Nobody does political cynicism like the Italians. As a country it hasn't been crucial since the fifth century AD, but it knows more about how politics works – and more importantly how it doesn't work – than any other nation on the planet. After refining Greek democracy into a workable system for a growing empire, Rome set about discovering all the ways government could corrupt itself, then descended into over a millennia of decline and division. The moment – brief, hopeful and doomed – when Italy struggled to reemerge as a national entity again is the setting for this week's...