Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in
Southern Europe
Southern Europe is the southern regions of Europe, region of Europe. It is also known as Mediterranean Europe, as its geography is essentially marked by the Mediterranean Sea. Definitions of Southern Europe include some or all of these countrie ...
.
It is located in the middle of the
Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the ea ...
, and its territory largely coincides with the
homonymous geographical region.
Italy is also considered part of
Western Europe
Western Europe is the western region of Europe. The region's countries and territories vary depending on context.
The concept of "the West" appeared in Europe in juxtaposition to "the East" and originally applied to the ancient Mediterranean ...
,
and shares
land borders
Borders are usually defined as geographical boundaries, imposed either by features such as oceans and terrain, or by political entities such as governments, sovereign states, federated states, and other subnational entities. Political borders ca ...
with
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
,
Switzerland
). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...
,
Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
,
Slovenia
Slovenia ( ; sl, Slovenija ), officially the Republic of Slovenia (Slovene: , abbr.: ''RS''), is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the southeast, an ...
and the
enclaved
An enclave is a territory (or a small territory apart of a larger one) that is entirely surrounded by the territory of one other state or entity. Enclaves may also exist within territorial waters. ''Enclave'' is sometimes used improperly to deno ...
microstates
A microstate or ministate is a sovereign state having a very small population or very small land area, usually both. However, the meanings of "state" and "very small" are not well-defined in international law.Warrington, E. (1994). "Lilliputs ...
of
Vatican City
Vatican City (), officially the Vatican City State ( it, Stato della Città del Vaticano; la, Status Civitatis Vaticanae),—'
* german: Vatikanstadt, cf. '—' (in Austria: ')
* pl, Miasto Watykańskie, cf. '—'
* pt, Cidade do Vati ...
and
San Marino
San Marino (, ), officially the Republic of San Marino ( it, Repubblica di San Marino; ), also known as the Most Serene Republic of San Marino ( it, Serenissima Repubblica di San Marino, links=no), is the fifth-smallest country in the world an ...
. It has a territorial
exclave
An enclave is a territory (or a small territory apart of a larger one) that is entirely surrounded by the territory of one other state or entity. Enclaves may also exist within territorial waters. ''Enclave'' is sometimes used improperly to deno ...
in Switzerland,
Campione. Italy covers an area of , with a population of over 60 million. It is the
third-most populous member state of the
European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...
, the
sixth-most populous country in Europe, and the
tenth-largest country in the continent by land area. Italy's capital and largest city is
Rome
, established_title = Founded
, established_date = 753 BC
, founder = King Romulus (legendary)
, image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg
, map_caption ...
.
Italy was the native place of
many civilizations such as the
Italic peoples
The Italic peoples were an ethnolinguistic group identified by their use of Italic languages, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
The Italic peoples are descended from the Indo-European speaking peoples who inhabited Italy from at leas ...
and the
Etruscans
The Etruscan civilization () was developed by a people of Etruria in ancient Italy with a common language and culture who formed a federation of city-states. After conquering adjacent lands, its territory covered, at its greatest extent, rou ...
, while due to its central geographic location in Southern Europe and
the Mediterranean
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the eas ...
, the country has also historically been home to myriad peoples and cultures, who immigrated to the peninsula throughout history.
The
Latins
The Latins were originally an Italic tribe in ancient central Italy from Latium. As Roman power and colonization spread Latin culture during the Roman Republic.
Latins culturally "Romanized" or "Latinized" the rest of Italy, and the word Latin ...
, native of central Italy, formed the
Roman Kingdom
The Roman Kingdom (also referred to as the Roman monarchy, or the regal period of ancient Rome) was the earliest period of Roman history when the city and its territory were ruled by kings. According to oral accounts, the Roman Kingdom began wi ...
in the 8th century BC, which eventually became a
republic
A republic () is a "state in which power rests with the people or their representatives; specifically a state without a monarchy" and also a "government, or system of government, of such a state." Previously, especially in the 17th and 18th c ...
with a government of the
Senate and the People
SPQR, an abbreviation for (; en, "The Roman Senate and People"; or more freely "The Senate and People of Rome"), is an emblematic abbreviated phrase referring to the government of the ancient Roman Republic. It appears on Roman currency, at ...
. The
Roman Republic
The Roman Republic ( la, Res publica Romana ) was a form of government of Rome and the era of the classical Roman civilization when it was run through public representation of the Roman people. Beginning with the overthrow of the Roman Kin ...
initially
conquered
Conquest is the act of military subjugation of an enemy by force of arms.
Military history provides many examples of conquest: the Roman conquest of Britain, the Mauryan conquest of Afghanistan and of vast areas of the Indian subcontinent, t ...
and
assimilated its neighbours on the Italian peninsula, eventually
expanding and conquering parts of
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
,
North Africa
North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...
and
Asia
Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an area ...
. By the first century BC, the
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediterr ...
emerged as the dominant power in the
Mediterranean Basin
In biogeography, the Mediterranean Basin (; also known as the Mediterranean Region or sometimes Mediterranea) is the region of lands around the Mediterranean Sea that have mostly a Mediterranean climate, with mild to cool, rainy winters and w ...
and became a
leading cultural, political and religious centre
Center or centre may refer to:
Mathematics
*Center (geometry), the middle of an object
* Center (algebra), used in various contexts
** Center (group theory)
** Center (ring theory)
* Graph center, the set of all vertices of minimum eccentricity ...
, inaugurating the
Pax Romana
The Pax Romana (Latin for 'Roman peace') is a roughly 200-year-long timespan of Roman history which is periodization, identified as a period and as a golden age (metaphor), golden age of increased as well as sustained Imperial cult of ancient Rome ...
, a period of more than 200 years during which Italy's
law
Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...
,
technology
Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in medicine, science, ...
,
economy
An economy is an area of the production, distribution and trade, as well as consumption of goods and services. In general, it is defined as a social domain that emphasize the practices, discourses, and material expressions associated with the ...
,
art
Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas.
There is no generally agreed definition of wha ...
, and
literature
Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include ...
developed.
During the
Early Middle Ages
The Early Middle Ages (or early medieval period), sometimes controversially referred to as the Dark Ages, is typically regarded by historians as lasting from the late 5th or early 6th century to the 10th century. They marked the start of the Mi ...
, Italy endured the
fall of the Western Roman Empire
The fall of the Western Roman Empire (also called the fall of the Roman Empire or the fall of Ancient Rome, Rome) was the loss of central political control in the Western Roman Empire, a process in which the Empire failed to enforce its rul ...
and the
Barbarian Invasions
The Migration Period was a period in European history marked by large-scale migrations that saw the fall of the Western Roman Empire and subsequent settlement of its former territories by various tribes, and the establishment of the post-Roman ...
, but by the 11th century, numerous
city-states
A city-state is an independent sovereign city which serves as the center of political, economic, and cultural life over its contiguous territory. They have existed in many parts of the world since the dawn of history, including cities such as ...
and
maritime republics
The maritime republics ( it, repubbliche marinare), also called merchant republics ( it, repubbliche mercantili), were Thalassocracy, thalassocratic city-states of the Mediterranean Basin during the Middle Ages. Being a significant presence in I ...
, mostly in
the North, became prosperous through trade, commerce, and banking, laying the groundwork for modern
capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for Profit (economics), profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, pric ...
.
The
Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...
began in Italy and spread to the rest of Europe, bringing a renewed interest in
humanism
Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential and agency of human beings. It considers human beings the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry.
The meaning of the term "humani ...
,
science
Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.
Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...
,
exploration
Exploration refers to the historical practice of discovering remote lands. It is studied by geographers and historians.
Two major eras of exploration occurred in human history: one of convergence, and one of divergence. The first, covering most ...
, and
art
Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas.
There is no generally agreed definition of wha ...
. During the Middle Ages, Italian explorers discovered new routes to the
Far East
The ''Far East'' was a European term to refer to the geographical regions that includes East and Southeast Asia as well as the Russian Far East to a lesser extent. South Asia is sometimes also included for economic and cultural reasons.
The ter ...
and the
New World
The term ''New World'' is often used to mean the majority of Earth's Western Hemisphere, specifically the Americas."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: Oxford University Press, p. 3 ...
, helping to usher in the European
Age of Discovery
The Age of Discovery (or the Age of Exploration), also known as the early modern period, was a period largely overlapping with the Age of Sail, approximately from the 15th century to the 17th century in European history, during which seafarin ...
