What if Italy was divided into north, central, and south, with each region subdivided into east and west: North East and North West, Central East and Central West, South East and South West?

1875 · Six Italies Learn to Coexist

Cavour’s death and Garibaldi’s intransigence push European powers to fear an over-strong united Italy. A compromise ‘Italian Confederation’ is brokered at the Congress of Zurich (1862): Victor Emmanuel II becomes a confederal monarch, while six regional republics retain armies, tariffs, and broad autonomy. The peninsula is politically fragmented but bound by rail-building, a customs union-in-progress, and shared fear of Austrian and French interference.

Key events

• 1862 Congress of Zurich creates the Italian Confederation: six republics plus a weak confederal crown under Victor Emmanuel II.
• 1864 Statuto Confederale signed in Turin, confirming separate armies, parliaments and tariff regimes but creating an Italian customs conference.
• 1866 Austro-Prussian War: North-East Italy (Venice–Trento–Trieste) stays under Habsburg control after the Italies fail to agree on intervention.
• 1870 French defeat at Sedan; Central-West uses the power vacuum to annex Rome and most of Lazio but accepts international guarantees for Papal independence in the city’s core.
• 1873 Railway Convention of Bologna: the six Italies agree on a unified rail gauge and co-finance trunk lines linking Milan–Venice–Florence–Rome–Naples–Bari.

Wars

• Tyrrhenian Naval Tensions: Rival fleets of North-West Italy and France shadow each other over Savoy–Nice and Corsican shipping rights, stopping short of war.

Major powers: North-West Italy · North-East Italy · Central-West Italy · Central-East Italy · South-West Italy · South-East Italy · Austria-Hungary · France · United Kingdom · Spanish Monarchy

Meanwhile…

• 🍝 Each of the six Italies promotes its own official ‘national’ pasta shape; North-West Italy backs tajarin while South-East Italy codifies cassatelle-filled ravioli as a patriotic dish.
• 🎭 Central-West Italy turns Rome into a neutral ‘confederal capital’ for culture only, hosting a rotating festival where each republic presents its own dialect theatre.
• 🚂 Tickets on the Milan–Venice–Florence–Rome express list six small coats of arms and require conductors to switch caps at each republic’s frontier.
• 📜 Schoolchildren across the peninsula memorize not one but seven anthems: six republican hymns plus the solemn, little-loved confederal royal march.

1914 · Six Italies Face a World War

By the early 20th century, each Italy has its own foreign policy. North-West Italy orients to France and Britain; North-East Italy remains cautious, fearing Vienna and eyeing Trentino and Trieste; the central and southern states are split between German trade, French loans, and emigration politics. When the July Crisis erupts, this fractured diplomacy yields partial and asynchronous entries into the First World War, ensuring Italy is a theatre rather than a single combatant bloc.

Turin and Paris Seal Historic Neutrality Pact

North-West and Central-West Italies pledge friendship with France, shake Europe’s alliances.

Key events

• 1896 Battle of Adwa: South-East Italy’s small expeditionary force shares the Ethiopian defeat with Italy’s former colonial partner North-West; anti-colonial sentiment strengthens in the south.
• 1902 ‘Pact of Turin’ sees North-West and Central-West Italy sign a secret neutrality treaty with France, promising to resist Triple Alliance pressure.
• 1911 Libyan Venture: North-West Italy, backed reluctantly by Central-West, seizes Tripoli District and Benghazi from the Ottoman Empire, establishing a joint condominium that angers the other Italies.
• 1913 ‘Bari Compromise’ creates a Council of Foreign Ministers for the Confederation, but leaves each republic free to sign separate commercial treaties.
• 1915 London Accords in duplicate: Britain and France sign one treaty with North-West Italy, another with Central-West and Central-East, promising them slices of Italy/Trentino-South Tyrol and Italy/Trieste if they join the Entente; North-East stays neutral until 1917.

Wars

• Italian Front of World War I: North-West, Central-West and Central-East Italies gradually join the Entente against Austria-Hungary to claim Trentino and Trieste, while North-East hesitates before belatedly entering the war.

Major powers: North-West Italy · North-East Italy · Central-West Italy · Central-East Italy · South-West Italy · South-East Italy · Austria-Hungary · France · German Empire · United Kingdom

Meanwhile…

• 🎶 Each republican army has its own marching song; soldiers on the mixed Italian Front jokingly bet wine on whose band plays loudest in the trenches.
• 🍊 South-West Italy’s government subsidizes export of Calabrian bergamot and Campanian oranges to pay war debts, creating an early ‘Mediterranean brand’ in London and Paris.
• ⚽ Football develops separate leagues: the North-West ‘Alpine League’ and South-East ‘Mare Nostrum Cup’ refuse to merge, so inter-Italian derbies become rare, fiery events.

