Italy
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Italy (Latin and Italian: Italia) is a country located in southern Europe that shares borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, and Slovenia to the north.
The Italian Peninsula's history dates back to the ancient era, when it was home to the Roman civilization, which started as a kingdom centered around the city of Rome before becoming a Republic and, eventually, an Empire spanning the entire Mediterranean. During the final years of the Roman Republic, both the newly-formed Hidden Ones and the Order of the Ancients spread their influence to Italy, commencing their shadow war that would continue for millennia afterwards.
After the collapse of the Roman Empire in the 5th century CE, Italy was split into numerous city-states, such as the Republics of Florence and Venice and the Papal States. It later became the birthplace of the Renaissance cultural movement, which also saw a major escalation of the conflict between the Assassins and Templars, the respective successors of the Hidden Ones and Order of the Ancients. The Assassins thwarted the Templars' attempts to unify Italy under their banner, but the various city-states would nonetheless be unified in the 19th century, laying the foundations of the modern country.
History[edit | edit source]
Isu era[edit | edit source]
During the Isu Era, the Isu built at least three vaults in the area that would one day become the city of Rome. A number of Isu were later remembered as gods by the Romans and ancient Greeks, with Jupiter, Minerva, and Juno comprising what would be remembered as the Capitoline Triad, a group of gods worshipped on the Capitoline Hill.[7]
Roman era[edit | edit source]
Between the 8th and 7th centuries BCE, the Greeks founded many colonies in southern Italy. The cities of Naples, Sybaris, and Croton formed a part of the Magna Graecia.[10] During the 6th century BCE, the mathematician Pythagoras visited Italy and discovered one of its Isu vaults. His followers built a temple on the site of the vault to hide it.[7]
According to legends, the city of Rome was founded in 753 BCE by Romulus after he killed his twin brother Remus. In 510 BCE, the monarchy of Rome fell and the Roman Republic was created. The Republic conquered all of Italy before turning its attention to other lands around the Mediterranean, including Hispanica, Cyrenaica, and Greece.[11]
In 71 BCE, Spartacus, amongst others, incited a slave uprising in the Roman Republic. By the rebellion's end, Spartacus and 6000 others were crucified to death as punishment.[1]
Circa 60 BCE, the Roman Republic became became an influencial power in Egypt and the Middle East with the military campaigns of the consul Pompey. Another consul, Gaius Julius Caesar, conquered Gaul in 52 BCE.[2]
In 49 BCE, a civil war erupted between Pompey and Caesar. The former fled to Egypt but was soon tracked down by Caesar, who had been appointed dictator. In 46 BCE, after triumphing over Pompey's and Ptolemy XIII's army, Caesar returned to Rome with Cleopatra VII, the pharaoh of Egypt, and their son Caesarion. During his time in Egypt, Ceaser had become affiliated with the Order of the Ancients, a secret society that sought to control the world from the shadows, and eventually rose to become one of the Order's leaders.[2]
In 44 BCE, Caesar was assassinated by Aya, Marcus Junius Brutus, Gaius Cassius Longinus, and other members of the Hidden Ones.[12] His adopted son Octavian, who succeeded him as leader of the Order,[13] formed the Second Triumvirate with Marcus Antonius and Lepidus to exact revenge on Caesar's killers and bring the Roman Republic under their control.[4]
Following the Liberators' civil war, which saw Brutus and Cassius defeated at Philippi,[3] Octavian continued to cement his power, eventually instigating the War of Actium against the Ptolemaic Kingdom, which Antonius had allied himself with.[4][5] Octavian's forces invaded Egypt, forcing both Antonius and Cleopatra to commit suicide and removing his last remaining opposition. Consequently, in 27 BCE, Octavian transformed the republic into the Roman Empire and became its first emperor under the name Augustus.[4]
