Once, all of the Italian Peninsula was united under the Roman banner. But with the fall of the western half of that mighty empire in the late 5th Century, it became a fractured collection of kingdoms, republics, and city-states. It would take another fourteen centuries before anything close to cohesion would emerge in Italy and it would come at a highly volatile time in European history. Tune in this week for the distant rumblings of what would ultimately come to be known as the "Risorgimento" (literally "resurgence," but more generally "reunification") on the 'History Loves Company' podcast!