While Italy's status as a single political entity is relatively recent (1861), its strategic Mediterranean position made it a target for colonisers and opportunists fairly early on in human history. The Etruscans were the first people to rule the peninsula, arriving somewhere between the 12th and 8th century BC. They were eventually subsumed within the mighty Roman Empire, leaving little cultural evidence, other than the odd tomb. The ancient Greeks, their contemporaries, set up a few colonies along the southern coast that became known as Magna Graecia and developed into independent city states. Thus the greater glory that was Rome was itself the offspring of Etruscan and Greek cultures.

The first Roman Republic was founded in 509 BC, and eventually bequeathed us the idea of a common European identity, a language that has spawned many of Europe's contemporary tongues and one of the largest empires the world has ever seen. The Republic's defeat of Carthage (near present-day Tunis) and Hellenic Macedonia during the three Punic Wars cleared the way for ultimate expansion into Spain, Britain, North Africa and present-day Iraq. Meanwhile, relative peace at home enabled the infrastructure of civilisation - roads, aqueducts, cities - to spread. A slave-driven lifestyle and economy triumphed over the concept of people power, and the reigns of the Republic were increasingly taken in hand by the military and, ultimately, the dictatorship.

The empire grew so large, it was eventually divided into eastern and western sectors. Already, however, the bloodthirsty theatrics of regicide and intrigue were planting the seeds of its eventual destruction. Christianity was embraced by Constantine in 313, and the empire's capital was moved from Rome to Constantinople (present-day Istanbul). The western arm of the empire was undone by plague, famine and tribal incursions from the north, and was officially declared null and void in 476 when Odovacar, a German warrior, dubbed himself ruler. The Eastern Roman Empire clung on, even prospering in fits and starts, until overrun by the Turks in 1453.

After the fall of Rome the peninsula entered the Dark Ages and suffered repeated barbarian invasions. Among the more effective of these hordes were the Lombards who successfully controlled large parts of the north before being defeated by the Franks. In 800, the Frankish king Charlemagne was crowned Holy Roman Emperor as symbolic Christian successor to ancient Rome. The south came to be dominated by Muslims until usurped by Normans in the early 11th century. This ethnic cocktail began to settle in the 12th century, just when the next big chapter in textbook history was taking shape. Powerfully combative and competitive city states arose in the north, supporting either the Pope, who represented spiritual power in Christendom but also had considerable political power within Italy(the Papal States), or the Holy Roman Emperor, a foreign leader who claimed secular sovereignty over all Christian Europe (including Italy). The rise of cities and a merchant class culminated in the Renaissance of the 15th century. Painters, architects, poets, philosophers and sculptors produced unsurpassed works of genius, despite the turmoil of intercity warfare and invasion by countries to the north. First Spain and then Austria controlled the peninsula during the ensuing centuries, followed briefly by Napoleon's imperial flourish.

The post-Napoleon shake-up led to the drive for unification of the 19th century, led by Garibaldi, Cavour and Mazzini. The Kingdom of Italy was declared in 1861, although Venice was not prised away from Austria until 1866 and papal claims remained an issue until 1870, when Rome officially joined the young nation. No label of unity, however, could hide the huge cultural and social differences that split the industrialised north from the poverty-stricken south.