. Italy's commercial and political power significantly waned with the opening of trade routes that bypassed the Mediterranean.
Centuries of rivalry and infighting between the Italian city-states, and the invasions of other European powers during the
Italian Wars
The Italian Wars, also known as the Habsburg–Valois Wars, were a series of conflicts covering the period 1494 to 1559, fought mostly in the Italian peninsula, but later expanding into Flanders, the Rhineland and the Mediterranean Sea. The pr ...
of the 15th and 16th centuries, left parts of Italy politically fragmented.
By the mid-19th century, rising
Italian nationalism
Italian nationalism is a movement which believes that the Italians are a nation with a single homogeneous identity, and therefrom seeks to promote the cultural unity of Italy as a country. From an Italian nationalist perspective, Italianness is ...
, along with other social, economic, and military events, led to a period of revolutionary political upheaval. After centuries of political and territorial divisions,
Italy was almost entirely unified in 1861 following a war of independence, establishing the
Kingdom of Italy
The Kingdom of Italy ( it, Regno d'Italia) was a state that existed from 1861, when Victor Emmanuel II of Kingdom of Sardinia, Sardinia was proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy, proclaimed King of Italy, until 1946, when civil discontent led to ...
. From the late 19th century to the early 20th century, Italy rapidly industrialised, mainly in the north, and acquired a
colonial empire
A colonial empire is a collective of territories (often called colonies), either contiguous with the imperial center or located overseas, settled by the population of a certain state and governed by that state.
Before the expansion of early mode ...
,
while
the south remained largely impoverished and
excluded from industrialisation, fuelling a large and influential
diaspora
A diaspora ( ) is a population that is scattered across regions which are separate from its geographic place of origin. Historically, the word was used first in reference to the dispersion of Greeks in the Hellenic world, and later Jews after ...
. Despite being one of the
victorious allied powers in World War I, Italy entered a period of economic crisis and social turmoil, leading to the rise of the
Italian fascist dictatorship in 1922. The participation of Fascist Italy in
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
on the
Axis
An axis (plural ''axes'') is an imaginary line around which an object rotates or is symmetrical. Axis may also refer to:
Mathematics
* Axis of rotation: see rotation around a fixed axis
*Axis (mathematics), a designator for a Cartesian-coordinate ...
side ended in military defeat. Following the rise of the
Italian Resistance
The Italian resistance movement (the ''Resistenza italiana'' and ''la Resistenza'') is an umbrella term for the Italian resistance groups who fought the occupying forces of Nazi Germany and the fascist collaborationists of the Italian Social ...
and the subsequent
Italian Civil War
The Italian Civil War (Italian language, Italian: ''Guerra civile italiana'', ) was a civil war in the Kingdom of Italy fought during World War II by Italian Fascists against the Italian resistance movement, Italian partisans (mostly politically ...
and
liberation of Italy, the country abolished its
monarchy
A monarchy is a form of government in which a person, the monarch, is head of state for life or until abdication. The political legitimacy and authority of the monarch may vary from restricted and largely symbolic (constitutional monarchy) ...
, established a democratic
unitary parliamentary republic
A unitary parliamentary republic refers to a unitary state with a republican form of government in which the political power is vested in and entrusted to the parliament with confidence by its electorate.
List of unitary parliamentary republics ...
, enjoyed a prolonged
economic boom
An economic expansion is an increase in the level of economic activity, and of the goods and services available. It is a period of economic growth as measured by a rise in real GDP. The explanation of fluctuations in aggregate economic activity ...
, and became a highly
developed country
A developed country (or industrialized country, high-income country, more economically developed country (MEDC), advanced country) is a sovereign state that has a high quality of life, developed economy and advanced technological infrastruct ...
.
Italy has an advanced economy, being the
tenth-largest nominal GDP (third in the European Union) in the world, the ninth-largest by
national wealth
National net wealth, also known as national net worth, is the total sum of the value of a country's assets minus its liabilities. It refers to the total value of net wealth possessed by the residents of a state at a set point in time. This fig ...
and the third-largest by central bank
gold reserve
A gold reserve is the gold held by a national central bank, intended mainly as a guarantee to redeem promises to pay depositors, note holders (e.g. paper money), or trading peers, during the eras of the gold standard, and also as a store of v ...
. It ranks highly in
life expectancy
Life expectancy is a statistical measure of the average time an organism is expected to live, based on the year of its birth, current age, and other demographic factors like sex. The most commonly used measure is life expectancy at birth ...
, quality of life,
[The Economist Intelligence Unit's quality-of-life index](_blank)
, Economist, 2005 healthcare
Health care or healthcare is the improvement of health via the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, amelioration or cure of disease, illness, injury, and other physical and mental impairments in people. Health care is delivered by health profe ...
, and education. The country is a
great power
A great power is a sovereign state that is recognized as having the ability and expertise to exert its influence on a global scale. Great powers characteristically possess military and economic strength, as well as diplomatic and soft power inf ...
, and it has a significant role in
regional
In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as zones, lands or territories, are areas that are broadly divided by physical characteristics (physical geography), human impact characteristics (human geography), and the interaction of humanity and t ...
and global
[ ("''The United States is the sole world's superpower. France, Italy, Germany and the United Kingdom are great powers''")][ ("''The great powers are super-sovereign states: an exclusive club of the most powerful states economically, militarily, politically and strategically. These states include veto-wielding members of the United Nations Security Council (United States, United Kingdom, France, China, and Russia), as well as economic powerhouses such as Germany, Italy and Japan.''")] economic, military, cultural, and diplomatic affairs. Italy is a
founding
Founding may refer to:
* The formation of a corporation, government, or other organization
* The laying of a building's Foundation
* The casting of materials in a mold
See also
* Foundation (disambiguation)
* Incorporation (disambiguation)
In ...
and
leading
In typography, leading ( ) is the space between adjacent lines of type; the exact definition varies.
In hand typesetting, leading is the thin strips of lead (or aluminium) that were inserted between lines of type in the composing stick to incre ...
member of the European Union and a member of numerous international institutions, including the
United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...
,
NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...
, the
OECD
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD; french: Organisation de coopération et de développement économiques, ''OCDE'') is an intergovernmental organisation with 38 member countries, founded in 1961 to stimulate e ...
, the
G7, the
Latin Union
The Latin Union is an international organization of nations that use Romance languages, whose activities have been suspended since 2012. Headquartered in Paris, France, its aim is to protect, project, and promote the common cultural heritage of R ...
, the
Schengen Area
The Schengen Area ( , ) is an area comprising 27 European countries that have officially abolished all passport and all other types of border control at their mutual borders. Being an element within the wider area of freedom, security and j ...
, and
many more. The source of
many inventions and discoveries, the country is considered a
cultural superpower
In international relations, power is defined in several different ways. Material definitions of state power emphasize economic and military power. Other definitions of power emphasize the ability to structure and constitute the nature of social ...
and has long been a global centre of
art
Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas.
There is no generally agreed definition of wha ...
,
music
Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspect ...
,
literature
Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include ...
,
philosophy
Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...
,
science and technology
Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is an umbrella term used to group together the distinct but related technical disciplines of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The term is typically used in the context of ...
,
tourism
Tourism is travel for pleasure or business; also the theory and practice of touring (disambiguation), touring, the business of attracting, accommodating, and entertaining tourists, and the business of operating tour (disambiguation), tours. Th ...
and
fashion
Fashion is a form of self-expression and autonomy at a particular period and place and in a specific context, of clothing, footwear, lifestyle, accessories, makeup, hairstyle, and body posture. The term implies a look defined by the fashion in ...
, as well as having greatly influenced and contributed to diverse fields including
cinema
Cinema may refer to:
Film
* Cinematography, the art of motion-picture photography
* Film or movie, a series of still images that create the illusion of a moving image
** Film industry, the technological and commercial institutions of filmmaking
* ...
,
cuisine
A cuisine is a style of cooking characterized by distinctive ingredients, techniques and dishes, and usually associated with a specific culture or geographic region. Regional food preparation techniques, customs, and ingredients combine to ...
,
sports
Sport pertains to any form of competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to spectators. Sports can, th ...
, jurisprudence, banking, and business. It has the world's
largest number of
World Heritage Sites
A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the UNESCO, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage Sites are designated by UNES ...
(58), and is the world's
fifth-most visited country.
Name
![RomanItaly](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b8/RomanItaly.png)
Hypotheses for the etymology of the name "Italia" are numerous.
[Alberto Manco, ''Italia. Disegno storico-linguistico'', 2009, ]Napoli
Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...
