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I came across an Economist article from a few years ago (http://www.economist.com/node/18780831), which convincingly broke down Italy along north/south lines. Today, there's the Lega Nord, which periodically agitates for some sort of breakup. There might even be an equivalent in the south.

Is there any chance that a North Italy could have happened during the Italian Unification and left the Two Sicilies? What I'm thinking is 3 separate nations:

  • Two Sicilies, capital at Naples;
  • North Italy incl. Sardinia, capital at Florence?;
  • Papal States, maybe just Lazio, maybe going to the Adriatic, probably under French protection.
Or is the urge to unify it all too great? With the same language and religion and a shared history, I'm thinking the revolutionaries thought other differences (ie the north was dominated by city-states, the south by one monarchy, leading to very different social structures and levels of trust) would evaporate after everyone became Italian citizens. But after 150 years, the gaps are still huge.

So any chance of a unification of just the north?
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