1.
Italy
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Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a unitary parliamentary republic in Europe. Located in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea, Italy shares open land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, San Marino, Italy covers an area of 301,338 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate and Mediterranean climate. Due to its shape, it is referred to in Italy as lo Stivale. With 61 million inhabitants, it is the fourth most populous EU member state, the Italic tribe known as the Latins formed the Roman Kingdom, which eventually became a republic that conquered and assimilated other nearby civilisations. The legacy of the Roman Empire is widespread and can be observed in the distribution of civilian law, republican governments, Christianity. The Renaissance began in Italy and spread to the rest of Europe, bringing a renewed interest in humanism, science, exploration, Italian culture flourished at this time, producing famous scholars, artists and polymaths such as Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Michelangelo and Machiavelli. The weakened sovereigns soon fell victim to conquest by European powers such as France, Spain and Austria. Despite being one of the victors in World War I, Italy entered a period of economic crisis and social turmoil. The subsequent participation in World War II on the Axis side ended in defeat, economic destruction. Today, Italy has the third largest economy in the Eurozone and it has a very high level of human development and is ranked sixth in the world for life expectancy. The country plays a prominent role in regional and global economic, military, cultural and diplomatic affairs, as a reflection of its cultural wealth, Italy is home to 51 World Heritage Sites, the most in the world, and is the fifth most visited country. The assumptions on the etymology of the name Italia are very numerous, according to one of the more common explanations, the term Italia, from Latin, Italia, was borrowed through Greek from the Oscan Víteliú, meaning land of young cattle. The bull was a symbol of the southern Italic tribes and was often depicted goring the Roman wolf as a defiant symbol of free Italy during the Social War. Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus states this account together with the legend that Italy was named after Italus, mentioned also by Aristotle and Thucydides. The name Italia originally applied only to a part of what is now Southern Italy – according to Antiochus of Syracuse, but by his time Oenotria and Italy had become synonymous, and the name also applied to most of Lucania as well. The Greeks gradually came to apply the name Italia to a larger region, excavations throughout Italy revealed a Neanderthal presence dating back to the Palaeolithic period, some 200,000 years ago, modern Humans arrived about 40,000 years ago. Other ancient Italian peoples of undetermined language families but of possible origins include the Rhaetian people and Cammuni. Also the Phoenicians established colonies on the coasts of Sardinia and Sicily, the Roman legacy has deeply influenced the Western civilisation, shaping most of the modern world
2.
Marche
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Marche, or The Marches /ˈmɑːrtʃᵻz/, is one of the twenty regions of Italy. The name of the region derives from the name of marca, originally referring to the medieval March of Ancona and nearby marches of Camerino. Marche is well known for its tradition, with the finest and most luxurious Italian footwear being manufactured in this region. Except for river valleys and the very narrow coastal strip. A railway from Bologna to Brindisi, built in the 19th century, inland, the mountainous nature of the region, even today, allows relatively little travel north and south, except by twisting roads over the passes. Most of the region is mountainous or hilly, the features being the Apennine chain along the internal boundary. With the sole exception of Monte Vettore,2,476 metres high, the hilly area covers two-thirds of the region and is interrupted by wide gullies with numerous – albeit short – rivers and by alluvial plains perpendicular to the principal chain. The parallel mountain chains contain deep river gorges, the best known being those of the Furlo, the Rossa and the Frasassi. The coastal area is 173 kilometres long and is relatively flat, inland, in the mountainous areas, is more continental with cold and often snowy winters, by the sea is more mediterranean. Precipitation varies from 1000-1500 mm. per year inland and 600-800 mm. per year on the Adriatic coast, Marche was known in ancient times as the Picenum territory. The Picens or Picentes were the Italic tribe who lived in Picenum during the Iron Age, in the fourth century BC the northern area was occupied by the Senones, a tribe of Gauls. In Marche was fought the Battle of Sentinum in 295 BC, after it, the Romans founded numerous colonies in the areas, connecting them to Rome by the Via Flaminia, Ascoli was a seat of Italic resistance during the Social War. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the region was invaded by the Goths, after the Gothic War, it was part of the Byzantine Exarchate of Ravenna. After the fall of the Exarchate it was briefly in the possession of the Lombards, in the ninth to eleventh centuries the marches of Camerino, Fermo and Ancona were created, hence the modern name. Marche was nominally part of the Papal States, but most of the territory was under local lords, in the twelfth century, the commune of Ancona resisted both the imperial authority of Frederick Barbarossa and the Republic of Venice, and was a maritime republic on its own. An attempt to restore Papal suzerainty by Gil de Albornoz in the century was short-lived. During the Renaissance, the region was fought over by rival aristocratic families, such as the Malatesta of Rimini, Pesaro, Fano and the house of Montefeltro of Urbino. The last independent entity, the Duchy of Urbino, was dissolved in 1631, after Napoleons defeat, Marche returned to Papal rule until 4 November 1860, when it was annexed to the unified Kingdom of Italy by a plebiscite
3.
