Italian population & power comparable to germany and france?

In ancient times, italy was among THE places to be in the world - the center of rome, urbanised and prosperous, and a major center of population dwarfing even egypt and greece. However it entered a period of relative decline from which it would not recover.

Could this be prevented? is italy even capable of supporting massive populations and large scale modern-empires like france and germany?
 
It did recover. Medieval and Renaissance Italy was the most urbanized corner of Europe, with an explosion of trade, manufacturing, and finance. What you should be asking is how to maintain that momentum throughout the early modern period, when manufacturing declined, wages collapsed, and landowning started to become central to the economy again.

I think the answer is unification. And a unification that leads to a strong state able and willing to leverage the nation's economic interests abroad. The same kind of decline and 'refeudalization' hampered the Netherlands to a lesser extent in the 18th century, as Britain soaked up Dutch capital while shutting its markets to Dutch manufacturing competition.
 
It did recover. Medieval and Renaissance Italy was the most urbanized corner of Europe, with an explosion of trade, manufacturing, and finance. What you should be asking is how to maintain that momentum throughout the early modern period, when manufacturing declined, wages collapsed, and landowning started to become central to the economy again.
Yeah, I agree that reunification is neccessary to keep italy powerful. but even if unified, will it be able to keep up with the rest of europe during the colonial period? Italy has no access to the atlantic so colonies are off, and even a medieval unification won't completely stop french, muslim & holy roman ambitions in the area.
 
How good are the coal deposits in Italy? That could 100% make a difference in the 19th century and help them maintain that high manufacturing output
 
Italy has no coal, or at least not much.

They did get about as many people as France had in the 20th century, though.
In that case, it's likely that to achieve the same level of development they'd need either a very mercantile economy or some pretty well situated colonies.
 
Comparable to France and Germany?!
You need a massive colonial expansion to get anything like this.
Here's some places Italians tried (Not really.) to take IOTL.
• New Tuscany (OTL French Guyana.).
• Príncipe.
• Sabah.
• Aceh.
• Andaman and Nicobar.
• New Guinea.
• Yemen.

Add victories against Ethiopia under Crispi, major involvement against the Mahdi and neutrality in both World Wars and you have a small chance of making Italy a powerhouse.

Or England just decides that the Italians are problem ana find a way to obliterate their colonial empire.
 
*Cough cough*

Medieval unification could get very wankish compared to OTL (which was something of an Italy screw since 1500 or so) since it means that they have a shot at, say, annexing Provence and locking France out of the Mediterranean, or involving themselves in Spain to peel off some territory (or just inherit it a la the Habsbirgs). bear in mind that northern italy by itself is a fair regional player and that the south is probably going to be more distant than regions like Bavaria or Provence or Swabia.

That being said the medieval kingdom reached as far south as the Carolingians under the Lombards IIRC.

In terms of population Italy came close OTL, a better performance in the 20th century seems them being equal to France. Germany is harder, especially if we are considering the Kaiserreich at which point you need to take bites out of the Balkans or southern France to compete demogrqphically (Provence and the Rhone valley helps a lot and is probably not that hard to peel off of France prior to the conclusion of the hundred years war). The big weakness is lack of coal or iron and it's not like there's a Belgium or Silesia next door to "solve" that particular problem....
 
Had the Lombards been able to keep Charlemagne out of Italy, perhaps they could have been the ones to initiate eventual Italian unification based around themselves. Charlemagne was invited to Italy by the Pope because the Lombards were threatening either Rome or other lands allied with Rome. Perhaps if the Lombards had been able to better get along with Rome, or otherwise flat out annex it, they could avoid war with the Franks and maintain their grip on Italy as the Lombards are more and more assimilated into the local population. Their lands were already known as the Regnum Italian even before Charlemagne showed up and were mostly Chalcedonian Christians by the 7th Century.

Otherwise, perhaps if Otto the Great's first wife, Eadgytha, never dies, he doesn't get the chance to marry Adelaide of Italy and Italy doesn't get brought into the fold of the revived HRE.
 
Italy has no coal, or at least not much.

They did get about as many people as France had in the 20th century, though.

Looking at a map of coal deposits, Sardinia seems to have some, so unification would help in that regard.

The only other region with coal that seems feasible for Italy is Greece. A successful Frankokratia might do the trick.
 
If post WW2 Italy managed to become one of the top industrialized nations without almost no raw materials on its soil and to reach a population level comparable to France and not too far from the UK without foreign immigration; you can believe in medieval or modern age not necessarily would need colonies as well. Or paradoxally, could get more colonies better with earlier unification. And as long to have a friend Spain, why Italian caravels could not enter in the Atlantic? The Great Duchy of Tuscany failed: but shows an Italian modern age country could access in the Atlantic.

And even if divided Italy always had a relevant population in proportion to the rest of Europe.
 
Looking at a map of coal deposits, Sardinia seems to have some, so unification would help in that regard.