1947 · Fascisms, Occupations and the Second Confederation

The interwar years see Mussolini rise only in one Italy—North-West—where his regime inspires copycat authoritarian movements across the peninsula but never gains full confederal control. World War II devastates the Italies differently: North-West and Central-West join the Axis, South-West is occupied late, while South-East becomes a contested Allied landing ground. After 1945, the peninsula is partitioned into Western- and Soviet-aligned republics inside a new, tighter but ideologically split confederation.

Fascist Rule Crumbles as Allied Troops Enter Rome

Confederal Assembly in emergency session; partisans proclaim a new democratic order.

Key events

• 1922 March on Milan: Mussolini and his Partito Nazionale Fascista seize power in North-West Italy, later aligning with Hitler’s Germany.
• 1925 Authoritarian coups in Central-West and Central-East establish ‘national corporatist’ regimes, formally independent but ideologically close to North-West.
• 1936 North-West and Central-West Italies intervene in Spain, mirroring Franco’s cause, sending separate expeditionary corps to support the Nationalists.
• 1943 Allied landings in Italy/Sicily, backed by South-East Italy’s royalist government-in-exile in London, ignite civil wars in South-West and Central-East between fascists and anti-fascist partisans.
• 1947 Treaties of Vienna and Trieste dissolve all fascist regimes; Italy/Trentino-South Tyrol and Italy/Friuli-Venezia Giulia are partitioned between North-East Italy and a Yugoslav zone, while the Italian Confederation is re-founded on democratic lines but split into Western (NW, CW, SW, SE) and neutralist (NE, CE) camps.

Wars

• Italian Civil Wars (1943–1945): As Allied forces advance from Sicily, partisan and fascist forces in several Italies clash over whether to surrender or resist alongside Germany.

Major powers: North-West Italy · North-East Italy · Central-West Italy · Central-East Italy · South-West Italy · South-East Italy · French Republic · United States of America · Soviet Union · Yugoslavia

Meanwhile…

• 🍷 American GIs in South-East Italy develop a taste for local Primitivo wine, quietly seeding a U.S. market that booms decades later.
• 🎬 Competing national film institutes in Rome and Naples both claim to be the ‘true heir’ of Italian cinema, leading to rival postwar neorealist schools.
• 🎺 Swing bands form around Allied bases in Bari and Palermo, blending jazz with tarantella rhythms and scandalizing conservative clergy.

1973 · Economic Miracles and Red Years

The Second Italian Confederation becomes a curious cold-war hybrid: six sovereign republics plus a strengthened confederal parliament in Florence, NATO membership split among them, and a shared currency, the lira confederale. North-West and North-East undergo separate ‘economic miracles’; South-West and South-East wrestle with underdevelopment and clientelist politics. The peninsula experiences parallel 1968s, terrorism, and intense social change, with confederal institutions repeatedly stretched but not broken.

Key events

• 1955 Confederal Treaty of Florence relocates the confederal capital from Turin to Florence, grants the Confederation control over external trade and a shared currency, while defense remains mostly republican.
• 1959 North-West and North-East Italies join NATO; Central-West and Central-East pursue neutrality; South-West and South-East sign limited defense pacts with France and the United States of America.
• 1963 ‘Southern Development Compact’ channels Marshall aid and confederal funds into roads and schools in South-West and South-East Italy but also entrenches patronage networks.
• 1969 Parallel ‘Hot Autumns’: massive industrial strikes in Milan and Turin in North-West Italy, and in Bologna and Porto Marghera in North-East Italy, drive wage gains and radical politics.
• 1970 Armed groups like the North-West ‘Red Brigades’ and South-West ‘Calabrian People’s Army’ launch kidnappings and attacks; coordinated confederal anti-terror laws follow in 1973.

Wars

• Italian Years of Lead: A wave of left- and right-wing terrorism sweeps several Italies, prompting unprecedented confederal police coordination.

Major powers: North-West Italy · North-East Italy · Central-West Italy · Central-East Italy · South-West Italy · South-East Italy · French Republic · Federal Republic of Germany · Yugoslavia · United States of America

Meanwhile…

• 📺 Each republic launches its own public broadcaster—RA1 Nord-Ovest, RNE Nord-Est, RTC Centro-Ovest, etc.—and teenagers swap cassette recordings of the ‘forbidden’ channels across internal borders.
• 🍕 Neapolitan pizzaioli in South-West Italy lobby successfully for confederal protection of ‘vera pizza napoletana’, leading to comic debates over whether Central-West’s Roman-style pizza counts as ‘Italian’ abroad.
• 🚗 North-West Italy’s car industry (based in Turin) sells ‘confederal editions’ of popular models bearing flags of all six republics, a half-hearted attempt at patriotic marketing.