Ascoli Piceno
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Ascoli Piceno is a town and comune in the Marche region of Italy, capital of the province of the same name. Its population is around 49,500 but the area of the city has more than 100,000. The town lies at the confluence of the Tronto River and the small river Castellano and is surrounded on three sides by mountains, two natural parks border the town, one on the northwestern flank and the other on the southern. Ascoli has good connections to the Adriatic coast and the city of San Benedetto del Tronto, by highway to Porto dAscoli. In 268 BC it became a civitas foederata, a city with nominal independence from Rome. In 91 BC, together with cities in central Italy, it revolted against Rome. Its inhabitants acquired Roman citizenship, following the developments and the fall of the Roman Republic. During the Middle Ages Ascoli was ravaged by the Ostrogoths and then by the Lombards of King Faroald, in 1189 a free republican municipality was established but internal strife led dramatically to the demise of civic values and freedom and to unfortunate ventures against neighboring enemies. This unstable situation opened the way to foreign dictatorships, like those of Galeotto I Malatesta, initially recruited as a mercenary in the war against Fermo, Sforza was ousted in 1482, but Ascoli was again compelled to submit to the Papal suzerainty. In 1860 it was annexed, together with Marche and Umbria, many of the buildings in the central historical part of the city are built using marble called travertino, a grey-hued stone extracted from the surrounding mountains. Its central Renaissance square, Piazza del Popolo is surrounded by a number of buildings utilizing this stone, according to traditional accounts, Ascoli Piceno once housed some two hundred towers in the Middle Ages, today some fifty can still be seen. Main sights include, Cathedral of SantEmidio, dedicated to Saint Emygdius, Tempietto di SantEmidio alle Grotte Tempietto di SantEmidio Rosso San Francesco, Gothic style church begun in 1258). The dome was completed in 1549, a monument to Pope Julius II is in the side portal, while the central portal is one of the finest examples of local travertine decoration. Adjacent to the church is the 16th-century Loggia dei Mercanti, in Bramantesque style of the Roman High Renaissance, convent of San Francesco, adjacent to the above-named church, of which two noteworthy cloisters remain today. The rectangular façade has a 1547 portal similar to that of SantEmidio, the convent houses the town library, the Contemporary Art Gallery and an auditorium. San Domenico, former convent, now school, has a Renaissance cloister with 17th-century frescoes, santa Maria Inter Vineas, 13th century church San Pietro Martire, 13th century church with a 1523 side portal by Nicola Filotesio, known locally as Cola dAmatrice. The interior contains the precious reliquary of the Holy Thorn, a gift of Philip IV of France, San Tommaso,1069 Romanesque-style church built with spolia from the neighboring Roman amphitheater. San Vittore, Romanesque church documented from 996 with a low bell tower, edicola di Morelli, Monumental baroque niche attached to the exterior of the church of San Francesco at the Piazza del Popolo
4.