During the 1st century CE, Emperor Caligula, one of Augustus' successors, was supported and influenced by the Order of the Ancients. In 41 CE, the Hidden One Leonius assassinated Caligula to end his tyrannical reign over Rome.[6]
Around 60 CE, Simon Peter, a disciple of the preacher Jesus of Nazareth and the wielder of a Staff of Eden, arrived in Rome to spread Christianity to Italy.[14] In 67 CE, Emperor Nero ordered Peter's execution and the persecution of the Christians.[15] The Staff of Eden was then passed down among the leaders of the Christian community.[6] During the 4th century, Christianity became the official religion of the empire. [citation needed]
Middle Ages[edit | edit source]
In 476 CE, the Western Roman Empire collapsed. During the 5th century, the Ostrogoths, who had sacked Rome previously, controlled the city of Florence. During the 6th century, it fell under the control of the Lombards. Italy soon found itself divided into countless city-states.[16]
In the late 7th century, a Republic was formed in the city of Venice,[17] and in 751 CE, the bishop of Rome founded his own state, becoming the Pope and the spiritual leader of the Catholic world. During the 11th century, the Normans invaded the south of Italy and founded the Kingdom of Naples.[18] During the 12th century, Florence also became a Republic.[16]
During the Crusades, Italian states such as Venice and Genoa maintained an economical connection with the Middle East thanks to the establishment of Italian districts in cities like Acre and Constantinople.[19][20] In 1269, the explorer brothers Niccolò and Maffeo Polo returned to Venice from a long journey to the Levant. During their travels, they had met Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad, the Mentor of the Levantine Brotherhood of Assassins, who inducted them into the Order and entrusted them with his Codex, which they lost to the Mongols.[21]
In Venice, the Polo brothers founded an Assassins guild,[22] marking the first establishment of an Assassin presence in Italy since the fall of the Roman Empire.[23] Between 1271 and 1295, Niccolò and Maffeo, joined by the former's son Marco, who also became an Assassin, traveled to Kublai Khan's court and recovered Altaïr's Codex before returning to Venice.[24]
Later, Marco entered into contact with the Florentine writer Dante Alighieri, who was also an Assassin. One of Marco's sailors and his son Domenico also joined the Brotherhood. In 1321, Dante was assassinated by the Templars, the successors of the Order of the Ancients. The Italian Assassins decided to hide the Codex in Spain and sent Domenico with his wife and his son to accomplish the mission. Around 1324, the Templars killed Marco Polo and Domenico's father in Venice. Domenico returned to Italy after scattering the Codex's pages to prevent them from falling into Templar hands, but lost his wife to pirates.[24]
Using Marco's fortune, Domenico built a new identity, posing as a Florentine noble from the House of Auditore. In 1327, he acquired a Villa in the town of Monteriggioni in Tuscany, which became the headquarters of the Italian Assassins.[24] Domenico also installed a crypt for his family under the city and locked the Armor of Altaïr in the Sanctuary. The Seals were hidden in six Assassin Tombs in Florence, Venice, San Gimignano, and Forlì.[6]
By 1356, Renato, Domenico's son, was in possession of a Shroud of Eden and hid it under the Villa Auditore.[25]
Renaissance[edit | edit source]
Italy served as the birthplace of the Renaissance, a cultural movement which soon spread throughout all of Europe, during the 15th century. Florence was one of the major cultural centers of the Italian Renaissance. The dome of the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore, built by Filippo Brunelleschi, became a manifest of the Renaissance while the artistic patronage of the House of Medici, the rulers of Florence, greatly impacted the city's cultural influence around Italy.[16]
When Rodrigo Borgia became the Grand Master of the Italian Templars by 1476, the Templars executed plans to take over the major city-states of northern Italy. They first organized the assassination of Galeazzo Maria Sforza, the Duke of Milan. As the Assassin Giovanni Auditore da Firenze tried to stop their plans,[26] they executed him and two of his sons.[27]