, L'Orientale, One is that it was borrowed via
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...
from the
Oscan
Oscan is an extinct Indo-European language of southern Italy. The language is in the Osco-Umbrian or Sabellic branch of the Italic languages. Oscan is therefore a close relative of Umbrian.
Oscan was spoken by a number of tribes, including th ...
''Víteliú'' 'land of calves' (''cf.''
Lat
Lat or LAT may refer to:
Places
* Lat, Fuman, village in Gilan Province, Iran
* Lat, Rasht, village in Gilan Province, Iran
* Lat, Mazandaran, village in Iran
* Lat-e Disar, village in Mazandaran Province, Iran
* Lat, Qazvin, village in I ...
''vitulus'' "calf",
Umb ''vitlo'' "calf"). Ancient Greek historian
Dionysius of Halicarnassus
Dionysius of Halicarnassus ( grc, Διονύσιος Ἀλεξάνδρου Ἁλικαρνασσεύς,
; – after 7 BC) was a Greek historian and teacher of rhetoric, who flourished during the reign of Emperor Augustus. His literary sty ...
states this account together with the legend that Italy was named after
Italus
Italus or Italos (from ) was a legendary king of the Oenotrians, an ancient people of Italic origin who inhabited the region now called Calabria, in southern Italy. In his ''Fabularum Liber'' (or ''Fabulae''), Gaius Julius Hyginus recorded the myt ...
, mentioned also by
Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of phil ...
and
Thucydides
Thucydides (; grc, , }; BC) was an Athenian historian and general. His ''History of the Peloponnesian War'' recounts the fifth-century BC war between Sparta and Athens until the year 411 BC. Thucydides has been dubbed the father of "scientifi ...
.
According to
Antiochus of Syracuse Antiochus of Syracuse ( grc-gre, Ἀντίοχος ὁ Συρακούσιος) was a Greek historian, who flourished around 420 BC. Little is known of Antiochus' life, but his works, of which only fragments remain, enjoyed a high reputation because ...
, the term Italy was used by the
ancient Greeks
Ancient Greece ( el, Ἑλλάς, Hellás) was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity ( AD 600), that comprised a loose collection of cultu ...
to initially refer only to the southern portion of the
Bruttium 01 or '01 may refer to:
* The year 2001, or any year ending with 01
* The month of January
* 1 (number)
Music
* 01'' (Richard Müller album), 2001
* ''01'' (Son of Dave album), 2000
* ''01'' (Urban Zakapa album), 2011
* ''O1'' (Hiroyuki Sawano ...
peninsula corresponding to the modern province of
Reggio and part of the provinces of
Catanzaro
Catanzaro (, or ; scn, label= Catanzarese, Catanzaru ; , or , ''Katastaríoi Lokrói''; ; la, Catacium), also known as the "City of the two Seas", is an Italian city of 86,183 inhabitants (2020), the capital of the Calabria region and of its p ...
and
Vibo Valentia
Vibo Valentia (; Monteleone before 1861; Monteleone di Calabria from 1861 to 1928; scn, label= Calabrian, Vibbu Valenzia or ) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) in the Calabria region of southern Italy, near the Tyrrhenian Sea. It is the ca ...
in
southern Italy
Southern Italy ( it, Sud Italia or ) also known as ''Meridione'' or ''Mezzogiorno'' (), is a macroregion of the Italian Republic consisting of its southern half.
The term ''Mezzogiorno'' today refers to regions that are associated with the peop ...
. Nevertheless, by his time the larger concept of
Oenotria
The Oenotrians (Οἴνωτρες, meaning "tribe led by Oenotrus" or "people from the land of vines - Οἰνωτρία") were an ancient Italic people who inhabited a territory in Southern Italy from Paestum to southern Calabria. By the sixth ...
and "Italy" had become synonymous, and the name also applied to most of
Lucania
Lucania was a historical region of Southern Italy. It was the land of the Lucani, an Oscan people. It extended from the Tyrrhenian Sea to the Gulf of Taranto.
It bordered with Samnium and Campania in the north, Apulia in the east, and Brutti ...
as well. According to
Strabo
Strabo''Strabo'' (meaning "squinty", as in strabismus) was a term employed by the Romans for anyone whose eyes were distorted or deformed. The father of Pompey was called "Pompeius Strabo". A native of Sicily so clear-sighted that he could see ...
's ''
Geographica
The ''Geographica'' (Ancient Greek: Γεωγραφικά ''Geōgraphiká''), or ''Geography'', is an encyclopedia of geographical knowledge, consisting of 17 'books', written in Ancient Greek, Greek and attributed to Strabo, an educated citizen ...
'', before the expansion of the
Roman Republic
The Roman Republic ( la, Res publica Romana ) was a form of government of Rome and the era of the classical Roman civilization when it was run through public representation of the Roman people. Beginning with the overthrow of the Roman Kin ...
, the name was used by ancient Greeks to indicate the land between the
strait of Messina
The Strait of Messina ( it, Stretto di Messina, Sicilian: Strittu di Missina) is a narrow strait between the eastern tip of Sicily (Punta del Faro) and the western tip of Calabria ( Punta Pezzo) in Southern Italy. It connects the Tyrrhenian Se ...
and the line connecting the
gulf of Salerno
The Gulf of Salerno (Italian: ''Golfo di Salerno'') is a gulf of the Tyrrhenian Sea in the coast of the province of Salerno in south-western Italy.
The northern part of this coast is the Costiera Amalfitana, which ends at Punta di Campanella an ...
and
gulf of Taranto
The Gulf of Taranto ( it, Golfo di Taranto; Tarantino: ; la, Sinus Tarentinus) is a gulf of the Ionian Sea, in Southern Italy.
The Gulf of Taranto is almost square, long and wide, making it the largest gulf in Italy, and it is delimited by the ...
, corresponding roughly to the current region of
Calabria
, population_note =
, population_blank1_title =
, population_blank1 =
, demographics_type1 =
, demographics1_footnotes =
, demographics1_title1 =
, demographics1_info1 =
, demographics1_title2 ...
. The ancient Greeks gradually came to apply the name "Italia" to a larger region In addition to the "
Greek Italy
Magna Graecia (, ; , , grc, Μεγάλη Ἑλλάς, ', it, Magna Grecia) was the name given by the Romans to the coastal areas of Southern Italy in the present-day Italian regions of Calabria, Apulia, Basilicata, Campania and Sicily; the ...
" in the south, historians have suggested the existence of an "Etruscan Italy" covering variable areas of central Italy.
The borders of
Roman Italy
Roman Italy (called in both the Latin and Italian languages referring to the Italian Peninsula) was the homeland of the ancient Romans and of the Roman empire. According to Roman mythology, Italy was the ancestral home promised by Jupiter to A ...
, ''Italia'', are better established. Cato's ''
Origines
(, "Origins") is the title of a lost work on Roman and Italian history by Cato the Elder, composed in the early-2nd centuryBC.
Contents
According to Cato's biographer Cornelius Nepos, the ''Origins'' consisted of seven books. Book I was the hi ...
'', the first work of
history
History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...
composed in
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
, described Italy as the entire peninsula south of the
Alps
The Alps () ; german: Alpen ; it, Alpi ; rm, Alps ; sl, Alpe . are the highest and most extensive mountain range system that lies entirely in Europe, stretching approximately across seven Alpine countries (from west to east): France, Sw ...
. According to Cato and several Roman authors, the Alps formed the "walls of Italy". In 264 BC, Roman Italy extended from the
Arno
The Arno is a river in the Tuscany region of Italy. It is the most important river of central Italy after the Tiber.
Source and route
The river originates on Monte Falterona in the Casentino area of the Apennines, and initially takes a s ...
and
Rubicon
The Rubicon ( la, Rubico; it, Rubicone ; rgn, Rubicôn ) is a shallow river in northeastern Italy, just north of Rimini.
It was known as Fiumicino until 1933, when it was identified with the ancient river Rubicon, famously crossed by Julius Ca ...
rivers of the centre-north to the entire south. The northern area of
Cisalpine Gaul
Cisalpine Gaul ( la, Gallia Cisalpina, also called ''Gallia Citerior'' or ''Gallia Togata'') was the part of Italy inhabited by Celts (Gauls) during the 4th and 3rd centuries BC.
