Napoleon Bonaparte's Influence On Italy

In 1796, a French leader named Napoleon Bonaparte lead his army to attack Italy. Napoleon was an innovator and an opportunist. Although Napoleon had his own reasons for taking over Northern Italy, France mainly wanted Italy for financial and strategic reasons. At this time, Austria owned a portion of Italy, but France wanted to keep this land from them because “it was an ideal outpost for defense and offense” (Sarti 19). Only a few months into Napoleon’s rule, he had changed the political landscape of Italy which had been in place for years. After the Jacobins took power in Genoa in the north and the Roman Republic replaced papal rule in Rome, the Parthenopean Republic replaced the royal court, who escaped to