Foreign domination

Foreign domination is a term used in Italian historiography to describe the condition of foreign rule over Italian states at the beginning of the Risorgimento, when the only state left under local Italian rule was Piedmont-Sardinia (predecessor state of Italy). The chronology of the development of foreign domination in Italy is the following:

• Treaty of Cateau-Cambresis (1559): Mezzogiorno and Milan under Spanish Habsburg control.

• Wars of Successions in Europe (early 1700s): Milan passes to the Austrian Habsburgs, Mezzogiorno passes to the Spanish Bourbons.

• Dissolution of the House of Medici (1737): Habsburgs rule over Tuscany begins

• Treaty of Campo Formio (1797): Venice inglobed into Austria

• Congress of Vienna (1815) declares Italy a "geographic expression"

• French intervention in Rome (1849): French garrison established in the Papal states