Emygdius
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Saint Emygdius was a Christian bishop who is venerated as a martyr. Tradition states that he was killed during the persecution of Diocletian and his legend states that he was a pagan of Trier who became a Christian. He traveled to Rome and cured the daughter of his host Gratianus. Gratianus family then converted to Christianity, Emygdius also cured a blind man. The people of Rome believed him to be the son of Apollo and carried him off by force to the Temple of Aesculapius on the island in the Tiber, where he cured many of the sick. Emygdius declared himself a Christian, however, and tore down the pagan altars and he also converted many to Christianity, this enraged the prefect of the city. He was made a bishop by Pope Marcellus I, and sent to Ascoli Piceno, on his way to Ascoli, Emydgius made more conversions, and performed a miracle where he made water gush out of a mountain after striking a cliff. Polymius, the governor, attempted to convince Emygdius to worship Jupiter and the goddess Angaria. Polymius also offered him the hand of his daughter Polisia, instead Emygdius baptized her as a Christian in the waters of the Tronto, along with many others. Enraged, Polymius decapitated him on the now occupied by the SantEmidio Red Temple, as well as his followers Eupolus, Germanus. Emygdius stood up, carried his own head to a spot on a mountain where he had constructed an oratory, after Emygdius martyrdom, his followers attacked Polymius palace and pulled it down. His hagiography was probably by a monk of Frankish origin in the eleventh century, after the rediscovery of the saints relics. However, his hagiography was attributed to his disciple Valentius, who was martyred with him, the cult of Saint Emygdius is ancient, documented by churches dedicated to him since the eighth century. The translation of his relics from the catacomb of SantEmidio alla Grotte to the crypt of the cathedral happened probably around the year 1000 under Bernardo II, in 1703, a violent earthquake occurred in the Marche but did not affect the city of Ascoli Piceno. The citys salvation was attributed to Emygdius and he was invoked against earthquakes. As a result of event, the church dedicated a church to the saint in 1717. Additionally, many towns appointed him as patron, erecting statues in his honor in the churches, Emygdius is considered to have protected Ascoli from other dangers. A dazzling vision of Emygdius is said to have deterred Alaric I from destroying Ascoli in 409, the troops of Conrad II, Holy Roman Emperor passed through the region in 1038 carrying the plague, Bernardo I, bishop of Ascoli, invoked Emydgius aid and the plague stopped
5.
Gran Sasso e Monti della Laga National Park
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The Gran Sasso and Monti della Laga National Park is a natural park located mostly in Abruzzo, Italy. The terrain is mountainous with a alpine plains. It is managed by Ente Parco Nazionale Gran Sasso e Monti della Laga, with headquarters in Assergi, the Grand Highway of the Gran Sasso and Monti della Laga National Park runs through the park between the Gran Sasso mountain peak and the chain known as Monti della Laga. The land is rocky and receives a large amount of snow. The Calderone lies just beneath the tallest peak, the Corno Grande, on the north side there is the profile of Monti della Laga chain, where thousands of migratory birds stop on the shores of Lake Campotosto. This area is covered by woods of beeches, firs, turkey oaks. There are over 200 kilometres of dedicated horse trails that can be used to visit the park, the park contains one of the most biologically diverse areas of Europe. The climate is between that of the Mediterranean and that of the rest of continental Europe, the park contains more than two thousand plant species, some of which are found exclusively in this area, such as the Abruzzo Edelweiss. Many species of wildlife inhabit the park, including animals such as the Abruzzo chamois, as well as wolves, roe deer, wildcats, wild boars, foxes. Notable birds include the golden eagle, the woodpecker, the goshawk, the common buzzard. There are also a variety of insects, such as the apollo butterfly. The park contains a long circuit of approximately 300 kilometres featuring trails that can be visited on horseback, by mountain bike. Many old villages are located within the confines the national park and they tend to be quite small, with stone and brick houses and narrow streets. In many cases, the names highlight the defensive nature of the settlement and a summit position, such as Castel, Rocca, Pizzo. —Official Gran Sasso e Monti della Laga National Park website —The National Park of the Gran Sasso —Parks. it, Park Authority in Abruzzo UNESCO photographers gallery of Campo-Imperatore
6.
