ABSTRACT
Italy' was seen by Italians as the framework of their political action. The Romans had more or less controlled all the land but after the barbarian invasions there was no power dominant for longer than a few decades. Geographically the peninsula had a unity imposed by the Alps and the Mediterranean, though the Apennine ranges divided and subdivided it. More serious occasions for division lay in the past history of Italy. The emperors of the Hohenstauffen line in fact became the kings of Naples. A regime, however established, always secured legitimization from pope or emperor by acquiring delegated authority from one of them. The Visconti-Sforza dukes thus represented a tradition of government which was not strikingly dissimilar from that found in northern Europe and which reminds one in particular of contemporary Burgundy. The violence and inconsistency of Genoese politics stand in sharp contrast with the monumental solidity of Venice.
