Rome didn't need to be the capital of modern Italy

[buritobr]

When Italy was unified in 1871, the largest cities were:
1) Naples 491K
2) Florence 442K
3) Bologna 441K
4) Milan 340K
5) Turin 297K
6) Venice 264K
7) Genoa 258K
Palermo 224K
9) Rome 215K
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NioH86Xlmqg
Only in 1927, already in Mussolini's era, Rome became again the Italian largest city. Only in 1932, Rome achieved again 1M inhabitants, the population the city had in 200.
From the Middle Ages to the unification, Florence, Venice, Genoa, Milan, Naples were already the largest Italian city at a certain time.
Maybe, Rome was choosen to be the capital in 1871 because of a simbolic motive: reference to the old glorious days of the empire.
And since the unification was conducted by northeners, they would not choose Naples, the largest city.

[Skill and Chance]

Obvious symbolism is obvious.

[Tintrlvr]

Helped that Rome was geographically central, too, and relatively neutral in the North-South cultural divide that defines Italy in many ways.

Are the population figures accurate? Florence and Bologna are both smaller than that now.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Yes, of course Rome needed to be the capital. Even if it somehow was reduced to a tiny village in 1871, it would have to be the capital of a unified Italian state, because it's friggin' Rome. Rome created Italy in the first place, and will always be its beating heart.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Yes, of course Rome needed to be the capital. Even if it somehow was reduced to a tiny village in 1871, it would have to be the capital of a unified Italian state, because it's friggin' Rome. Rome created Italy in the first place, and will always be its beating heart.

Athens was reduced to a tiny village at the time of Greek independence from the Ottomans, and the same decision was made. Sometimes the symbolism and the capital-H History really are the most important factor.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

1. Those population data are completely wrong. I don't know if the video is using some made-up modern definition of "metropolitan area" or anacronistically applying modern city boundaries or a mix of both, but this makes the whole exercise self-defeating. Florence had just over 200k people at the 1871 Census, Bologna had barely 120k, Milan had fewer than 300k. Rome, indeed, had slightly more than 200k people.

2. Rome needed to be the capital, as others have said, because it was the most historically important city in Italy, and had the obvious added benefit of being neither Northern nor Southern. This was incredibly self-evident to the people involved at the time - in the very first parliamentary speech that Cavour, as head of government, made after the proclamation of Italy in 1861, he declared that having Rome as the capital of the Italian state was a necessity!

[Filuwaúrdjan]

In addition to the points already made, what must be remembered about Italian unification is that it differed from German unification in that it was not a matter of fusing together a loose but very real meta-polity that had existed in some form for a thousand years into a modern nation state, but was about creating Italy the nation as much as creating Italy the state. Have the capital anywhere other than Rome and the whole thing looks suspiciously like the conquest of the peninsula by Piedmont and nothing more.

[Mr. Smith]

Yes, of course Rome needed to be the capital. Even if it somehow was reduced to a tiny village in 1871, it would have to be the capital of a unified Italian state, because it's friggin' Rome. Rome created Italy in the first place, and will always be its beating heart.

Yet it's not the Roman dialect that is the accepted standard for Italian, but that of Florence.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Yes, of course Rome needed to be the capital. Even if it somehow was reduced to a tiny village in 1871, it would have to be the capital of a unified Italian state, because it's friggin' Rome. Rome created Italy in the first place, and will always be its beating heart.

Yet it's not the Roman dialect that is the accepted standard for Italian, but that of Florence.

Yep, that's Italy for you. We are a resolutely and confidently polycentric country. Unification of Italy was spearheaded (though not really planned) from Turin. The language sprang from Florence. Milan and Lombardy as a whole were always the economic engine of the country. Naples and Palermo are also important (if sometimes looked-down-on) cultural sources in many ways shaped the popular imagination of what it means to be Italian. Venice, along with Florence, in many ways embodies Italy at its peak. Bologna had the first university in all of Europe and remains a great university city to this day, along as an important center for the Italian left. And I have to mention Genoa too or Battista will get mad.

But Rome is the Capital, always has been and always will be.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Yes, of course Rome needed to be the capital. Even if it somehow was reduced to a tiny village in 1871, it would have to be the capital of a unified Italian state, because it's friggin' Rome. Rome created Italy in the first place, and will always be its beating heart.

Yet it's not the Roman dialect that is the accepted standard for Italian, but that of Florence.

Yep, that's Italy for you. We are a resolutely and confidently polycentric country. Unification of Italy was spearheaded (though not really planned) from Turin. The language sprang from Florence. Milan and Lombardy as a whole were always the economic engine of the country. Naples and Palermo are also important (if sometimes looked-down-on) cultural sources in many ways shaped the popular imagination of what it means to be Italian. Venice, along with Florence, in many ways embodies Italy at its peak. Bologna had the first university in all of Europe and remains a great university city to this day, along as an important center for the Italian left. And I have to mention Genoa too or Battista will get mad.

But Rome is the Capital, always has been and always will be.

Ha! I am not that keen on Genoa, even if I am Ligurian, but certainly it deserves a mention. Most significantly it has long been the largest and most important port in this naturally sea-bound country; it also had a crucial symbolic value in the Risorgimento, and represented perhaps the most important scene in modern Italian music.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

A friend told me that, along with anything food related and what is a real coffee, "X city is better than Y city" is guaranteed to make Italians mad. 

[Agonized-Statism]

Athens was reduced to a tiny village at the time of Greek independence from the Ottomans, and the same decision was made.

I'd really like to know more about early 19th century Athens. Clearly Greek leadership understood the historical significance of the city, presumably because they had some kind of formal education or access to that knowledge, but it makes you wonder what the villagers thought of all the ruins around them.

[buritobr]

1. Those population data are completely wrong. I don't know if the video is using some made-up modern definition of "metropolitan area" or anacronistically applying modern city boundaries or a mix of both, but this makes the whole exercise self-defeating. Florence had just over 200k people at the 1871 Census, Bologna had barely 120k, Milan had fewer than 300k. Rome, indeed, had slightly more than 200k people.

2. Rome needed to be the capital, as others have said, because it was the most historically important city in Italy, and had the obvious added benefit of being neither Northern nor Southern. This was incredibly self-evident to the people involved at the time - in the very first parliamentary speech that Cavour, as head of government, made after the proclamation of Italy in 1861, he declared that having Rome as the capital of the Italian state was a necessity!

Yes. Many of these Youtube chart videos have some wrong data

[Obama-Biden Democrat]

Helped that Rome was geographically central, too, and relatively neutral in the North-South cultural divide that defines Italy in many ways.

Are the population figures accurate? Florence and Bologna are both smaller than that now.

There is a lot of bad blood between the North and South, having Rome as the Capitol would help ease tensions.

[Meclazine for Israel]

Rome was the capital of the Ancient World.

Ancient Glory

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKKMCcaoUkc

The main thing with history is that the events create conversation and controversy.

Assassination of political leaders, military dominance, pillaging and conquering, clemency and expansion through alliance, advanced engineering, economic growth, Ancient Rome controlled the torch for the direction of human civilisation.