Roman Republic
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It was during this period that Romes control expanded from the citys immediate surroundings to hegemony over the entire Mediterranean world. During the first two centuries of its existence, the Roman Republic expanded through a combination of conquest and alliance, by the following century, it included North Africa, most of the Iberian Peninsula, and what is now southern France. Two centuries after that, towards the end of the 1st century BC, it included the rest of modern France, Greece, and much of the eastern Mediterranean. By this time, internal tensions led to a series of wars, culminating with the assassination of Julius Caesar. The exact date of transition can be a matter of interpretation, Roman government was headed by two consuls, elected annually by the citizens and advised by a senate composed of appointed magistrates. Over time, the laws that gave exclusive rights to Romes highest offices were repealed or weakened. The leaders of the Republic developed a tradition and morality requiring public service and patronage in peace and war, making military. Many of Romes legal and legislative structures can still be observed throughout Europe and much of the world in modern nation states, the exact causes and motivations for Romes military conflicts and expansions during the republic are subject to wide debate. While they can be seen as motivated by outright aggression and imperialism and they argue that Romes expansion was driven by short-term defensive and inter-state factors, and the new contingencies that these decisions created. In its early history, as Rome successfully defended itself against foreign threats in central and then northern Italy, with some important exceptions, successful wars in early republican Rome generally led not to annexation or military occupation, but to the restoration of the way things were. But the defeated city would be weakened and thus able to resist Romanizing influences. It was also able to defend itself against its non-Roman enemies. It was, therefore, more likely to seek an alliance of protection with Rome and this growing coalition expanded the potential enemies that Rome might face, and moved Rome closer to confrontation with major powers. The result was more alliance-seeking, on the part of both the Roman confederacy and city-states seeking membership within that confederacy. While there were exceptions to this, it was not until after the Second Punic War that these alliances started to harden into something more like an empire and this shift mainly took place in parts of the west, such as the southern Italian towns that sided with Hannibal. In contrast, Roman expansion into Spain and Gaul occurred as a mix of alliance-seeking, in the 2nd century BC, Roman involvement in the Greek east remained a matter of alliance-seeking, but this time in the face of major powers that could rival Rome. This had some important similarities to the events in Italy centuries earlier, with some major exceptions of outright military rule, the Roman Republic remained an alliance of independent city-states and kingdoms until it transitioned into the Roman Empire. It was not until the time of the Roman Empire that the entire Roman world was organized into provinces under explicit Roman control
7.
Middle Ages
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In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or Medieval Period lasted from the 5th to the 15th century. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and merged into the Renaissance, the Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history, classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The medieval period is subdivided into the Early, High. Population decline, counterurbanisation, invasion, and movement of peoples, the large-scale movements of the Migration Period, including various Germanic peoples, formed new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire. In the seventh century, North Africa and the Middle East—once part of the Byzantine Empire—came under the rule of the Umayyad Caliphate, although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, the break with classical antiquity was not complete. The still-sizeable Byzantine Empire survived in the east and remained a major power, the empires law code, the Corpus Juris Civilis or Code of Justinian, was rediscovered in Northern Italy in 1070 and became widely admired later in the Middle Ages. In the West, most kingdoms incorporated the few extant Roman institutions, monasteries were founded as campaigns to Christianise pagan Europe continued. The Franks, under the Carolingian dynasty, briefly established the Carolingian Empire during the later 8th, the Crusades, first preached in 1095, were military attempts by Western European Christians to regain control of the Holy Land from Muslims. Kings became the heads of centralised nation states, reducing crime and violence, intellectual life was marked by scholasticism, a philosophy that emphasised joining faith to reason, and by the founding of universities. Controversy, heresy, and the Western Schism within the Catholic Church paralleled the conflict, civil strife. Cultural and technological developments transformed European society, concluding the Late Middle Ages, the Middle Ages is one of the three major periods in the most enduring scheme for analysing European history, classical civilisation, or Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Modern Period. Medieval writers divided history into periods such as the Six Ages or the Four Empires, when referring to their own times, they spoke of them as being modern. In the 1330s, the humanist and poet Petrarch referred to pre-Christian times as antiqua, leonardo Bruni was the first historian to use tripartite periodisation in his History of the Florentine People. Bruni and later argued that Italy had recovered since Petrarchs time. The Middle Ages first appears in Latin in 1469 as media tempestas or middle season, in early usage, there were many variants, including medium aevum, or middle age, first recorded in 1604, and media saecula, or middle ages, first recorded in 1625. The alternative term medieval derives from medium aevum, tripartite periodisation became standard after the German 17th-century historian Christoph Cellarius divided history into three periods, Ancient, Medieval, and Modern. The most commonly given starting point for the Middle Ages is 476, for Europe as a whole,1500 is often considered to be the end of the Middle Ages, but there is no universally agreed upon end date. English historians often use the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 to mark the end of the period
8.