After its conquest by the Roman Republic in the 200s BC it was con ...
was occupied by Rome in the 220s BC and became considered geographically and ''
de facto
''De facto'' ( ; , "in fact") describes practices that exist in reality, whether or not they are officially recognized by laws or other formal norms. It is commonly used to refer to what happens in practice, in contrast with ''de jure'' ("by la ...
'' part of Italy, but remained politically and ''
de jure
In law and government, ''de jure'' ( ; , "by law") describes practices that are legally recognized, regardless of whether the practice exists in reality. In contrast, ("in fact") describes situations that exist in reality, even if not legally ...
'' separated. It was legally merged into the administrative unit of Italy in 42 BC by the triumvir
Octavian
Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian, was the first Roman emperor; he reigned from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. He is known for being the founder of the Roman Pri ...
as a ratification of
Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar (; ; 12 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC), was a Roman people, Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in Caes ...
's unpublished acts (''Acta Caesaris'').
The islands of
Sardinia
Sardinia ( ; it, Sardegna, label=Italian, Corsican and Tabarchino ; sc, Sardigna , sdc, Sardhigna; french: Sardaigne; sdn, Saldigna; ca, Sardenya, label=Algherese and Catalan) is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after ...
,
Corsica
Corsica ( , Upper , Southern ; it, Corsica; ; french: Corse ; lij, Còrsega; sc, Còssiga) is an island in the Mediterranean Sea and one of the 18 regions of France. It is the fourth-largest island in the Mediterranean and lies southeast of ...
,
Sicily
(man) it, Siciliana (woman)
, population_note =
, population_blank1_title =
, population_blank1 =
, demographics_type1 = Ethnicity
, demographics1_footnotes =
, demographi ...
and
Malta
Malta ( , , ), officially the Republic of Malta ( mt, Repubblika ta' Malta ), is an island country in the Mediterranean Sea. It consists of an archipelago, between Italy and Libya, and is often considered a part of Southern Europe. It lies ...
were added to Italy by
Diocletian
Diocletian (; la, Gaius Aurelius Valerius Diocletianus, grc, Διοκλητιανός, Diokletianós; c. 242/245 – 311/312), nicknamed ''Iovius'', was Roman emperor from 284 until his abdication in 305. He was born Gaius Valerius Diocles ...
in 292 AD, coinciding with the whole
Italian geographical region
The Italian geographical region, Italian physical region or Italian region is a geographical subregion of Southern Europe delimited to the north and west by the mountain chains of the Alps. This subregion is composed of a continental part in the ...
. All its inhabitants were considered ''Italic'' and ''Roman''.
Strabo
Strabo''Strabo'' (meaning "squinty", as in strabismus) was a term employed by the Romans for anyone whose eyes were distorted or deformed. The father of Pompey was called "Pompeius Strabo". A native of Sicily so clear-sighted that he could see ...
, ''Geographica
The ''Geographica'' (Ancient Greek: Γεωγραφικά ''Geōgraphiká''), or ''Geography'', is an encyclopedia of geographical knowledge, consisting of 17 'books', written in Ancient Greek, Greek and attributed to Strabo, an educated citizen ...
'', V, 1,1.
The Latin term ''Italicus'' was used to describe "a man of Italy" as opposed to a
provincial
Provincial may refer to:
Government & Administration
* Provincial capitals, an administrative sub-national capital of a country
* Provincial city (disambiguation)
* Provincial minister (disambiguation)
* Provincial Secretary, a position in Can ...
. For example,
Pliny the Elder
Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/2479), called Pliny the Elder (), was a Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic '' ...
notably wrote in a letter ''Italicus es an provincialis''? meaning "are you an Italian or a provincial?".
The adjective ''italianus'', from which are derived the Italian (and also French and English) name of the
Italians
, flag =
, flag_caption = The national flag of Italy
, population =
, regions = Italy 55,551,000
, region1 = Brazil
, pop1 = 25–33 million
, ref1 =
, region2 ...
, is
medieval
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the Post-classical, post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with t ...
and was used alternatively with Italicus during the
early modern period.
After the
fall of the Western Roman Empire
The fall of the Western Roman Empire (also called the fall of the Roman Empire or the fall of Ancient Rome, Rome) was the loss of central political control in the Western Roman Empire, a process in which the Empire failed to enforce its rul ...
, which was caused by the invasion of the
Ostrogoths
The Ostrogoths ( la, Ostrogothi, Austrogothi) were a Roman-era Germanic peoples, Germanic people. In the 5th century, they followed the Visigoths in creating one of the two great Goths, Gothic kingdoms within the Roman Empire, based upon the larg ...
, the
Kingdom of Italy
The Kingdom of Italy ( it, Regno d'Italia) was a state that existed from 1861, when Victor Emmanuel II of Kingdom of Sardinia, Sardinia was proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy, proclaimed King of Italy, until 1946, when civil discontent led to ...
was created. After the
Lombard invasions, "Italia" was retained as the name for
their kingdom, and for its
successor kingdom within the
Holy Roman Empire
The Holy Roman Empire was a Polity, political entity in Western Europe, Western, Central Europe, Central, and Southern Europe that developed during the Early Middle Ages and continued until its Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire, dissolution i ...
, which nominally lasted until 1806, although it had ''
de facto
''De facto'' ( ; , "in fact") describes practices that exist in reality, whether or not they are officially recognized by laws or other formal norms. It is commonly used to refer to what happens in practice, in contrast with ''de jure'' ("by la ...
'' disintegrated due to
factional politics pitting the empire against the ascendant
city republics in the 13th century.
History
Prehistory and antiquity
Thousands of
Lower Paleolithic
The Lower Paleolithic (or Lower Palaeolithic) is the earliest subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age. It spans the time from around 3 million years ago when the first evidence for stone tool production and use by hominins appears in ...
artefacts have been recovered from
Monte Poggiolo
Monte Poggiolo is a hill near Forlì, Italy in the Emilia-Romagna area. The hill overlooks the Montone River valley from an elevation
of 212 m.
At Monte Poggiolo is a Florentine castle.
The fort was designed by Giuliano da Maiano and built in 147 ...
, dating as far back as 850,000 years.
Excavations throughout Italy revealed a
Neanderthal
Neanderthals (, also ''Homo neanderthalensis'' and erroneously ''Homo sapiens neanderthalensis''), also written as Neandertals, are an extinct species or subspecies of archaic humans who lived in Eurasia until about 40,000 years ago. While th ...
presence dating back to the Middle Palaeolithic period some 200,000 years ago, while
modern humans
Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, culture, an ...
appeared about 40,000 years ago at
Riparo Mochi
The Balzi Rossi caves (Ligurian: ''baussi rossi'' "red rocks") in Ventimiglia ''comune'', Liguria, Italy, is one of the most important archaeological sites of the early Upper Paleolithic
The Upper Paleolithic (or Upper Palaeolithic) is the ...
. Archaeological sites from this period include
Addaura cave,
Altamura
Altamura (, ; nap, label= Barese, Ialtamùre) is a town and ''comune'' of Apulia, in southern Italy. It is located on one of the hills of the Murge plateau in the Metropolitan City of Bari, southwest of Bari, close to the border with Basilic ...
,
Ceprano Ceprano ( Central-Northern Latian dialect: ) is a town and ''comune'' in the province of Frosinone, in the Latin Valley, part of the Lazio region of central Italy.
It is south of Rome and about north of Naples.
History
Ceprano was part of the P ...
, and
Gravina in Puglia
Gravina in Puglia (; nap, label= Barese, Gravéine ; la, Silvium; grc, Σιλούϊον, Siloúïon) is a town and ''comune'' of the Metropolitan City of Bari, Apulia, southern Italy.
The word ''gravina'' comes from the Latin ''grava'' or from ...
.
The
Ancient peoples
Ancient history is a time period from the beginning of writing and recorded human history to as far as late antiquity. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, beginning with the Sumerian cuneiform script. Ancient history cove ...
of pre-Roman Italy – such as the
Umbri
The Umbri were an Italic people of ancient Italy. A region called Umbria still exists and is now occupied by Italian speakers. It is somewhat smaller than the ancient Umbria.
Most ancient Umbrian cities were settled in the 9th-4th centuries BC on ...
ans, the
Latins
The Latins were originally an Italic tribe in ancient central Italy from Latium. As Roman power and colonization spread Latin culture during the Roman Republic.
Latins culturally "Romanized" or "Latinized" the rest of Italy, and the word Latin ...
(from which the
Romans
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...
emerged),
Volsci
The Volsci (, , ) were an Italic tribe, well known in the history of the first century of the Roman Republic. At the time they inhabited the partly hilly, partly marshy district of the south of Latium, bounded by the Aurunci and Samnites on the ...
