RT XXC Benard (@vbenard)The roots of the phenomenon lie in history.In the 1000-1500 Era, Northern Italy belonged to the germanic holy roman empire. Since they couldn't manage it from Aachen, they created a very decentralized form of government where each province was free to develop prosperity, and had just to pay an annual flat tax to the germans so the German helped them to fight against non christian invaders.And there was one independant "stitch" in their oligopoly: the independant republic of venice, m ...