Ostrogoths
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The Ostrogoths were the eastern branch of the later Goths. They built an empire stretching from the Black Sea to the Baltic, the Ostrogoths were probably literate in the 3rd century, and their trade with the Romans was highly developed. Their Danubian kingdom reached its zenith under King Ermanaric, who is said to have committed suicide at an old age when the Huns attacked his people and subjugated them in about 370. After their annexation by the Huns, little is heard of the Ostrogoths for about 80 years, after the collapse of the Hun empire after the Battle of Nedao, Ostrogoths migrated westwards towards Illyria and the borders of Italy, while some remained in the Crimea. During the late 5th and 6th centuries, under Theodoric the Great most of the Ostrogoths moved first to Moesia, in 493, Theodoric the Great established a kingdom in Italy. A period of instability then ensued, tempting the Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian to declare war on the Ostrogoths in 535 in an effort to restore the western provinces of the Roman Empire. Initially, the Byzantines were successful, but under the leadership of Totila, the war lasted for almost 20 years and caused enormous damage and depopulation of Italy. The remaining Ostrogoths were absorbed into the Lombards who established a kingdom in Italy in 568, a division of the Goths is first attested in 291. The Tervingi are first attested around that date, the Greuthungi, Vesi, the Ostrogoths are first named in a document dated September 392 from Milan. Claudian mentions that they together with the Greuthungi inhabit Phrygia, according to Herwig Wolfram, the primary sources either use the terminology of Tervingi/Greuthungi or Vesi/Ostrogothi and never mix the pairs. All four names were used together, but the pairing was always preserved, as in Gruthungi, Ostrogothi, Tervingi and that the Tervingi were the Vesi/Visigothi and the Greuthungi the Ostrogothi is also supported by Jordanes. This interpretation, however, though common among scholars today, is not universal. Both Herwig Wolfram and Thomas Burns conclude that the terms Tervingi and Greuthungi were geographical identifiers used by each tribe to describe the other and this terminology therefore dropped out of use after the Goths were displaced by the Hunnic invasions. In support of this, Wolfram cites Zosimus as referring to a group of Scythians north of the Danube who were called Greuthungi by the north of the Ister. Wolfram asserts that it was the Tervingi who remained behind after the Hunnic conquest and he further believes that the terms Vesi and Ostrogothi were used by the peoples to boastfully describe themselves. On this understanding, the Greuthungi and Ostrogothi were more or less the same people, the nomenclature of Greuthungi and Tervingi fell out of use shortly after 400. In general, the terminology of a divided Gothic people disappeared gradually after they entered the Roman Empire, the term Visigoth, however, was an invention of the sixth century. Cassiodorus, a Roman in the service of Theodoric the Great, invented the term Visigothi to match Ostrogothi, the western-eastern division was a simplification and a literary device of sixth-century historians where political realities were more complex
9.
Lombards
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The Lombards or Longobards were a Germanic people who ruled large parts of the Italian Peninsula from 568 to 774. In the 1st century AD, they formed part of the Suebi, the Lombard king Audoin defeated the Gepid leader Thurisind in 551 or 552, his successor Alboin eventually destroyed the Gepids at the Battle of Asfeld in 567. The Lombards were joined by numerous Saxons, Heruls, Gepids, Bulgars, Thuringians, and Ostrogoths, by late 569 they had conquered all north of Italy and the principal cities north of the Po River except Pavia, which fell in 572. At the same time, they occupied areas in central Italy and they established a Lombard Kingdom in north and central Italy, later named Regnum Italicum, which reached its zenith under the 8th-century ruler Liutprand. In 774, the Kingdom was conquered by the Frankish King Charlemagne, however, Lombard nobles continued to rule southern parts of the Italian peninsula, well into the 11th century when they were conquered by the Normans and added to their County of Sicily. In this period, the part of Italy still under Longobardic domination was known by the name Langbarðaland in the Norse runestones. Their legacy is apparent in the regional name Lombardy. The fullest account of Lombard origins, history, and practices is the Historia Langobardorum of Paul the Deacon, pauls chief source for Lombard origins, however, is the 7th-century Origo Gentis Langobardorum. The Origo Gentis Langobardorum tells the story of a tribe called the Winnili dwelling in southern Scandinavia. The Winnili were split into three groups and one part left their land to seek foreign fields. The reason for the exodus was probably overpopulation, the departing people were led by the brothers Ybor and Aio and their mother Gambara and arrived in the lands of Scoringa, perhaps the Baltic coast or the Bardengau on the banks of the Elbe. Scoringa was ruled by the Vandals and their chieftains, the brothers Ambri and Assi, the Winnili were young and brave and refused to pay tribute, saying It is better to maintain liberty by arms than to stain it by the payment of tribute. The Vandals prepared for war and consulted Godan, who answered that he would give the victory to those whom he would see first at sunrise. The Winnili were fewer in number and Gambara sought help from Frea, at sunrise, Frea turned her husbands bed so that he was facing east, and woke him. So Godan spotted the Winnili first and asked, Who are these long-beards. and Frea replied, My lord, thou hast given them the name, from that moment onwards, the Winnili were known as the Longbeards. When Paul the Deacon wrote the Historia between 787 and 796 he was a Catholic monk and devoted Christian and he thought the pagan stories of his people silly and laughable. Paul explained that the name Langobard came from the length of their beards, a modern theory suggests that the name Langobard comes from Langbarðr, a name of Odin. Priester states that when the Winnili changed their name to Lombards, they changed their old agricultural fertility cult to a cult of Odin
10.
