Learning a bit of Italian history

Having never been to Italy in my life I wanted to read as much as possible in the time available  about Italian history. "Italy - a history" by Vincent Cronin was a well written summary. The rise of the city states happened between 400 and 1402 AD. Many of the buildings in Rome, Florence, Mantua and Venice will date back to that time. The early Renaissance began in Florence in 1400. Florence had a republican form of government. "There had arisen a new class of men with leisure, education, and money to indulge a liking for books."  "The Florentines fashioned their ideal of a man strong-willed, public-spirited, and versatile. Together with the Christina faith, this ideal was to produce Renaissance man. He was to achieve great things, first of all in Florence, whence his influence radiated. During the fifteenth century, most of Italy was quickened by the Renaissance, but nowhere were the achievements as important as in Florence."
"Rome in 1500 was a city so poor and run-down that the Romans of Augustus Caesar's day would probably not have recognized it" "In 1504. Julius summoned Michelangelo to Rome. The Florentine sculptor was then twenty-nine and had already made his name with the statue of the Blessed Virgin holding the dead Christ in her arms, and another statue, fourteen feed high, of David" "It took Michelangelo four years to fresco the vast ceiling (of the Sistine Chapel) 133 by forty-three feet."
The first two days in Rome will be taken up with two tours - the first a visit to the Vatican Museums, the Sistine Chapel and St Peter's Basilica. The second will be a half day dour of the Colossium, Roman Forum and Palatine Hill.  I also have a ticket to Puccini's opera Tosca.  From then on it is going to be "making it up as one goes along".