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

i'm VERY eager to learn the facts, though
