Yes, I'm sure I'm from Italy.
And if Bergamo won't equate to Fargo, ND, it will certainly equate to Rochester, NY in your history.
Nice, but not a milestone such as Venice, Milan, Padua, Florence... Rome...
Personally speaking, I can trace my ancestry back in time enough to before Napoleon invaded Italy, when Florence was an independent Grand Duchy (father) and Istria was under Venice (mother).
But I don't feel bad about Napoleon invading Italy, hey, he brought wine (no, wait, we already had that) and secular laws (no, we already had those too) and freed the South from Spanish rule (yeah, tell me about French rule!) and the North from ...
... no, actually, save for the Spanish "Kingdom of the Two Sicilies", Italy was pretty much independent. and pret-ty well off, too!
A patchwork of small, medium and large size Feudal States, perhaps, but so were the rest of nations in Europe.
Yet, THE place to be and THE place to study was still Italy.
True, Cambridge and Oxford and King's College, London were big provided you were English.
BUT
Copernicus studied in Krakow (Poland) then in
Bologna and
Ferrara before brushing up the Heliocentric Theory of ancient greek philosopher Aristarcus to claim "the SUN is the center of the Universe!"
Venice was a 1000-y.o. Republic when Napoleon invaded from land.
Genoa was a 900 y.o. Republic when Napoleon... invaded from land.
Pisa was still very much alive and kicking when the Hansa league cities of the North and Baltic Seas were very much decadent.
Go ahead and throw stuff at me.
Mud, snow and sh!t all behave in the same way when they fall on a pitched roof,
they trickle off and leave me to bask in the sun...