,
Oscans
The Osci (also called Oscans, Opici, Opsci, Obsci, Opicans) were an Italic people of Campania and Latium adiectum before and during Roman times. They spoke the Oscan language, also spoken by the Samnites of Southern Italy. Although the language ...
,
Samnites
The Samnites () were an ancient Italic people who lived in Samnium, which is located in modern inland Abruzzo, Molise, and Campania in south-central Italy.
An Oscan-speaking people, who may have originated as an offshoot of the Sabines, they for ...
,
Sabines
The Sabines (; lat, Sabini; it, Sabini, all exonyms) were an Italic people who lived in the central Apennine Mountains of the ancient Italian Peninsula, also inhabiting Latium north of the Anio before the founding of Rome.
The Sabines divid ...
, the
Celts
The Celts (, see pronunciation for different usages) or Celtic peoples () are. "CELTS location: Greater Europe time period: Second millennium B.C.E. to present ancestry: Celtic a collection of Indo-European peoples. "The Celts, an ancien ...
, the
Ligures
The Ligures (singular Ligur; Italian: liguri; English: Ligurians) were an ancient people after whom Liguria, a region of present-day north-western Italy, is named.
Ancient Liguria corresponded more or less to the current Italian regio ...
, the
Veneti, the
Iapygians
The Iapygians or Apulians (; el, Ἰάπυγες, ''Ĭāpyges''; la, Iāpyges, Iapygii, Umbrian ''Iabuscer'') were an Indo-European-speaking people, dwelling in an eponymous region of the southeastern Italian Peninsula named Iapygia (modern Apu ...
, and many others – were
Indo-European
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutch ...
peoples, most of them specifically of the
Italic group. The main historic peoples of possible non-Indo-European or
pre-Indo-European heritage include the
Etruscans
The Etruscan civilization () was developed by a people of Etruria in ancient Italy with a common language and culture who formed a federation of city-states. After conquering adjacent lands, its territory covered, at its greatest extent, rou ...
of central and northern Italy, the
Elymians
The Elymians ( grc-gre, Ἔλυμοι, ''Élymoi''; Latin: ''Elymi'') were an ancient tribal people who inhabited the western part of Sicily during the Bronze Age and Classical antiquity.
Origins
According to Hellanicus of Lesbos, the Elymians ...
and the
Sicani
The Sicani (Ancient Greek Σῐκᾱνοί ''Sikānoí'') or Sicanians were one of three ancient peoples of Sicily present at the time of Phoenician and Greek colonization. The Sicani dwelt east of the Elymians and west of the Sicels, having, ac ...
in Sicily, and the
prehistoric
Prehistory, also known as pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the use of the first stone tools by hominins 3.3 million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use of ...
Sardinians
The Sardinians, or Sards ( sc, Sardos or ; Italian and Sassarese: ''Sardi''; Gallurese: ''Saldi''), are a Romance language-speaking ethnic group native to Sardinia, from which the western Mediterranean island and autonomous region of Italy deri ...
, who gave birth to the
Nuragic civilisation
The Nuragic civilization, also known as the Nuragic culture, was a civilization or culture on Sardinia (Italy), the second largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, which lasted from the 18th century BC (Middle Bronze Age) (or from t ...
. Other ancient populations being of undetermined language families and of possible non-Indo-European origin include the
Rhaetian people
The Raeti (spelling variants: ''Rhaeti'', ''Rheti'' or ''Rhaetii'') were a confederation of Alpine tribes, whose language and culture was related to those of the Etruscans. Before the Roman conquest, they inhabited present-day Tyrol in Austria, ...
and
Cammuni
The Camuni or Camunni were an ancient population located in Val Camonica during the Iron Age (1st millennium BC); the Latin name ''Camunni'' was attributed to them by the authors of the 1st century. They are also called ancient Camuni, to distingu ...
, known for their
rock carvings in Valcamonica, the largest collections of prehistoric petroglyphs in the world. A well-preserved natural mummy known as
Ötzi the Iceman
Ötzi, also called the Iceman, is the natural mummy of a man who lived some time between 3350 and 3105 BC, discovered in September 1991 in the Ötztal Alps (hence the nickname "Ötzi") on the border between Austria and Italy.
Ötzi is believed to ...
, determined to be 5,000 years old (between 3400 and 3100 BCE, Copper Age), was discovered in the Similaun glacier of
South Tyrol
it, Provincia Autonoma di Bolzano – Alto Adige lld, Provinzia Autonoma de Balsan/Bulsan – Südtirol
, settlement_type = Autonomous province
, image_skyline =
, image_alt ...
in 1991.
The first foreign colonisers were the
Phoenicia
Phoenicia () was an ancient thalassocratic civilization originating in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily located in modern Lebanon. The territory of the Phoenician city-states extended and shrank throughout their histor ...
ns, who initially established colonies and founded various emporiums on the coasts of Sicily and Sardinia. Some of these soon became small urban centres and were developed parallel to the ancient Greek colonies; among the main centres there were the cities of
Motya
Motya was an ancient and powerful city on San Pantaleo Island off the west coast of Sicily, in the Stagnone Lagoon between Drepanum (modern Trapani) and Lilybaeum (modern Marsala). It is within the present-day commune of Marsala, Italy.
Man ...
, Zyz (modern
Palermo
Palermo ( , ; scn, Palermu , locally also or ) is a city in southern Italy, the capital (political), capital of both the autonomous area, autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the city's surrounding metropolitan ...
),
Soluntum
Soluntum or Solus was an ancient city on the Tyrrhenian coast of Sicily near present-day in the comune of Santa Flavia, Italy. In antiquity, it was originally one of the three chief Phoenician settlements in the island and later flourished in ...
in Sicily, and
Nora
Nora, NORA, or Norah may refer to:
* Nora (name), a feminine given name
People with the surname
* Arlind Nora (born 1980), Albanian footballer
* Pierre Nora (born 1931), French historian
Places Australia
* Norah Head, New South Wales, headland ...
,
Sulci
Sulci or Sulki (in Greek , Steph. B., Ptol.; , Strabo; , Paus.), was one of the most considerable cities of ancient Sardinia, situated in the southwest corner of the island, on a small island, now called Isola di Sant'Antioco, which is, howev ...
, and
Tharros
Tharros (also spelled Tharras, Archaic Greek: , Hellenistic Greek, Tarras or Tarrae, Τάρραι) was an ancient city and former bishopric on the west coast of Sardinia, Italy.
It is currently a Latin Catholic titular see and an archaeological ...
in Sardinia.
Between the 17th and the 11th centuries BC
Mycenaean Greeks
Mycenaean Greece (or the Mycenaean civilization) was the last phase of the Bronze Age in Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece ( el, Ἑλλάς, Hellás) was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the ...
established contacts with Italy and in the 8th and 7th centuries BC a number of
Greek colonies
Greek colonization was an organised colonial expansion by the Archaic Greeks into the Mediterranean Sea and Black Sea in the period of the 8th–6th centuries BC.
This colonization differed from the migrations of the Greek Dark Ages in that it ...
were established all along the coast of Sicily and the southern part of the Italian Peninsula, that became known as
Magna Graecia
Magna Graecia (, ; , , grc, Μεγάλη Ἑλλάς, ', it, Magna Grecia) was the name given by the Romans to the coastal areas of Southern Italy in the present-day Italian regions of Calabria, Apulia, Basilicata, Campania and Sicily; these re ...
.
Ionian settlers founded
Elaia,
Kyme,
Rhegion
Reggio di Calabria ( scn, label=Central-Southern Calabrian, Southern Calabrian, Riggiu; el, label=Calabrian Greek, Ρήγι, Rìji), usually referred to as Reggio Calabria, or simply Reggio by its inhabitants, is the List of cities in Italy, ...
,
Naxos
Naxos (; el, Νάξος, ) is a Greek island and the largest of the Cyclades. It was the centre of archaic Cycladic culture. The island is famous as a source of emery, a rock rich in corundum, which until modern times was one of the best abr ...
,
Zankles,
Hymera, and
Katane
Catania (, , Sicilian and ) is the second largest municipality in Sicily, after Palermo. Despite its reputation as the second city of the island, Catania is the largest Sicilian conurbation, among the largest in Italy, as evidenced also by ...
.
