Italy did not exist as a unified country until 1861.
Before that it was a patchwork of kingdoms, duchies, and the Papal States — the Pope's own territory, which ran across the centre of the peninsula.
Rome was the last piece to fall.
In 1870, Italian troops breached the Aurelian Walls at Porta Pia and marched in.
The Pope retreated to the Vatican and declared himself a prisoner.
Rome became the capital of a new nation.
The new state needed symbols.
It widened streets, built grand boulevards, and demolished whole medieval quarters to make room for the ministries and monuments of a modern capital.
Much of what was lost was irreplaceable.
The Vittoriano — the vast white marble monument to Victor Emmanuel II, first king of unified Italy — was begun in 1885 and took 30 years to complete.
Romans call it the typewriter, the wedding cake, and the false teeth.
It is an acquired taste.
But the new Italy was fragile.
The north was industrialising rapidly; the south remained desperately poor.
Political parties multiplied and squabbled.
The First World War, which Italy entered in 1915 expecting territorial gains, delivered enormous casualties and limited rewards.
The returning soldiers were angry.
A former socialist newspaper editor named Benito Mussolini noticed.
Fun fact: the Vittoriano houses the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, with an eternal flame guarded around the clock.
It also has a largely unvisited museum inside, and a rooftop terrace with arguably the best panoramic view in Rome.
Take the lift.