The only other region with coal that seems feasible for Italy is Greece. A successful Frankokratia might do the trick.


IIRC Savoy had some coal. Did Burgundy or Switzerland or Croatia? All are possible targets.

re spain- in the middle ages it's divided and with lots of feuding Muslim principalities.. early enough unification could see Italy involve herself there, conquering Majorca, Valencia or even making a play for Andalusia. It would be a natural target (Greece as well) for "holy war" of the sort presumably taken against Sicily, the states are rich and probably divided and the whole heir to Rome thing also applies, plus the trade links. At the very least I suspect like Aragon Italy would attempt to expand outward into the Mediterranean for a variety of reasons.
 
What was the reason that Southern Italy seems to have been less developed from the Renaissance onward? Can we avert the Aragonese, French, Spanish rule and get rid of feudalism on schedule?
 
Have Russia do better in WWI while Italy stays neutral until 1918. Russia still gets KO’d but inflicts Italy’s OTL casualties on AH. Italy wins WWI at almost no cost.

Italy successfully discovers Libyan oil around 1920. By 1940 Italy is a major oil producer with a European majority in Libya. They avoid Ethiopia.

Italy sells to both sides in WWII up until 1944 when they join the Allies and win at almost no cost. They are awarded some small Japanese islands they use as a base and tourist trap to the present.

By 1950 here Italy is likely in contention for Europe’s largest economy. They join NATO, get Marshall Aid, get a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, and develop their own nukes. The lack of major overseas colonies is a benefit as they avoid wasting money and discrediting their military fighting colonial wars while also avoiding the hit their reputation. Eritrea is colonized and reasonably assimilated while Somalia is let go without a fight.

Absent war deaths, with reduced emigration, and with two low population colonies kept Italy has more people than Britain or France, and far more international and military power than Germany. Economy could be as big as Germany’s or as small as OTL pretty realistically depending on what economic policies are followed, so say they are closer to Germany for the sake of this thread.
 
I do think that if you could somehow get Italy deeply involved in Iberian empire, that might be enough. Why not a western Mediterranean theocracy dominated not by Aragon or unified Spain but by the Sicilies? What not a more successful Venice, or Genoa?
 
By extrapolating from the 25,000,000 inhabitants of Italy at the time of unification, natural birth and death rates, without emigration, there would have been a population of about 65,000,000 by 1970. Instead, because of emigration earlier in the century, there were only 54,000,000.[60]

From Wikipedia, fertility dropped off sharply in the 70s but momentum kept the ethnic Italian (including Aoste-south Tyrol) growing in the 80s, then it stagnated/slightly dropped, assuming similar birth rates there would be about 68 millions Italians without significant immigration or expansion taken into account, of this Italy had the same immigration as IRL that would amount to 72-73 millions people.

Without specifying a pod, I think it’s not impossible for Italy to have a similar immigration as France, after all most of france’s migrants came from Africa (Maghreb and subsaharian) and Southern Europe, now Italy is a bit further away than France from Iberia, if France developped more slowly maybe many provençaux may go to Italy, France has 12 millions people who were recent (themselves or their parent) migrants, i’m Not sure but i’ve Seen numbers around 52-53 millions ethnic French without counting post ww2 immigration, in this case there would be around 14-15 millions people of migrant background, if you can apply that to this Italy they would have about 82-83 millions people today, which is close to the current german population, this Italy likely would have a history of involvement in Africa, many colonies, and effective control of North Africa, it’s hard to imagine a colonial empire and large as france’s in subsaharian Africa but maybe Italy could get more migrants from East Africa, Egypt and the levant to compensate. This would also require some kind of retornados/pieds noirs from North Africa , from Libya for exemple, except if they can manage to keep it.

Now you can maybe add additional territory surrounding Italy, Slovenia, istria, Malta, lcoastal Croatia, savoy.... and it’s maybe possible to have an Italian population around 85-90 million
 
Yeah, I agree that reunification is neccessary to keep italy powerful. but even if unified, will it be able to keep up with the rest of europe during the colonial period? Italy has no access to the atlantic so colonies are off, and even a medieval unification won't completely stop french, muslim & holy roman ambitions in the area.

No, but a unified Italian state will do a lot to keep other powers out of Italy. It will leave Italy better prepared to adapt to the explorations and shifts in trade that rendered independent Venice, Genoa, and other states less relevant to the greater European picture and led to decline.

As for colonies outside of the Mediterranean, yeah, Italy is in a poorer position to take advantage of those at first glance. But historically, what fueled the big push of Spanish expansion? Mostly Italian, specifically Genoese, funding. Nothing is stopping Italy from using its financial influence and political influence over the Catholic church to impose a division of the Americas that includes Italy.

The last thing is actually an interesting thought because a timeline with a unified Italy could lead to other states asserting the independence of their churches from the pope. How the new world is divided in that case could be decided by martial means.
 
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