Doric Doric may refer to:
* Doric, of or relating to the Dorians of ancient Greece
** Doric Greek, the dialects of the Dorians
* Doric order, a style of ancient Greek architecture
* Doric mode, a synonym of Dorian mode
* Doric dialect (Scotland)
* Doric ...
colonists founded
Taras
Taras may refer to:
Geography
* Taras (ancient city) of Magna Graecia, modern-day Taranto
* Taras, Iran, a village in Tehran province
* Taras, Łódź Voivodeship, Poland
* Taraš, a village in Vojvodina, Serbia
* Taras, Kazakhstan, a village in ...
,
Syrakousai
Syracuse ( ; it, Siracusa ; scn, Sarausa ), ; grc-att, Συράκουσαι, Syrákousai, ; grc-dor, Συράκοσαι, Syrā́kosai, ; grc-x-medieval, Συρακοῦσαι, Syrakoûsai, ; el, label=Modern Greek, Συρακούσε ...
,
Megara Hyblaia,
Leontinoi
Lentini ( scn, Lintini, historically Liuntini; la, Leontīnī; grc, Λεοντῖνοι) is a town and in the Province of Syracuse, South East of Sicily (Southern Italy).
History
The city was founded by colonists from Naxos as Leontini in 72 ...
,
Akragas
Agrigento (; scn, Girgenti or ; grc, Ἀκράγας, translit=Akrágas; la, Agrigentum or ; ar, كركنت, Kirkant, or ''Jirjant'') is a city on the southern coast of Sicily, Italy and capital of the province of Agrigento. It was one of ...
,
Ghelas; the
Syracusan
Syracuse ( ; it, Siracusa ; scn, Sarausa ), ; grc-att, Συράκουσαι, Syrákousai, ; grc-dor, Συράκοσαι, Syrā́kosai, ; grc-x-medieval, Συρακοῦσαι, Syrakoûsai, ; el, label=Modern Greek, Συρακούσε ...
s founded
Ankón and
Adria
Adria is a town and ''comune'' in the province of Rovigo in the Veneto region of northern Italy, situated between the mouths of the rivers Adige and Po River, Po. The remains of the Etruria, Etruscan city of Atria or Hatria are to be found below ...
; the megarese founded
Selinunte
Selinunte (; grc, Σελῑνοῦς, Selīnoûs ; la, Selīnūs , ; scn, Silinunti ) was a rich and extensive ancient Greek city on the south-western coast of Sicily in Italy. It was situated between the valleys of the Cottone and Modion ...
. The
Achaeans founded
Sybaris
Sybaris ( grc, Σύβαρις; it, Sibari) was an important city of Magna Graecia. It was situated in modern Calabria, in southern Italy, between two rivers, the Crathis (Crati) and the Sybaris (Coscile).
The city was founded in 720 BC ...
,
Poseidonia
Poseidonia ( el, Ποσειδωνία, Posidonía, named after Poseidon) is a village and a former municipality on the island of Syros, in the Cyclades, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Syros-Ermoupoli ...
,
Kroton,
Lokroi Epizephyrioi, and
Metapontum
Metapontum or Metapontium ( grc, Μεταπόντιον, Metapontion) was an important city of Magna Graecia, situated on the gulf of Tarentum, between the river Bradanus and the Casuentus (modern Basento). It was distant about 20 km from ...
;
tarantini and
thuriots found
Herakleia. The
Greek colonization
Greek colonization was an organised colonial expansion by the Archaic Greeks into the Mediterranean Sea and Black Sea in the period of the 8th–6th centuries BC.
This colonization differed from the migrations of the Greek Dark Ages in that it ...
places the
Italic peoples
The Italic peoples were an ethnolinguistic group identified by their use of Italic languages, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
The Italic peoples are descended from the Indo-European speaking peoples who inhabited Italy from at leas ...
in contact with democratic forms of government and with high artistic and cultural expressions.
Ancient Rome
Rome
, established_title = Founded
, established_date = 753 BC
, founder = King Romulus (legendary)
, image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg
, map_caption ...
, a settlement around a ford on the river
Tiber
The Tiber ( ; it, Tevere ; la, Tiberis) is the third-longest river in Italy and the longest in Central Italy, rising in the Apennine Mountains in Emilia-Romagna and flowing through Tuscany, Umbria, and Lazio, where it is joined by the Riv ...
in central Italy conventionally
founded in 753 BC, was ruled for a period of 244 years by a
monarchical
A monarchy is a form of government in which a person, the monarch, is head of state for life or until abdication. The political legitimacy and authority of the monarch may vary from restricted and largely symbolic (constitutional monarchy), ...
system, initially with sovereigns of
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
and
Sabine
The Sabines (; lat, Sabini; it, Sabini, all exonyms) were an Italic people who lived in the central Apennine Mountains of the ancient Italian Peninsula, also inhabiting Latium north of the Anio before the founding of Rome.
The Sabines divide ...
origin, later by Etruscan kings. The tradition handed down seven kings:
Romulus
Romulus () was the legendary foundation of Rome, founder and King of Rome, first king of Ancient Rome, Rome. Various traditions attribute the establishment of many of Rome's oldest legal, political, religious, and social institutions to Romulus ...
,
Numa Pompilius
Numa Pompilius (; 753–672 BC; reigned 715–672 BC) was the legendary second king of Rome, succeeding Romulus after a one-year interregnum. He was of Sabine origin, and many of Rome's most important religious and political institutions are a ...
,
Tullus Hostilius
Tullus Hostilius (r. 672–640 BC) was the legendary third king of Rome. He succeeded Numa Pompilius and was succeeded by Ancus Marcius. Unlike his predecessor, Tullus was known as a warlike king who according to the Roman Historian Livy, believ ...
,
Ancus Marcius
Ancus Marcius was the legendary fourth king of Rome, who traditionally reigned 24 years. Upon the death of the previous king, Tullus Hostilius, the Roman Senate appointed an interrex, who in turn called a session of the assembly of the people who ...
,
Tarquinius Priscus
Lucius Tarquinius Priscus, or Tarquin the Elder, was the legendary fifth king of Rome and first of its Etruscan dynasty. He reigned for thirty-eight years.Livy, ''ab urbe condita libri'', I Tarquinius expanded Roman power through military conqu ...
,
Servius Tullius
Servius Tullius was the legendary sixth king of Rome, and the second of its Etruscan dynasty. He reigned from 578 to 535 BC. Roman and Greek sources describe his servile origins and later marriage to a daughter of Lucius Tarquinius Priscus, Rome ...
and
Tarquinius Superbus
Lucius Tarquinius Superbus (died 495 BC) was the legendary seventh and final king of Rome, reigning 25 years until the popular uprising that led to the establishment of the Roman Republic.Livy, ''ab urbe condita libri'', I He is commonly known a ...
. In 509 BC, the Romans
expelled the last king from their city, favouring a government of the
Senate and the People
SPQR, an abbreviation for (; en, "The Roman Senate and People"; or more freely "The Senate and People of Rome"), is an emblematic abbreviated phrase referring to the government of the ancient Roman Republic. It appears on Roman currency, at ...
(SPQR) and establishing an
oligarchic republic.
The Italian Peninsula, named Italia, was consolidated into a single entity during the Roman
expansion
Expansion may refer to:
Arts, entertainment and media
* ''L'Expansion'', a French monthly business magazine
* ''Expansion'' (album), by American jazz pianist Dave Burrell, released in 2004
* ''Expansions'' (McCoy Tyner album), 1970
* ''Expansio ...
and conquest of new lands at the expense of the
other Italic tribes,
Etruscans
The Etruscan civilization () was developed by a people of Etruria in ancient Italy with a common language and culture who formed a federation of city-states. After conquering adjacent lands, its territory covered, at its greatest extent, rou ...
,
Celts
The Celts (, see pronunciation for different usages) or Celtic peoples () are. "CELTS location: Greater Europe time period: Second millennium B.C.E. to present ancestry: Celtic a collection of Indo-European peoples. "The Celts, an ancien ...
, and
Greeks
The Greeks or Hellenes (; el, Έλληνες, ''Éllines'' ) are an ethnic group and nation indigenous to the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea regions, namely Greece, Cyprus, Albania, Italy, Turkey, Egypt, and, to a lesser extent, oth ...
. A
permanent association with most of the local tribes and cities was formed, and Rome began the conquest of Western Europe, Northern Africa and the
Middle East
The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabian Peninsula, Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Anatolia, Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Pro ...
. In the wake of
Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar (; ; 12 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC), was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war, and ...