Franks
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Some Franks raided Roman territory, while other Frankish tribes joined the Roman troops of Gaul. In later times, Franks became the rulers of the northern part of Roman Gaul. The Salian Franks lived on Roman-held soil between the Rhine, Scheldt, Meuse, and Somme rivers in what is now Northern France, Belgium, the kingdom was acknowledged by the Romans after 357 CE. Following the collapse of Rome in the West, the Frankish tribes were united under the Merovingians, who succeeded in conquering most of Gaul in the 6th century, which greatly increased their power. The Merovingian dynasty, descendants of the Salians, founded one of the Germanic monarchies that would absorb large parts of the Western Roman Empire, the Frankish state consolidated its hold over the majority of western Europe by the end of the 8th century, developing into the Carolingian Empire. This empire would gradually evolve into the state of France and the Holy Roman Empire, in the Middle Ages, the term Frank was used in the east as a synonym for western European, as the Franks were then rulers of most of Western Europe. The Franks in the east kept their Germanic language and became part of the Germans, Dutch, Flemings, the Franconian languages, which are called Frankisch in Dutch or Fränkisch in German, originated at least partly in the Old Frankish language of the Franks. Nowadays, the German and Dutch names for France are Frankreich and Frankrijk, respectively, the name Franci was originally socio-political. To the Romans, Celts, and Suebi, the Franks must have seemed alike, they looked the same and spoke the same language, so that Franci became the name by which the people were known. Within a few centuries it had eclipsed the names of the tribes, though the older names have survived in some place-names, such as Hesse. Following the precedents of Edward Gibbon and Jacob Grimm, the name of the Franks has been linked with the word frank in English and it has been suggested that the meaning of free was adopted because, after the conquest of Gaul, only Franks were free of taxation. It is traditionally assumed that Frank comes from the Germanic word for javelin, there is also another theory that suggests that Frank comes from the Latin word francisca meaning. Words in other Germanic languages meaning fierce, bold or insolent, eumenius addressed the Franks in the matter of the execution of Frankish prisoners in the circus at Trier by Constantine I in 306 and certain other measures, Ubi nunc est illa ferocia. Feroces was used often to describe the Franks, contemporary definitions of Frankish ethnicity vary both by period and point of view. According to their law and their custom, writing in 2009, Professor Christopher Wickham pointed out that the word Frankish quickly ceased to have an exclusive ethnic connotation. North of the River Loire everyone seems to have considered a Frank by the mid-7th century at the latest. Two early sources describe the origin of the Franks are a 7th-century work known as the Chronicle of Fredegar. Neither of these works are accepted by historians as trustworthy, compared with Gregory of Tourss Historia Francorum, the chronicle describes Priam as a Frankish king whose people migrated to Macedonia after the fall of Troy
11.
Republic
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It is a government where the head of state is not a monarch. Both modern and ancient republics vary widely in their ideology, composition, in the classical and medieval period of Europe, many states were fashioned on the Roman Republic, which referred to the governance of the city of Rome, between it having kings and emperors. The Italian medieval and Renaissance political tradition, today referred to as humanism, is sometimes considered to derive directly from Roman republicans such as Sallust. Republics were not equated with classical democracies such as Athens, but had a democratic aspect, Republics became more common in the Western world starting in the late 18th century, eventually displacing absolute monarchy as the most common form of government in Europe. In modern republics, the executive is legitimized both by a constitution and by popular suffrage, for instance, Article IV of the United States Constitution guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican form of Government. The term originates as the Latin translation of Greek word politeia, cicero, among other Latin writers, translated politeia as res publica and it was in turn translated by Renaissance scholars as republic. The term politeia can be translated as form of government, polity, or regime, and is therefore not always a word for a specific type of regime as the modern word republic is. And also amongst classical Latin, the term republic can be used in a way to refer to any regime. In medieval Northern Italy, a number of city states had commune or signoria based governments, in the late Middle Ages, writers, such as Giovanni Villani, began writing about the nature of these states and the differences from other types of regime. They used terms such as libertas populi, a free people, the terminology changed in the 15th century as the renewed interest in the writings of Ancient Rome caused writers to prefer using classical terminology. To describe non-monarchical states writers, most importantly Leonardo Bruni, adopted the Latin phrase res publica. While Bruni and Machiavelli used the term to describe the states of Northern Italy, which were not monarchies, the term can quite literally be translated as public matter. It was most often used by Roman writers to refer to the state and government, in subsequent centuries, the English word commonwealth came to be used as a translation of res publica, and its use in English was comparable to how the Romans used the term res publica. Notably, during The Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell the word commonwealth was the most common term to call the new monarchless state, likewise, in Polish, the term was translated as rzeczpospolita, although the translation is now only used with respect to Poland. Presently, the term republic commonly means a system of government which derives its power from the rather than from another basis. After the classical period, during the Middle Ages, many cities developed again. The modern type of itself is different from any type of state found in the classical world. Nevertheless, there are a number of states of the era that are today still called republics
12.
