Compose a 1750 words assignment on history and culture of medieval italy. Needs to be plagiarism free! For more than four centuries Italians were struggling to preserve their identity. Italy cannot be referred to it as merely the geographic unity, it is the national identity shaped and modified by culture of Medieval Italy which evolved into the nation known as “Italians” to the world today.

From the early medieval ages, Italians were different from their neighbours. They preferred to live on the tops of the hills, while the Romans lived in the valleys (Hodges 47). Based on the interpretation of the medieval monastic sources, hilltop villages evolved along with the Italian life out of the introduction of the monetary economy in the 9th century. This transformation has led to the process of incastellamento – the foundation of castelli on the top of the hills. Notably, Italian cities had the tendency not to grow, but to reduce as well. Unlike many other Italian urban centres, Florence’s growth has declined in the 7th and 8th centuries, while Rome and Milan became the centres occupied only by aristocracy. Rural estates and houses of aristocracy were built in the distinct towns.

Hodges continues that “the collapse of the Roman Empire in the 6th century led to the rural communities of the peasants reshaping the landscape and defining their own rules” (48). The economy activity in rural regions was insignificant and there is the evidence that town and country were truly separated in economic, social and political life. Even though Italy was the distinct community with common heritage, culture was embraced by only a handful of intellectuals – Dante, Petrarch, historian Guicciardini, and few others.