's rise and
death
Death is the irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain an organism. For organisms with a brain, death can also be defined as the irreversible cessation of functioning of the whole brain, including brainstem, and brain ...
in the first century BC, Rome grew over the course of centuries into a massive
empire
An empire is a "political unit" made up of several territories and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a dominant center and subordinate peripheries". The center of the empire (sometimes referred to as the metropole) ex ...
stretching from
Britain
Britain most often refers to:
* The United Kingdom, a sovereign state in Europe comprising the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands
* Great Britain, the largest island in the United King ...
to the borders of
Persia
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
, and engulfing the whole
Mediterranean
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the e ...
basin, in which Greek and Roman and many other cultures merged into a unique
civilisation
A civilization (or civilisation) is any complex society characterized by the development of State (polity), a state, social stratification, urban area, urbanization, and Symbol, symbolic systems of communication beyond natural language, natur ...
. The long and triumphant reign of the first emperor,
Augustus
Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian, was the first Roman emperor; he reigned from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. He is known for being the founder of the Roman Pri ...
, began a golden age of peace and prosperity.
Roman Italy
Roman Italy (called in both the Latin and Italian languages referring to the Italian Peninsula) was the homeland of the ancient Romans and of the Roman empire. According to Roman mythology, Italy was the ancestral home promised by Jupiter to A ...
remained the metropole of the empire, and as the homeland of the Romans and the territory of the capital, maintained a special status which made it ("ruler of the
provinces
A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions outsi ...
", the latter being all the remaining territories outside Italy).
More than
two centuries of stability followed, during which Italy was referred to as the ("governor of the world") and ("parent of all lands").
The Roman Empire was among the most powerful economic, cultural, political and military forces in the world of its time, and it was one of the
largest empires in world history. At its height under
Trajan
Trajan ( ; la, Caesar Nerva Traianus; 18 September 539/11 August 117) was Roman emperor from 98 to 117. Officially declared ''optimus princeps'' ("best ruler") by the senate, Trajan is remembered as a successful soldier-emperor who presi ...
, it covered 5 million square kilometres.
The Roman
legacy
In law, a legacy is something held and transferred to someone as their inheritance, as by will and testament. Personal effects, family property, marriage property or collective property gained by will of real property.
Legacy or legacies may refer ...
has deeply influenced Western civilisation, shaping most of the modern world; among the many legacies of Roman dominance are the widespread use of the
Romance languages
The Romance languages, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages, are the various modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages in the Indo-European language fam ...
derived from Latin, the
numerical system, the modern Western
alphabet
An alphabet is a standardized set of basic written graphemes (called letters) that represent the phonemes of certain spoken languages. Not all writing systems represent language in this way; in a syllabary, each character represents a syll ...
and
calendar
A calendar is a system of organizing days. This is done by giving names to periods of time, typically days, weeks, months and years. A date is the designation of a single and specific day within such a system. A calendar is also a physi ...
, and the emergence of Christianity as a major world religion. The
Indo-Roman trade relations
Indo-Roman trade relations (see also the spice trade and incense road) was trade between the Indian subcontinent and the Roman Empire in Europe and the Mediterranean Sea. Trade through the overland caravan routes via Asia Minor and the Middl ...
, beginning around the 1st century BCE, testify to extensive Roman trade in far away regions; many reminders of the commercial trade between the
Indian subcontinent
The Indian subcontinent is a list of the physiographic regions of the world, physiographical region in United Nations geoscheme for Asia#Southern Asia, Southern Asia. It is situated on the Indian Plate, projecting southwards into the Indian O ...
and Italy have been found, such as the ivory statuette
Pompeii Lakshmi
The Pompeii Lakshmi is an ivory statuette that was discovered in the ruins of Pompeii, a Roman city destroyed in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius 79 CE. It was found by Amedeo Maiuri, an Italian scholar, in 1938. The statuette has been dated to th ...
from the ruins of
Pompeii
Pompeii (, ) was an ancient city located in what is now the ''comune'' of Pompei near Naples in the Campania region of Italy. Pompeii, along with Herculaneum and many villas in the surrounding area (e.g. at Boscoreale, Stabiae), was buried ...
.
In a slow
decline
Decline may refer to:
*Decadence, involves a perceived decay in standards, morals, dignity, religious faith, or skill over time
* "Decline" (song), 2017 song by Raye and Mr Eazi
* ''The Decline'' (EP), an EP by NOFX
*The Decline (band), Australian ...
since the third century AD, the Empire split in two in 395 AD. The
Western Empire
The Western Roman Empire comprised the western provinces of the Roman Empire at any time during which they were administered by a separate independent Imperial court; in particular, this term is used in historiography to describe the period fr ...
, under the pressure of the
barbarian invasions
The Migration Period was a period in European history marked by large-scale migrations that saw the fall of the Western Roman Empire and subsequent settlement of its former territories by various tribes, and the establishment of the post-Roman ...
, eventually dissolved in 476 AD when its last emperor,
Romulus Augustulus
Romulus Augustus ( 465 – after 511), nicknamed Augustulus, was Roman emperor of the West from 31 October 475 until 4 September 476. Romulus was placed on the imperial throne by his father, the ''magister militum'' Orestes, and, at that time, ...
, was deposed by the Germanic chief
Odoacer
Odoacer ( ; – 15 March 493 AD), also spelled Odovacer or Odovacar, was a soldier and statesman of barbarian background, who deposed the child emperor Romulus Augustulus and became Rex/Dux (476–493). Odoacer's overthrow of Romulus Augustul ...
. The
Eastern
Eastern may refer to:
Transportation
*China Eastern Airlines, a current Chinese airline based in Shanghai
*Eastern Air, former name of Zambia Skyways
*Eastern Air Lines, a defunct American airline that operated from 1926 to 1991
*Eastern Air Li ...
half of the Empire survived for another thousand years.
Middle Ages
![Iron Crown](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a0/Iron_Crown.JPG)
After the
fall of the Western Roman Empire
The fall of the Western Roman Empire (also called the fall of the Roman Empire or the fall of Ancient Rome, Rome) was the loss of central political control in the Western Roman Empire, a process in which the Empire failed to enforce its rul ...
, Italy fell under the power of Odoacer's
kingdom
Kingdom commonly refers to:
* A monarchy ruled by a king or queen
* Kingdom (biology), a category in biological taxonomy
Kingdom may also refer to:
Arts and media Television
* ''Kingdom'' (British TV series), a 2007 British television drama s ...
, and, later, was seized by the
Ostrogoths
The Ostrogoths ( la, Ostrogothi, Austrogothi) were a Roman-era Germanic peoples, Germanic people. In the 5th century, they followed the Visigoths in creating one of the two great Goths, Gothic kingdoms within the Roman Empire, based upon the larg ...
, followed in the 6th century by a brief
reconquest under
Byzantine
The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...
Emperor
Justinian
Justinian I (; la, Iustinianus, ; grc-gre, Ἰουστινιανός ; 48214 November 565), also known as Justinian the Great, was the Byzantine emperor from 527 to 565.
His reign is marked by the ambitious but only partly realized ''renovat ...
. The invasion of another
Germanic tribe
This list of ancient Germanic peoples is an inventory of ancient Germanic cultures, tribal groupings and other alliances of Germanic tribes and civilisations in ancient times. The information comes from various ancient historical documents, beginn ...
, the
Lombards
The Lombards () or Langobards ( la, Langobardi) were a Germanic people who ruled most of the Italian Peninsula from 568 to 774.
The medieval Lombard historian Paul the Deacon wrote in the ''History of the Lombards'' (written between 787 and ...
, late in the same century, reduced the Byzantine presence to the rump realm of the
Exarchate of Ravenna
The Exarchate of Ravenna ( la, Exarchatus Ravennatis; el, Εξαρχάτο της Ραβέννας) or of Italy was a lordship of the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine Empire) in Italy, from 584 to 751, when the last exarch was put to death by the ...
and started the end of political unity of the peninsula for the next 1,300 years. The peninsula was therefore divided as follows: northern Italy and Tuscany formed the
Lombard kingdom
The Kingdom of the Lombards ( la, Regnum Langobardorum; it, Regno dei Longobardi; lmo, Regn di Lombard) also known as the Lombard Kingdom; later the Kingdom of (all) Italy ( la, Regnum totius Italiae), was an early medieval state established ...
