Pills of history (1)

Antefact: this is a mere writing exercise, it does not pretend to be a documented historical essay.
According to a diffuse trend, that involved the whole of  Europe during the XIX century, the medieval and modern fragmentation, that  characterised the Italian peninsula since the end of the Roman empire, started to be felt as inappropriate. A certain group of intellectuals, mainly from the central and northern Italy, but also in southern regions, proposed the idea that the Italic peninsula had to be considered as a unique, original, country.
This was something new and exceptional: till the Napoleonic wars the whole Country had been divided into a dozen  small and large independent states, partly ruled by local lords or republics, partly under foreign dominions. Piedmont and Sardegna were ruled by Savoia, a local dynasty. Milan state (western Lombardy), after the fall of the local dynasty of Visconti/Sforza in the XVI century had passed from one hand to another, from Swiss to French, then Spaniards and Austrians as the last ones. Trento and Friuli were ruled by Austrians. Veneto and Eastern Lombardy were under the dominion of St. Marco’s Lion, the Venetian republic, that was extended also to many areas of Croatia. The centre, which excluded Tuscany was controlled by the pope and his administration. Tuscany remained for a long time under the rule of the Medici family, then passed into the hands of Austria. The south had been for a long time in the form of one or two independent kingdoms (Regno di Sicilia and Regno di Napoli were unified and split sometimes), passing from the hands of the French to the Aragoneses, then to the Spanish crown.
In synthesis, a huge complexity and fragmentation that is reflected still nowadays in the extreme cultural and artistic particularism that’s typical of Italy.
Napoleon, once invaded Italy, founded two new political organizations: one was the kingdom of Italy (probably a reminiscence of the medieval Regnum Italie, that was probably just the centre and northern Italy) and the Kingdom of Naples, an independent country with its own government.
After the fall of Napoleon and restoration of the status quo the previous complexity was restored, with the only exception being  the cancellation of the ancient Repubblica di Venezia, whose territories were included in the Austrian Empire.