Ancient Rome

The once great ruler of the Mediterranean, as well as the grandfather of Italy and Romano. His eyes are brown (but were depicted as being green in earlier artwork) and his hair is dark brown with two curly ahoge sticking out on both sides of his head, similar to his grandsons. He has tanned skin, but in the anime adaptation, his skin was changed to being fair. It was said in his official profile that he has a lot of “stupid” grandchildren, meaning that his grandchildren failed miserably in following in his footsteps. At this time, Italy and Romano have been the only two confirmed to be his kin, but some suspect that Spain, France, and others may be related, too.

Ancient Rome raised Italy and called him his “favorite” grandson. The two had a very close relationship, and when Ancient Rome eventually died, Italy was devastated and refused to become the new Roman Empire due to what ended up happening to his grandfather. Throughout the series, Italy refers to Ancient Rome as “Grandpa Rome” (Rome-ojiichan), and thinks very highly of him. Although he didn’t turn out as successful his grandfather, Italy did manage to inherit his natural talents for trading and art, plus his charm and charisma. Because he was busy raising Italy, Grandpa Rome remained more distant from Romano. This caused Romano to feel inferior and overshadowed by his younger brother.

He also became very jealous of him for not only taking their grandfather’s affection away from him, but also because Italy inherited his talents and because Romano claims that Italy looks more like Grandpa Rome in appearance than he does. Despite this, it was shown that Grandpa Rome loved and cared for them both equally, and as shown in the manga, he took the time to visit Romano from heaven as he did with Italy. His close friend and guard was Germania, the Holy Roman Empire’s grandfather. Eventually, although they were inseparable at one time, the two became enemies.