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The French had conquered the Italian peninsula after Napoleon's rise to power. Under his ruling the peninsula was divided into three entities: the northern parts which were annexed to the French Empire (Piedmont, Liguria, Parma, Piacenza, Tuscany, and Rome), the newly created Kingdom of Italy (Lombardy, Venice, Reggio, Modena, Romagna, and the Marshes) ruled by Napoleon himself, and the Kingdom of Naples, which was first ruled by Napoleon’s brother Joseph Bonaparte, but then passed to Napoleon’s brother-in-law Joachim Murat. The concept of a united Italy began to take place in the mid 1800s. Several societies promoted Italian nationalism and the idea of a unified Italian political state.