§5. _The National Idea in Italy: The Ideal Type_.--Let us now turn to
Italy, a country which has in the past been as much of a European Tom
Tiddler's ground as Belgium, though for rather different reasons. Italy
is inhabited by a race speaking a common language and observing a common
religion, she has historical memories as glorious as those of any other
country in the world, and her natural boundaries are almost as well-defined
as those of Great Britain; yet it was not until the latter half of the
nineteenth century that she managed to become a nation. The chief reason
why she remained a "geographical expression" long after England, France,
and Spain had acquired national unity was the fact that she was until
comparatively recent times an example of the less containing the greater.
Throughout the Middle Ages she was a suburb, not a country. Rome was the
capital of the world, Italy only its environs. Moreover, since all roads
lead to Rome, and the lord of Rome was the master of Europe, the roads
Romeward were worn by the tramp of the armies of all nations. Thus Italy
was constantly subject to invasion, and the state-systems with which the
Congress of Vienna resaddled her in 1814 were little more than relics of
past military occupations of her soil by foreign armies. The main problem,
therefore, in the making of modern Italy was how to get rid of the heavy
burden of the past, how to deal with Rome and all that Rome stood for.

The problem would have been insoluble had not the prestige of Rome declined
considerably since the Middle Ages, a prestige which sprang from the fact
that she was the capital of two Empires--the spiritual Empire of the
Papacy, and the secular Empire founded by Charles the Great. The former had
suffered from the Reformation and the rise of the great Protestant nations,
the latter had been growing feebler and feebler for centuries, until it
was abolished as an institution by Napoleon. Yet Italy in 1814 still lay
helpless and divided at the feet of Rome. The Pope held under his immediate
sway a large zigzag-shaped territory running across the centre from sea to