1992 · Maastricht, Tangentopoli and the Euro-Italian Debate

With the Cold War ending, the six Italies confront European integration and their own corruption. A sprawling bribery scandal—Tangentopoli Confederale—reveals complex kickback networks running not only inside each republic but also through confederal institutions. At the same time, negotiations over joining the European Union and the euro force the Italies to align budgets and partially pool sovereignty, sparking fierce debates over whether the confederation should finally become a federation or unravel.

Shock: Bribe Web Ties All Six Capitols

Florence magistrates unveil ‘Tangentopoli Confederale’; old parties collapsing from Milan to Palermo.

Key events

• 1981 ‘Florence Compromise’ gives the Confederation shared authority over monetary policy and banking regulation, creating a proto-central bank, the Banca Confederale Italiana.
• 1989 Fall of the Berlin Wall inspires reformist movements across the Italies, with demands for cleaner politics and a directly elected confederal president.
• 1990 Schengen-like ‘Accordo di Ancona’ ends systematic border checks between the six republics, symbolically erasing many internal frontiers.
• 1992 Tangentopoli Confederale investigations expose bribery across all republican capitals and the confederal government in Florence; traditional Christian-democratic and socialist parties implode in multiple Italies.
• 1993 Confederal referendum narrowly approves transforming the Italian Confederation into the ‘Italian Union’ with stronger federal powers, but leaves the six republics constitutionally entrenched.

Wars

• Adriatic Refugee Crisis: As Albania and Yugoslavia collapse, boats of refugees arrive in South-East and Central-East Italies, straining resources and politics.

Major powers: North-West Italy · North-East Italy · Central-West Italy · Central-East Italy · South-West Italy · South-East Italy · European Community · Yugoslav Successor States · United States of America · Russian Federation

Meanwhile…

• 📡 Television satire shows in each republic lampoon their own corrupt elites, but a Central-West program called ‘I Cugini d’Italia’ gains confederal cult status by mocking all six governments equally.
• 🎧 House and Italo-dance scenes diverge slightly by republic, so DJs market ‘Nord-Est Remix’ and ‘Sud-Ovest Version’ as distinct sub-genres abroad.
• 🗳️ Ballots in confederal referenda come in six colored versions corresponding to each republic’s color; political junkies collect them like baseball cards.

2008 · Euro Union and the Diverging Souths

By the 2000s, the Italian Union has adopted the euro and joined the now-European Union as six member-states with a common confederal voice. North-West and North-East are prosperous manufacturing and services hubs; Central-West leverages Florence–Rome as a political and cultural center; Central-East lives off Adriatic trade and tourism; South-West and South-East struggle with youth unemployment and organized crime. The global financial crisis hits the peninsula asymmetrically, with southern Italies particularly vulnerable and resentful of northern dominance in confederal decisions.

Key events

• 1999 The six Italies enter the euro as founding members of the Eurozone, after tough deficit negotiations and structural reforms imposed unevenly across the republics.
• 2001 Creation of a directly elected ‘President of the Italian Union’, with a rotating prime ministerial council composed of all six republican leaders.
• 2002 Mafia trials coordinated by all six justice ministries severely weaken Cosa Nostra and ’Ndrangheta leadership, though South-East and South-West complain they carry most of the social cost.
• 2004 The Italian Union champions EU enlargement to the Balkans, seeking stability across the Adriatic; Trieste and Bari boom as gateways to Slovenia and Croatia.
• 2008 Global financial crisis: property bubbles in coastal Central-East and South-East Italies burst, while North-West’s export industries are hit by collapsing global demand.

Wars

• Operation Mare Serio: Joint confederal and EU naval–police mission targets human trafficking routes and remaining mafia strongholds across the Straits of Messina.

Major powers: North-West Italy · North-East Italy · Central-West Italy · Central-East Italy · South-West Italy · South-East Italy · European Union · United States of America · Russian Federation

Meanwhile…

• 📱 Smartphone keyboards in the Italies ship with six pre-loaded ‘Italian’ autocorrect dictionaries: standard Florentine plus five regional variants reflecting strong written dialect use.
• 🍋 ‘Confederal cuisine’ restaurants thrive in Brussels and Berlin, serving tasting menus of six small regional dishes from each republic.
• 🎤 Song contests modeled on Eurovision but restricted to the six Italies—‘Canzone dell’Unione’—occasionally launch artists who later win the real Eurovision for different republics.

