Candida Martinelli's Italophile Site
Main
Page This family-friendly site celebrates Italian culture for the enjoyment of children and
adults. Site-Overview
These
are links to my pages on Italy's various historical eras.
Italy in 1695. The Map shows Italy's major
roads and postal routes (the postal stages).
Italy
in 1626. Click
on the names below to read brief articles about these Italian Age of
Reason and Enlightenment heroes, from the Columbia Encyclopedia.
The
U.S. based Marconi Society has an interesting website about Marconi and
radio, and even about how the Titanic sinking fueled advances in wireless
communications, in the hopes of avoiding another tragedy. Click on
Marconi's image above to visit their site. Because
Italy was not united under one monarchy, Italy was not powerful
enough to become a major
colonial power like Holland, France, Britain, Spain or Portugal.
Italy
was in an economic decline during this era, the 1600s onward,
and stuck in rural, feudal-style life.
Italy was divided under foreign rulers and the mainly
uneducated populace was not allowed to exert any originality to change
the order of things. Repressive
means were used to quell new thought; philosophers were locked up and
tortured. The
capital needed to fund the economic and technological
advances that were happening in the north, just did not exist in Italy.
This would remain the situation throughout this era, fueling emigration,
rebellions, and repressions until Italian Unification in the 1870s. Elsewhere
in Europe, however, with the Church no longer dominating every aspect of
life, secular governments sought new ways to manage their wealth,
economic growth and fast-growing populations.
The
Age of Reason was born. Man
began to question belief, reality, dogma, and the legitimacy of the
leaders themselves. Superstition
was anathema to the new thinkers who said that reason and fact should
tell us what is right and wrong. This
was the beginning of a scientific and social science revolution that
changed the west forever, and it’s repercussions lead to the Age of
Enlightenment and modern secular society. Italy
is rarely credited with much during this time, but the major thinkers of
the day like Bacon and Descartes credited the Italian naturalistic
philosophers such as Telesio, and Bruno and Campanella
with starting them on their way. In
the 1500s, these men stressed the need to acquire knowledge through
experience and experiment, ideas which were the basis of the Age of
Reason and The Enlightenment. The
Italian anatomist Malpighi worked in the late 1600s with the
microscope studying the circulatory system in the body and bacteria,
making great strides in the understanding of human physiology.
The
astronomer Galileo (b.1564-d.1642) used the telescope to help
prove and popularize the Copernican theory of the Earth revolving around
the sun. He also
experimented, which was already a new concept, with weights and gravity.
And
in the late 1800s, the physicist Marconi developed the radio
helping to speed communication and to shrink the world.
But he had to go to his British mother’s England to find the
financing to develop his inventions leading to his eponymous company
that is still in existence today. Sadly,
the lack of capital kept many Italian inventors, in Italy and abroad,
from developing their inventions. But
before philosophers began describing things, things were happening all
on their own. Changes were taking place in how goods were produced,
packaged, brought to market and sold.
Efficiency
was driven by competition within and between countries.
Factories
began to replace piece-meal work in homes.
Workers
moved to be near factories, or factories were placed in the centers
of towns. Markets
and trade fairs grew as the most efficient ways of selling goods.
New
raw materials and novelty items arrived daily from colonies,
stimulating new products and creating new markets overnight. Then
when steam power was applied to production in the late 1700s, the
resulting boom in productivity meant that England would dominate the
world for a long time to come, chased after by France and Germany, and
that the Industrial Revolution had begun.
But Italy was left out in the cold and remained a feudal,
agrarian society during this time. Next Section: Italian Unification
Italian
History
The Age
of Colonialism, Capitalism, Reason, and the
Industrial Revolution
