, I saw a land of heavy tariffs and water powered workshops nestled in rolling hills as the richest possibility.



The reason IOTL was a combination of really really feudal rulers, malicious neglect by the French/Spanish, and a century of malaria that reduced southern agriculture to uncultivated swamps (preventable if you had enlightened rulers/merchants that drained the swamp at the cost of more erosion and landslides).
Like in your scenario one power, be it Milan or Venice, must become hegemonic in the Po valley and use the Alps as a natural defensive border to protect the rich hill and plain areas.

About the century of malaria, are you thinking about the xvii? I have been long thinking about how to detach Naples and Sicily from Spain earlier than otl, but it is far from easy. The best bet would be avoiding foreign domination in the first place, hence my interest in having Federick II's legacy survive longer in the South (altgough clearly a 1266 pod doesn't guarantee anything in the long run).

In more recent times I think that the Borbone kings were neither as bad as traditional historiopgraphy makes them, nor as good as some revisionists argue. In any case the south was not completely beyond hope at the start of the xix century and a leadership that has less ideological scruples with regard to "liberalism" might have done mich better, up to achieving a southern lead unification. The chief problem is that a land reform was needed, but it would be very difficult both to have the political will to introduce it and the administrative skills to successfully implement it.

In any case a better educated and more prosperous people, which feels much more included in the unification process will likely emigrate in lesser numbers and this should give Italy a bigger workforce and internal market, making things brighter in the long run.
 
If the lack of coal is a problem, could the Italians try using something else to power their factories, like a Stirling engine for example?
Stirling engine is just a different steam engine design, it still needs a heat differential to work (and that means burning something). Both charcoal and highly distilled spirits are relatively expensive to make, and just burning wood will work (also for steam engines), but has a whole host of reasons why it's not great.
 
A mineral resource that could probably have been better exploited is sicilian sulphur, especially in the XIX century when sulphur became more and more important for several industrial uses.
British companies had an almost monopoly over sulphur exports and that's very difficult to challenge for any Sicilian monarch (it came quite close to war in the 1840's when the King of the Two Sicilies tried to bring in French capitals) however some small scal chemical industries could have developed or at least the mines could have been exploited in some improved way, there could ahve been more investments in roads and port facilities etc.
 
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