Interesting Roman/Italian PODs?

hey, all. i made a thread similar to this one a while back pertaining to Rome in particular, but i've decided to open another one with an expanded subject matter. anyway, for a while i've been batting around some ideas concerning Italy, particularly during the Renaissance, and wanted to get some additional opinions as well as ideas for other divergences.

from the old thread, two separate ideas are that Gnaeus Julius Agricola is not recalled by Domitian, thus potentially living longer since he might not be assassinated on Domitian's orders, and Domitian's eventual death ultimately leads to a civil war via a botched attempt to put Nerva in power, with Agricola and Trajan leading a faction. the second idea is a Roman victory at the Battle of Adrianople in 378.

now, as for my less-defined ideas that i've come up with on my own: one is that Italy could be more or less unified during the Renaissance (particularly, by the Borgias, and yes, it would be just as bad as that sounds), with the likes of Cesare being the first de jure dictators of (nearly) all of Italy since the Roman Empire. related to this one, Niccolo Machiavelli becomes kind of a counter-dictator operating out of Florence, perhaps even ousting the original dictators and becoming leader of all of Italy himself. this led me to the idea that Italy, in this case, could be kind of a Renaissance version of Yugoslavia.

potentially independently of these other PODs (and because i'm VERY interested in technological PODs), i was also thinking of looking into some of Da Vinci's inventions and seeing how likely it would be for them to be utilized on a large scale

while i've detailed Renaissance PODs here, i'm open to any suggestions for Ancient Roman PODs as well, so long as the conquest of Britain and (mostly) all of Roman British history aren't touched. anything else is fair game.


one last thing: as of writing this, i don't know much about Renaissance Italy that i didn't get from Assassin's Creed :p i'm VERY eager to learn the facts, though ;)
 
Gian Galeazzo Visconti not dying of malaria would probably lead to a more stable and still hegemonic Milan by the time he died (probably some fifteen-to-twentyfive years after OTL). He would not UNIFY ITALY! on his own, but it would provide a clear candidate in the following decades.
 
Gian Galeazzo Visconti not dying of malaria would probably lead to a more stable and still hegemonic Milan by the time he died (probably some fifteen-to-twentyfive years after OTL). He would not UNIFY ITALY! on his own, but it would provide a clear candidate in the following decades.

certainly lines up with my ideas of attempted Italian unification :)
 
Gian Galeazzo is always floated around, what about Matilda of Canossa with a male heir?

The problem with Caesare Borgia and Machiavelli, is that Caesare's fortunes are too tied into his father's support. Without his fathers support he soon lost control of Romagna. Machiavelli gaining power is another story altogether, he was at least a decent functionary of Florence but gaining control of the city seems to be a stretch as does a Borgia "Italy".

Italy in all definitions, either as the Kingdom of Italy under the HRE or the whole peninsula is very hard without pissing off the French and the Hapsburgs both Austrian and Spanish.
 
Gian Galeazzo is always floated around, what about Matilda of Canossa with a male heir?

The problem with Caesare Borgia and Machiavelli, is that Caesare's fortunes are too tied into his father's support. Without his fathers support he soon lost control of Romagna. Machiavelli gaining power is another story altogether, he was at least a decent functionary of Florence but gaining control of the city seems to be a stretch as does a Borgia "Italy".

Italy in all definitions, either as the Kingdom of Italy under the HRE or the whole peninsula is very hard without pissing off the French and the Hapsburgs both Austrian and Spanish.

i'll have to look into the international politics of the time, then

another possibility had occurred to me as well, though i find this one far less likely. concerning Columbus, does anyone think he could have potentially gotten a different benefactor than Spain for his expedition across the Atlantic?
 
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