 So, you know, Rome went from a million to two million to 10,000. And then by the time of the Baroque, which is a period where Rome is at the center of the universe, this is the 1600s, let's say, or the 1500s, late 1500s, Rome is now the center of the universe. And because the pope is here, the Renaissance is happening in Italy and Rome and in Florence and the rest of Italy. So the greatest artists are here. Galileo is here. We've seen the beginning of science. But again, politically, the pope is important and therefore he is here. The Roman city-states are relatively wealthy. We'll get back to that in a little while. You know, Florence is a crucially important place. But Rome is really the most important city in the world, again, at least in the Western world. And at that point, and I was shocked to find out how many people do you think lived in Rome in this glorious period where, you know, this is the period where, I don't know, Michelangelo is already finished all his work. The Vatican is seeing its glory days with the Sistine Chapel and everything else that's going on, and Peter's and everything else. And going into the Baroque with Bernini and just the beauty and the grandeur of everything that's being done in Rome, how many people do you think lived in Rome during that period? Only 50,000. So I was pretty shocked when our guy told us that the other day, only 50,000 people lived in Rome during the Baroque, which is kind of really, in some regards, the most glorious times of modern Rome. Today, Rome has four million people, four million people. The consequence of capitalism, the consequence of industrialization, the consequence of the ability to create wealth and grow a population and the extension of life, extension. But, and of course, Rome has never returned to its glory days of the Baroque. It stopped being the center of the universe, basically for two main reasons. One is the decline in the importance of the Catholic Church, the decline of the importance of the Pope with the Reformation, the center of gravity politically and the center of gravity wealth-wise started shifting to the north towards freer countries that experienced the Reformation. And then countries that experienced the Enlightenment, while there were a lot of Enlightenment thinkers in Italy, Italy, I think, was heard during the Enlightenment and then the 19th century from fragmentation. Italy was not unified as a country until late in the 19th century. And so it suffered from their fragmentation. It was a place that was constantly fought over, the Spanish, the Austrian-Hungarian empire, the French all had pieces of Italy in different periods of times. They all occupied different parts of Italy in different periods of time. But Italy also was, I think, held back by its commitment to the Church, its commitment to Catholicism, its commitment to the Pope, and it's an inquisition that was started during the Baroque, which I think held back scientific inquiry. So while science was moved forward by people like Galileo and there was a real scientific community in Italy around the Renaissance, coming out of the Renaissance, science was found upon in Italy. There was an inquisition, both here and in Spain, and science started thriving in the north where it was left alone by the Reformation, by the Protestants, weren't that interested in science. And every respect coming out of, let's say, starting in the 17th and late 17th and into the 18th century, the focal point of art shifts north, it shifts to France, it shifts to the Netherlands, it shifts even ultimately to the Germanic state, Austrian-Hungarian empire, wealth creation shifts north, industry shifts north, and ultimately capitalism is a creation of northern Europe, which Italy only much later catches up on, and really is never caught on, never caught up, Italy still, even from a European perspective, is, it's not a poor country, there's a lot of wealth here, but relative to northern Europe it is poor. So it's gone through the Roman Empire peak, a complete collapse into the Dark Ages, a rise into the Baroque period, Renaissance and Baroque with a heyday of modern Rome suddenly, and modern Italy, I'd say, and then continued wealth, continued growth of the city, continued modernization, but at a slower pace than the rest of Europe, particularly northern Europe, which ultimately made Rome into a second-tier city as compared to London, Paris, Amsterdam, and ultimately the German cities. Thank you for listening or watching the Iran book show. If you'd like to support the show, we make it as easy as possible for you to trade with me. You get value from listening, you get value from watching, show your appreciation. You can do that by going to iranbookshow.com slash support, by going to Patreon, subscribe star locals, and just making an appropriate contribution on any one of those, any one of those channels. 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