What were the natural resources of ancient Italy?
There are places like Cinque Terre, the Amalfi Coast, the lakes, the Dolomites/Alps with a lot of natural beauty, Ravenna with beautiful Byzantine mosaics, the small ancient hill towns of Tuscany, Umbria and other areas, beaches, castles, etc that are all worth visiting. There are a huge number of local festivals spread throughout Italy that can be a lot of fun and give you some insight into Italian culture that can be worth participating in depending on how much time you have. The key is to pick the places that appeal to you and don’t try to overextend the number of places or travel times/distances.Venice is an easily walkable city unless you want to go to one of the outer islands like Murano, Burano, Lido … It’s also one of the most expensive places to visit here. I usually stay in the San Marco area, but the outer islands (e.g., Lido) or the mainland (e.g., Mestre) are less expensive. If you do that, you’ll need to take the vaporetto or train/bus to get back and forth to your hotel.
I could be mistaken but I believe the history of Ancient Rome is the history of Ancient Italy. Even if the are separate enough, they involve the same land, and resources which would include olives, iron, gold, and marble. I hope that helps you at least a little. They also had forests and access to the sea of course.
