BEFORE THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
prince, and some portions of the Duchy of Milan were ceded to the Kingdom of Sardinia.
Besides the states under foreign domination there were others that maintained their independence. The States of the Church stretched from the Republic of Venice to the Kingdom of Naples and recognized no master but the Holy Father. The Duchy of Modena had little power, but it was undisturbed by outside aggression. In the midst of the Papal domain the tiny medieval Republic of San Marino preserved its liberty in its mountain nest. The little oligarchy of Lucca kept its autonomy as it had long done. The two republics of Genoa and Venice had sadly declined, but in their decrepitude they still cherished their great past and continued to drag out a sluggish existence. In the extreme northwest, Savoy and Piedmont had succeeded for centuries in making headway against the powers that had taken possession of much of the peninsula. When Sardinia was exchanged for Sicily in 1720, the Kingdom of Sardinia was founded, and included the island of Sardinia, the Duchy of Savoy, and the Principality of Piedmont. Later additions of territory slightly increased the strength of the kingdom, which was destined in the course of time to become the dominant power in the Kingdom of Italy and to bring about the union of all the scattered sovereignties in the Italian peninsula. The French Revolution, followed by Bonaparte's invasion in 1796, brought an end to many of the complicated arrangements here outlined, but with the later history we cannot now deal.
In the forty years before the French Revolution Italy was in the main free from commotions, though neighboring states had "an aversion for each other … often increased to a marked hatred and contempt. The Genoese, Florentines, Neapolitans, and Romans," we read, "foster so great an odium against each other as was never manifested between the English and French."[1] The rulers of the separate states were despotic, as was the case all over the Continent, but some of them made considerable effort to improve agriculture and industry, particularly in the north-
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