Politics and Religion in Napoleonic Italy

There are four great constants in the conflict between the Napoleonic empire and the Catholic Church during the epoca francese: the two protagonists in the struggle were the political forces of the Napoleonic regime and the post-Tridentine Church; the geography, both physical and human, in which they struggled was composed of the centre and periphery of the states of the Italian ancien regime, which the Napoleonic empire overthrew and annexed, and over which the Church had exerted a powerful influence.