Consolidation

Consolidation:

"At the opening of the fourteenth century of the Christian Era, the North and Central Italian regions of Lombardy, Romagna, Tuscany, Umbria, and the Marches were partitioned between seventy or eighty city-states; or, in other worlds, there was a larger number of fully-self-governing states in one half of Italy in A.D. 1300 than can be counted in 1935 in the whole world."

Arnold J. Toynbee, A Study of History

On the whole, Toynbee thinks that the replacement of the Italian city-state model by larger nation-states was a Bad Thing.

but then, he is largely forgotten these days, so what did he know?