Condottieri
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Condottieri were the leaders of the professional military free companies contracted by the Italian city-states and the Papacy from the late Middle Ages and throughout the Renaissance. In Renaissance Italian, condottiero meant contractor, in contemporary Italian, condottiero acquired the broader meaning of military leader, not restricted to mercenaries. In Italian historiography, Renaissance mercenary captains are usually called capitani di ventura, thus, the word Condottiere in the English language has come to denote, in the modern sense, any hired soldier. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the Italian city-states of Venice, Florence, in the event that foreign powers and envious neighbors attacked, the ruling nobles hired foreign mercenaries to fight for them. From the eleventh to the century, European soldiers led by professional officers fought against the Muslims in the Crusades. These crusading officers provided large-scale warfare combat experience in the Holy Land, on the Crusades’ conclusion, the first masnada appeared in Italy. Given the profession, some masnade were less mercenaries than bandits and these masnada were not Italian, but German, from the Duchy of Brabant, and from Catalonia and Aragon. The latter were Spanish soldiers who had followed King Peter III of Aragon in the War of the Sicilian Vespers in Italy in October 1282, by 1333 other mercenaries had arrived in Italy to fight with John of Bohemia as the Compagnia della Colomba in Perugia’s war against Arezzo. The first well organised mercenaries in Italy were the Ventura Companies of Duke Werner von Urslingen, werner’s company differed from other mercenary companies because its code of military justice imposed discipline and an equal division of the contract’s income. The Ventura Company increased in number until becoming the fearsome “Great Company” of some 3,000 barbute, the first mercenary company with an Italian condottiero as its chief was the Company of St. George formed in 1339 and led by Lodrisio Visconti. This company was defeated and destroyed by Luchino Visconti of Milan in April 1339, later, in 1377, a second Company of St. Once aware of their military power monopoly in Italy, the bands became notorious for their capriciousness. In turn, many condottieri, such as Braccio da Montone and Muzio Sforza, consequently, the condottieri fought by outmanoeuvring the opponent and fighting his ability to wage war, rather than risk uncertain fortune —defeat, capture, death— in battlefield combat. Niccolò Machiavelli even said that condottieri fought each other in grandiose, in 1347, Cola di Rienzo had Werner von Urslingen executed in Rome, and Konrad von Landau assumed command of the Great Company. Towards the end of the century the Italians began to organize armies of the same description and this ended the reign of the purely mercenary company, and began that of the semi-national mercenary army which endured in Europe till replaced by the national standing army system. In 1363, Count von Landau was betrayed by his Hungarian soldiers, strategically, the barbuta was replaced with the three-soldier, mounted lancia, five lance composed a posta, five poste composed a bandiera. If the condotta expired definitively, the condottiere could not declare war against the contracting city-state for two years. In fifteenth-century Italy, the condottieri were masterful lords of war, during the wars in Lombardy, Machiavelli observed, the others being bred to arms from their infancy, were acquainted with no other art, and pursued war for emolument, or to confer honor upon themselves
listen (help·info); Latin: Asculum)[2] is a town and comune in the Marche region of Italy, capital of the province of the same name. Its population is around 49,500[1] but the urban area of the city has more than 100,000.
Trier, Germany, since 1958
Massy, France, since 1997
Banská Bystrica, Slovakia, since 1998[4]
Chattanooga, United States, since 2006[5]
Norcia, Italy, since 2010
Veles, Republic of Macedonia, since 2011
