A jumble of Romes: the classical, the papal and the nationalist. The Capitoline is on the left, the Victor Emanuel monument beyond, the Forum in front and the dome of San Martino and San Luca on the right

Cicero (left) and Virgil: great Romans and perhaps proto-Italians

Theodora, the formidable Byzantine empress, immortalized in mosaic in Ravenna

Dante reciting The Divine Comedy beside the dome built by Brunelleschi long after his death. Painted by Domenico di Michelino in the fifteenth century

Medieval Bologna

Apulian Romanesque: the Cathedral of Trani. For many crusaders embarking for the Holy Land, this was their last sight of western Europe

Pisan Romanesque: the Church of San Michele in Lucca, with the archangel on the top

Gothic Florence: the Palazzo Vecchio, headquarters of the republic, with the Chianti hills behind

Renaissance Florence: Alberti’s Church of Santa Maria Novella

RENAISSANCE RULERS

Isabella d’Este, daughter of Ferrara, ruler of Mantua, by Titian

Federigo da Montefeltro, builder and warrior, by Piero della Francesca

Cosimo de’ Medici, first Grand Duke of Tuscany, by Agnolo Bronzino

The irascible Julius II, most martial of all popes, by Raphael

The Doges’ Palace by John Ruskin, self-proclaimed ‘foster child’ of Venice

The Miracle of the Relic of the True Cross on the Rialto, painted by Vittore Carpaccio in 1494, when the bridge was still wooden

Enlightened Despots: the Habsburg Emperor Joseph II (right) with his brother Peter Leopold, Grand Duke of Tuscany, by Pompeo Batoni

Napoleon Bonaparte at the bridge of Lodi (1796), one of his first Italian victories, by Louis Lejeune

Milan’s La Scala in the mid-nineteenth century, by Angelo Inganni

‘The Bear of Busseto’: Giuseppe Verdi mellowing in old age

Massimo d’Azeglio, artist turned statesman, by Francesco Hayez

Giuseppe Mazzini, the prophet in exile

Camillo Benso di Cavour, the arch-pragmatist of Risorgimento politics

Ferdinand of Savoy, Duke of Genoa, steadfast on his dying horse, by Alfonso Balzico

His brother, Victor Emanuel, first King of Italy, by P. Litta

Francesco II, last King of the Two Sicilies, with his wife Maria Sofia in exile

Pius IX, longest-serving of all popes and last sovereign of the Papal States

Crestfallen on Caprera: Giuseppe Garibaldi on his island home, by Vincenzo Cabianca and Pietro Senno

The Piedmontese camp at Magenta (1859) by Giovanni Fattori, a proclaimed victory although in fact the Italian troops arrived too late to affect the outcome of the battle

Nineteenth-century Naples from the sea

Piazza Castello, the heart of Turin

Mussolini declaims in the early years of his dictatorship

The March on Rome (1922): fascists destroy photographs of Lenin and Karl Marx

In love with Olivetti: female emancipation begins its very long march

Fascist style: a nude Roman, a rearing horse and the Palace of Italian Civilization at EUR in Rome.

The young leopard: Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa (right) with his cousin, the poet Lucio Piccolo

Communist charisma: the Sardinian Enrico Berlinguer

Christian statesmanship: the Trentino Alcide De Gasperi

Populist and seducer: Silvio Berlusconi with friends