Giovanni's last surviving son, Ezio, with the support of the Assassins, thwarted many Templar plots, including the Pazzi conspiracy against Lorenzo de' Medici in 1478,[28] and the attempt to take control of the Venetian Republic during the 1480s.[29][30][31][32] In 1492, the Templars nonetheless managed to seize control of Rome and the rest of the Papal States when Rodrigo Borgia was elected Pope Alexander VI.[33]
In 1488, the Italian Templars delivered to Venice an Apple of Eden recovered from Cyprus.[34] The Assassins succeeded in retrieving the artifact,[35] only to later lose it during the Battle of Forlì.[36] The monk Girolamo Savonarola found the Apple and, after the death of Lorenzo de' Medici in 1492 and the invasion of Italy by King Charles VIII of France in 1494, used it to take power in Florence, installing a theocracy. As Rodrigo tried to recover the artifact, Florence and the Papacy went to war.[37] In 1498, the Assassins rallied Florence's population to revolt against Savonarola's rule. Following the monk's death, the Bonfire of the Vanities came to an end and the Republic of Florence was restored.[38]
In the late 1480s, both the Assassins and Templars sought to find an Isu vault hidden in Venice. The Assassin Giulia killed a Templar inside the Basilica di San Marco, who revealed the vault's location underneath the cathedral. Giulia subsequently accessed the vault, where she found one piece of an Isu dagger and was contacted by a hologram of Vejovis, who instructed her to hide the dagger deeper within the vault.[39]
In 1493, the Templar Bonacolto Contarini attempted to seize control of Florence, capturing and selling anyone who opposed him into slavery. A team of Spanish Assassins worked with the Italian Assassins Perina di Bastian and Corvo Antonelli to eliminate Contarini.[40]
In 1498, King Louis XII of France allied with Rodrigo in his conquest of Naples. Rodrigo's son, Cesare Borgia, further conquered several other regions of Italy, like Imola and Romagna in his role as Captain General of the Papal Armies, expecting to unify Italy. In 1499, the Venetian Republic went to war with the Ottoman Empire.[7]
In December 1499, after defeating Rodrigo in the Sistine Chapel, Ezio opened the Vatican Vault with the Apple of Eden and the Papal Staff. There, he was contacted by a hologram of Minerva, who told him about the Great Catastrophe and warned his descendant, Desmond Miles, about the incoming Second Disaster.[41] Later, Cesare led an attack on Monteriggioni, taking the Apple, capturing Caterina Sforza, and killing Mario Auditore.[42] Ezio decided to install the new headquarters of the Assassins in Rome, recruiting the population to defeat Cesare.[43]
During this time, Ezio, at Leonardo da Vinci's request, traveled around Italy to destroy the war machines the inventor had been forced to build for Cesare's army.[44] Another team of Assassins led by Francesco Vecellio also operated throughout Italy, supporting Cesare's enemies and attacking the French troops of the Templar Charles de la Motte.[45]
By 1503, because of the Assassins' actions, coupled with Rodrigo's death at the hands of his son, the Templars' influence in Rome and Italy as a whole started to dwindle.[46] The succeeding Popes, Pius III and Julius II, did not favor Cesare, and the Templars' influence completely collapsed following Cesare's arrest in December 1503, while the Assassins continued to maintain a strong presence in the country.[47]
In 1506, Ezio decided to hide the Apple of Eden in the Colosseum Vault.[48] The Hermeticists led by Ercole Massimo tried to recover the artifact and also kidnapped Leonardo da Vinci to find the Temple of Pythagoras. Ezio killed Ercole and rescued Leonardo, then explored the temple alongside the latter, discovering its hidden Isu vault.[49]
Around the same time, the Assassins faced a new foe in the form of the Crows, a secret organization created by Cesare Borgia with the goal of eradicating the Brotherhood by replicating their techniques.[50] Thanks to the actions of Niccolò Machiavelli and the Assassin Lo Sparviero, the Crows were defeated and disbanded, while their leader Sirus Favero was personally killed by Lo Sparviero.[51]