2026 · A Polycentric Italy in a Fractured Europe

Today’s ‘Italian Union’ (Unione Italiana) is a stable but argumentative federation of six republics sitting inside a stressed European Union. The north–south economic gap persists, but decentralization has prevented the secessionist explosions seen elsewhere. Climate change, migration across the Mediterranean, and geopolitical rivalry draw the Italies closer in practice: joint naval patrols, a shared energy grid, and confederal climate adaptation plans all nudge them further towards real federation, even as local parties still call for ‘more autonomy’.

Key events

• 2013 A populist, digitally savvy movement, ‘Lista Sei Stelle’, emerges first in South-West Italy and spreads confederation-wide, channeling anger at corruption and austerity.
• 2015 Refugee arrivals surge through the central Mediterranean; South-East and South-West Italies demand more EU solidarity and stronger confederal support for reception infrastructure.
• 2020 COVID-19 hits the Italies in waves, initially devastating North-West hospitals; confederal emergency powers temporarily centralize health policy and supply procurement.
• 2022 Russia’s invasion of Ukraine hardens Italian Union support for NATO and EU sanctions; LNG terminals in South-East Italy become strategic assets supplying Central Europe.
• 2024 A new Constitutional Act modestly extends confederal fiscal powers, allowing a joint ‘Green Transition Fund’ directed especially at coastal Central-East and drought-prone South-West regions.

Wars

• Central Mediterranean Security Mission: Italian Union and EU naval forces patrol sea lanes to curb smuggling and protect energy infrastructure amid Libyan instability.

Major powers: North-West Italy · North-East Italy · Central-West Italy · Central-East Italy · South-West Italy · South-East Italy · European Union · United States of America · Russian Federation · People's Republic of China

Meanwhile…

• 🎮 A wildly popular grand-strategy video game, ‘Sei Corone’, lets players lead one of the six Italies from 1861 to the present; debates over its balance mirror real political arguments.
• 🚄 High-speed trains branded ‘Freccia Confederale’ run Milan–Venice–Florence–Rome–Naples–Bari, with on-board menus rotating specialties from all six republics.
• 🥊 Inter-republic boxing matches—especially Naples (South-West) vs. Palermo (South-East) derbies—draw huge TV audiences and are jokingly called ‘proxy wars’ of the south.
• 📚 School history textbooks differ subtly by republic; a confederal ‘Common Core’ exists, but each adds a final chapter titled ‘Our Republic’s Path’ emphasizing regional heroes.

Epilogue · The world today

In 2026, a federal-but-fragmented Italian Union of six republics navigates economic disparities, Mediterranean crises and green transition inside a stressed European Union.

• 🇮🇹 North-West Italy: Milan markets itself as the ‘Capital of the Italies’, hosting the joint stock exchange for all six republics as well as many EU agencies that in our timeline sit in Brussels or Frankfurt.
• 🌋 South-West Italy: Naples has become a leading European hub for indie game development, with studios drawing heavily on Neapolitan folklore and urban legends shaped by a century of being a semi-sovereign republic.
• 🏛️ Central-West Italy: Florence is both a tourist magnet and a bureaucratic city, housing the parliament, presidency and supreme court of the Italian Union alongside Renaissance masterpieces.
• ⚓ South-East Italy: Bari and Palermo compete as twin ‘capitals of the Mediterranean’, with rival annual summits on migration, climate, and blue economy involving North Africa and the Balkans.
• 🤖 North-East Italy: Bologna–Modena–Reggio Emilia form a ‘Robot Valley’ specializing in industrial automation, food-processing machinery and collaborative robots exported worldwide.
• 🌊 Central-East Italy: Adriatic resort towns in Marche and Abruzzo cater mainly to Germans, Czechs and Poles, and their mayors coordinate marketing via a ‘Little Riviera’ council independent of Rome or Florence.

Butterfly effects

• Benito Mussolini, confined to the political scene of North-West Italy, never becomes a pan-Italian dictator, and his regime falls earlier and more locally than in our timeline.
• The Sanremo Music Festival is much weaker as a unifying institution; instead six separate song festivals coexist, each crowning winners who may or may not cross over confederal borders.
• FIAT develops as ‘ConfederAuto’, a holding with factories scattered across multiple republics, which makes it less likely to be bailed out by any single government and more open to foreign investment.
• Juventus remains a North-West club with a smaller confederal fanbase; inter-republic rivalries mean most fans stick to teams inside their own republic.
• The Vatican’s diplomats exploit the fragmented political map, often mediating between the six governments and playing a quiet role in keeping the confederation together during crises.
• Italian is slightly less standardized; TV and online media normalize a spectrum from Florentine standard to regional standards, so subtitles are common even between republics for some programs.

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