thanks to nationalism there are nations in the world that are independent. Italy was created by nationalist who had been ruled by foreigners. A Italian person named Giuseppe Mazzini created a group called Young Italy. they wanted to make Italy a free nation and not be ruled by nobles and or kings. he failed thought and sent him into exile with his group. While in exile he went to Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia. This was the biggest and the most powerful state of Italy. Count Camillo di Cavour was put in charge to conquer the other states. He believed that he was doing this for the kingdom, not Italy. Covour united Italy even though that's not what he wanted to do.
Before a united Italy there was only city-states.