In 1509, Louis XII of France invaded the Venetian Republic. The Venetian condottiero and Assassin Bartolomeo d'Alviano tried to defended the city of Agnadello during a battle but was captured. Bartolomeo's cousin, Niccolò di Pitigliano, stole the Shroud of Eden from the Assassins during the conflict.[8] A year later, Francesco Vecellio mortally wounded Pitigliano and recovered the artifact for the Brotherhood.[52]
In 1511, the city of Genoa was under the control of the French troops. The Genoese captain Andrea Doria led a revolt against the French, with the help of a team of Ottoman Assassins. After this attempt failed, the Assassins escorted Doria out of the city.[53]
In 1513, the Republic of Venice allied with the French against Milan. In 1515, Bartolomeo d'Alviano participated in the French victory in Marignano against the Swiss mercenaries.[6] That same year, the Templars in Florence were in possession of an Apple of Eden. The Assassins Giovanni Borgia and Hiram Stoddard tried to recover the artifact with the aid of Michelangelo, but failed.[54]
In 1524, the Chinese Assassins Zhu Jiuyuan and Shao Jun arrived in Venice to find Ezio Auditore and seek his help with rebuilding their fallen Brotherhood. However, they were followed by Templar agents who killed Jiuyuan,[55] while Shao Jun eventually met Ezio at his villa in Tuscany. Ezio, having retired from the Brotherhood, was reluctant to help her, but when Shao Jun's pursuers attacked the villa, the two Assassins worked together to defeat them. Shao Jun then left Italy with a Precursor box she received from Ezio.[56]
In 1527, Rome was sacked by Imperial troops.[57] Around this time, Giovanni Borgia and his wife Maria Amiel entered the Temple of Pythagoras and came into contact with the Isu Consus.[58]
In 1542, Pope Paul III established the Roman Inquisition in Italy, a system of tribunals for prosecuting anyone with alternate religious beliefs. Individuals such as Giordano Bruno and Galileo Galilei were judged and condemned by the Inquisition.[59]
Prior to traveling to Japan with the Jesuit mission, Luís Fróis spent time in Rome, where he learned about the city's corruption under the Templars and its subsequent liberation by the Assassins half a century prior.[60]
Early modern era[edit | edit source]
Around 1724, the British Assassin Edward Kenway visited Italy during his search for Isu vaults around the world. He found several temples, which he documented in his journal,[61] and later contacted the Brotherhood, who also conducted an investigation and discovered several new Precursor ruins.[62]
In 1853, the Aurora Equestrian Troupe performed in Rome, where its acrobat Pierrette Arnaud searched for a lost soldier and Ada Lovelace's childhood friend, Simeon Price.[63] A year later, Price found himself at a villa near Lake Como and stayed there with its owner, Laura. However, after saving another visitor, Felice Orsini, from soldiers, Price had to leave upon Orsini's mention of the "Magus" freeing him from prison.[64]
World Wars[edit | edit source]
In the century after its unification occurred, Italy joined with the British Empire in the First World War, supporting it against the German Empire. [citation needed]
During the interwar period, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini joined forces with the Templar puppet and dictator of Germany, Adolf Hitler. Together with Japan, they formed the Axis powers, and a Second World War started against the Allies, perpetrated by the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Soviet Union, led by Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Joseph Stalin, all three of whom were influenced by the Templars.[65]
Modern times[edit | edit source]
By the early 21st century, the Templars had returned to prominence in the country, mainly thanks to the establishment of an Abstergo Industries laboratory in Rome. In 2012, Abstergo kidnapped the former Assassin Desmond Miles and brought him to the laboratory to explore his ancestors' genetic memories to find Pieces of Eden.[19] Desmond eventually escaped with the help of the Assassin mole Lucy Stillman, and the pair worked with Lucy's fellow Assassins Shaun Hastings and Rebecca Crane to explore Ezio Auditore's memories in search of his Apple of Eden.[6]
