not  within  those  of  modern  Tuscany,  Perugia,  both  as   • — '

commonwealth  and  as  tyranny,  held  a  high  place  among        ^^  '
Italian  cities.     Of  Eome  herself  it  is  almost  impossible  Rome,
to  speak.     She  has  much  history,  but  she  has  little
geography.      Emperors   were    crowned  there ;    Popes
sometimes  Hved  there  ;  sometimes  Eome  appears  once
more  as  a  single  Latin  city,  waging  war  against  Tus-
culum    or   some    other  of  her   earliest  fellows.     The
claims  of  her  Bishops  to  independent  temporal  power,  Claims  of
founded  on  a  succession  of  real  or  pretended  Imperial
and  royal  grants,  lay  still  in  the  background  ;  but  they
were  ready  to  grow  into  reality  as  occasion  served.
The  next  stage  of  Italian  political  geography  may  second
be  dated  from  the  death  of  Frederick  the  Second,  when  iroo-im.
all  practical  power  of  an  Imperial  kingdom  in  Italy  may
be  said  to  have  passed  away.     Presently  begins  the
gradual  change  of  the  commonwealths  into  tyrannies,  Growth  of

"^  .  ^  tyrannies.
and  the  grouping  together  of  many  of  them  into  larger
states.  We  also  see  the  be2;innino;  of  more  definite
claims  of  temporal  dominion  on  behalf  of  the  Popes.
In  the  course  of  the  three  hundred  years  between
Frederick  the  Second  and  Charles  the  Fifth,  these  Dominion
processes  gradually  changed  the  face  of  the  Italian  1555-1701.
