 After fighting had died down, a few months were needed before attention could be given to institutional matters.The first important question regarded the royal family, blamed by many for the fascist regime, the war, and the defeat.Republican traditions in Italy traditionally hark back to the Roman Republic and the Medieval Communes, in which a wide spectrum of people took part in the business of government, but remained largely theoretical, as in the conclusion of Machiavelli's "Il Principe".