Geist Stories

Todd

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History

Geist Stories is a short briefing podcast about history, ideas, and how the world fits together—told as clear stories you can listen to on a walk.

Sep 10

Italy Before Italy: City-States, Popes, and the Wars That Made Machiavelli

Hosts: Maya and Leo (conversation format.) Italy in Machiavelli’s lifetime wasn’t a country—it was a crowded peninsula of republics, duchies, a southern kingdom, and a papal territorial state. This episode maps Florence, Venice, Milan, Naples, and the Papal States (not Vatican City), how they governed, how they allied and fought, and how France and the Habsburgs turned Italy into a battlefield from 1494 to the Sack of Rome in 1527. • Main players: Florence, Venice, Milan, Naples, Papal States, Genoa, and smaller courts • Government types from oligarchic republics to papal temporal rule • Condottieri warfare meets French artillery after 1494 • League of Cambrai flips into the Holy League • Sack of Rome, 1527 • Machiavelli as Florence’s diplomat—The Prince as field notes

1 Episode

Geist Stories is a short briefing podcast about history, ideas, and how the world fits together—told as clear stories you can listen to on a walk.

Creator

Todd
Years Active

2026
Episodes

1
Rating

Clean
Copyright

© 2026 Geist Stories