18 - Ozymandias in Italy

Where classicism had emphasized a cosmopolitan, international perspective, romanticism inspired nationalism and a search for identity. In Italy, though, this was a more complicated task than you might think. The peninsula had been fragmented for over a thousand, people spoke different languages, had different ethnic backgrounds in some cases, and had fought wars against each other not that long before. The formation of the modern unified Italian state was NOT a foregone conclusion.