After the Templars discovered and attacked their hideout in Rome,[6] the team relocated to Monteriggioni, where they continued their research of Ezio's memories, leading them to the Colosseum Vault. However, while retrieving the Apple from the vault, Juno contacted Desmond through the artifact and influenced him to kill Lucy, who was a Templar double agent. Desmond subsequently fell into a coma and had to be flown to the United States.[7]
Around the same time, an Assassin cell led by Adriano Maestranzi operated in Florence and maintained contact with William Miles and his team.[66] On 27 October 2012, as the Assassins attempted to leave Italy with the comatose Desmond, Abstergo's Delta Team led by Daniel Cross and Theodore Rizzo intercepted them at the Florence Airport. However, the Assassin Harlan Cunningham led a counter-ambush,[67] during which all the Abstergo operatives were killed, with the exception of Daniel.[68]
On 28 November, the Assassins attacked the Abstergo campus in Rome, killing four hackers and several guards to prevent the Templars from finding William's team.[69] However, as they returned to their hideout in Florence, one of the Assassins was tracked by Abstergo.[70] The Master Templar Juhani Otso Berg subsequently led Sigma Team to raid the hideout, but Maestranzi detonated an explosive that destroyed the safehouse,[71] leaving Berg and Cunningham as the sole survivors.[72]
On 14 December, Desmond returned to Rome to rescue his father William, who was being held hostage by the Templars at their laboratory in the city. Aided by Ezio's Apple of Eden, Desmond killed Daniel Cross and Warren Vidic and saved his father before they both escaped the laboratory.[73]
In 2022, Joey and the Assassins Alera and Colm traveled to Venice to retrieve the second piece of Vejovis' dagger from the Isu vault underneath the Basilica di San Marco. As they entered the vault, Colm revealed himself as a Templar double agent and tried to force Joey to reconstruct the dagger, but he was killed by Alera. Joey then assembled the dagger, which started a resurrection process for Vejovis, who revealed that Joey was one of his Sages and the artifact would allow the Isu to possess them. Joey broke the dagger to stop the resurrection process, then left the vault with Alera, who invited them to join the Assassins.[74]
Gallery[edit | edit source]
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Map of Italy from Assassin's Creed: Recollection -
Map of Italy from Assassin's Creed: Identity -
Alternate view of the Italian Peninsula
Appearances[edit | edit source]
- Assassin's Creed (first appearance)
- Assassin's Creed: Lineage
- Assassin's Creed II
- Assassin's Creed II: Discovery
- Assassin's Creed: Renaissance
- Assassin's Creed: Ascendance
- Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood
- Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood novel
- Assassin's Creed: Project Legacy
- Assassin's Creed: Revelations
- Assassin's Creed: Revelations novel
- Assassin's Creed: Embers
- Assassin's Creed III
- Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag (mentioned only)
- Assassin's Creed: Initiates
- Assassin's Creed: Memories
- Assassin's Creed: Rogue (mentioned only)
- Assassin's Creed Chronicles: China (mentioned in Database entry only)
- Assassin's Creed (Titan Comics)
- Assassin's Creed: Identity
- Forlì – A Crimson Sunset (non-canon)
- Assassin's Creed: Reflections
- Assassin's Creed: Origins
- Assassin's Creed: Origins comic
- Discovery Tour: Ancient Greece (mentioned only)
- Assassin's Creed: Rebellion
- Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood of Venice
- Roma
- Creed vs Crows (non-canon)
- Assassin's Creed: Valhalla – Geirmund's Saga (as "Langbarðaland")
- Assassin's Creed: The Engine of History – The Magus Conspiracy
- Assassin's Creed: Escape Room Puzzle Book
- Assassin's Creed: Forgotten Temple (mentioned only)
- Assassin's Creed: Nexus VR
- Assassin's Creed Roleplaying Game (mentioned only)
- Assassin's Creed: Shadows (mentioned only)
References[edit | edit source]
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de:Italien es:Italia fr:Italie hu:Olaszország (Itália) it:Italia ja:イタリア nl:Italië pl:Włochy pt-br:Itália ru:Италия zh:意大利