, with its capital in
Pavia
Pavia (, , , ; la, Ticinum; Medieval Latin: ) is a town and comune of south-western Lombardy in northern Italy, south of Milan on the lower Ticino river near its confluence with the Po. It has a population of c. 73,086. The city was the capit ...
, while in central-southern Italy the Lombards controlled the duchies of
Spoleto
Spoleto (, also , , ; la, Spoletum) is an ancient city in the Italian province of Perugia in east-central Umbria on a foothill of the Apennines. It is S. of Trevi, N. of Terni, SE of Perugia; SE of Florence; and N of Rome.
History
Spolet ...
and
Benevento
Benevento (, , ; la, Beneventum) is a city and ''comune'' of Campania, Italy, capital of the province of Benevento, northeast of Naples. It is situated on a hill above sea level at the confluence of the Calore Irpino (or Beneventano) and the ...
. The remaining part of the peninsula remained under the Byzantines and was divided between the
exarchate of Italy
The Exarchate of Ravenna ( la, Exarchatus Ravennatis; el, Εξαρχάτο της Ραβέννας) or of Italy was a lordship of the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine Empire) in Italy, from 584 to 751, when the last exarch was put to death by the ...
, based in
Ravenna
Ravenna ( , , also ; rgn, Ravèna) is the capital city of the Province of Ravenna, in the Emilia-Romagna region of Northern Italy. It was the capital city of the Western Roman Empire from 408 until its collapse in 476. It then served as the cap ...
, the
Duchy of Rome
The Duchy of Rome ( la, Ducatus Romanus) was a state within the Byzantine Exarchate of Ravenna. Like other Byzantine states in Italy, it was ruled by an imperial functionary with the title ''dux''. The duchy often came into conflict with the Papa ...
, the
Duchy of Naples
The Duchy of Naples ( la, Ducatus Neapolitanus, it, Ducato di Napoli) began as a Byzantine province that was constituted in the seventh century, in the reduced coastal lands that the Lombards had not conquered during their invasion of Italy in ...
, the
Duchy of Calabria
The County of Apulia and Calabria (), later the Duchy of Apulia and Calabria (), was a Norman state founded by William of Hauteville in 1042 in the territories of Gargano, Capitanata, Apulia, Vulture, and most of Campania. It became a duchy wh ...
and Sicily, the latter directly dependent on the Emperor of Constantinople. Invasions of the peninsula caused a chaotic succession of barbarian kingdoms and the so-called "
dark ages". The Lombard kingdom was subsequently absorbed into the
Frankish Empire
Francia, also called the Kingdom of the Franks ( la, Regnum Francorum), Frankish Kingdom, Frankland or Frankish Empire ( la, Imperium Francorum), was the largest post-Roman barbarian kingdom in Western Europe. It was ruled by the Franks dur ...
by
Charlemagne
Charlemagne ( , ) or Charles the Great ( la, Carolus Magnus; german: Karl der Große; 2 April 747 – 28 January 814), a member of the Carolingian dynasty, was King of the Franks from 768, King of the Lombards from 774, and the first Holy ...
in the late 8th century and became the
Kingdom of Italy
The Kingdom of Italy ( it, Regno d'Italia) was a state that existed from 1861, when Victor Emmanuel II of Kingdom of Sardinia, Sardinia was proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy, proclaimed King of Italy, until 1946, when civil discontent led to ...
. The Franks also helped the formation of the
Papal States
The Papal States ( ; it, Stato Pontificio, ), officially the State of the Church ( it, Stato della Chiesa, ; la, Status Ecclesiasticus;), were a series of territories in the Italian Peninsula under the direct sovereign rule of the pope fro ...
in central Italy. Until the 13th century, Italian politics was dominated by the relations between the
Holy Roman Emperor
The Holy Roman Emperor, originally and officially the Emperor of the Romans ( la, Imperator Romanorum, german: Kaiser der Römer) during the Middle Ages, and also known as the Roman-German Emperor since the early modern period ( la, Imperat ...
s and the Papacy, with most of the Italian city-states siding with the former (
Ghibellines
The Guelphs and Ghibellines (, , ; it, guelfi e ghibellini ) were factions supporting the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor, respectively, in the Italian city-states of Central Italy and Northern Italy.
During the 12th and 13th centuries, rivalr ...
) or with the latter (
Guelphs
The Guelphs and Ghibellines (, , ; it, guelfi e ghibellini ) were factions supporting the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor, respectively, in the Italian city-states of Central Italy and Northern Italy.
During the 12th and 13th centuries, rivalr ...
) for momentary convenience.
![Marco Polo Mosaic from Palazzo Tursi](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b0/Marco_Polo_Mosaic_from_Palazzo_Tursi.jpg)
The Germanic Emperor and the Roman Pontiff became the
universal power
In the Middle Ages, the term universal power referred to the Holy Roman Emperor and the Pope. Both were struggling for the so-called ''dominium mundi'', or world dominion, in terms of political and spiritual supremacy.
The universal powers co ...
s of medieval Europe. However, the conflict over the
investiture controversy
The Investiture Controversy, also called Investiture Contest (German: ''Investiturstreit''; ), was a conflict between the Church and the state in medieval Europe over the ability to choose and install bishops (investiture) and abbots of monast ...
(a conflict between two radically different views of whether secular authorities such as kings, counts, or dukes, had any legitimate role in appointments to ecclesiastical offices) and the clash between Guelphs and Ghibellines led to the end of the Imperial-feudal system in the north of Italy where city-states gained independence. It was during this chaotic era that Italian towns saw the rise of a peculiar institution, the
medieval commune
Medieval communes in the European Middle Ages had sworn allegiances of mutual defense (both physical defense and of traditional freedoms) among the citizens of a town or city. These took many forms and varied widely in organization and makeup.
C ...
. Given the power vacuum caused by extreme territorial fragmentation and the struggle between the Empire and the
Holy See
The Holy See ( lat, Sancta Sedes, ; it, Santa Sede ), also called the See of Rome, Petrine See or Apostolic See, is the jurisdiction of the Pope in his role as the bishop of Rome. It includes the apostolic episcopal see of the Diocese of Rome ...
, local communities sought autonomous ways to maintain law and order. The investiture controversy was finally resolved by the
Concordat of Worms
The Concordat of Worms(; ) was an agreement between the Catholic Church and the Holy Roman Empire which regulated the procedure for the appointment of bishops and abbots in the Empire. Signed on 23 September 1122 in the German city of Worms by P ...
. In 1176 a league of city-states, the
Lombard League, defeated the German emperor
Frederick Barbarossa
Frederick Barbarossa (December 1122 – 10 June 1190), also known as Frederick I (german: link=no, Friedrich I, it, Federico I), was the Holy Roman Emperor from 1155 until his death 35 years later. He was elected King of Germany in Frankfurt on ...
at the
Battle of Legnano
The Battle of Legnano was a battle between the imperial army of Frederick Barbarossa and the troops of the Lombard League on May 29, 1176, near the town of Legnano in present-day Lombardy, in Italy. Although the presence of the enemy nearby wa ...
, thus ensuring effective independence for most of northern and central Italian cities.
Italian city-states such as Milan, Florence and Venice played a crucial innovative role in financial development, devising the main instruments and practices of banking and the emergence of new forms of social and economic organization. In coastal and southern areas, the
maritime republics
The maritime republics ( it, repubbliche marinare), also called merchant republics ( it, repubbliche mercantili), were Thalassocracy, thalassocratic city-states of the Mediterranean Basin during the Middle Ages. Being a significant presence in I ...
grew to eventually dominate the Mediterranean and monopolise trade routes to the
Orient
The Orient is a term for the East in relation to Europe, traditionally comprising anything belonging to the Eastern world. It is the antonym of ''Occident'', the Western World. In English, it is largely a metonym for, and coterminous with, the c ...
. They were independent
thalassocratic
A thalassocracy or thalattocracy sometimes also maritime empire, is a state with primarily maritime realms, an empire at sea, or a seaborne empire. Traditional thalassocracies seldom dominate interiors, even in their home territories. Examples ...
city-states, though most of them originated from territories once belonging to the Byzantine Empire. All these cities during the time of their independence had similar systems of government in which the merchant class had considerable power. Although in practice these were oligarchical, and bore little resemblance to a modern
democracy
Democracy (From grc, δημοκρατία, dēmokratía, ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which the people have the authority to deliberate and decide legislation (" direct democracy"), or to choose gov ...
, the relative political freedom they afforded was conducive to academic and artistic advancement.
The four best known maritime republics were
Venice
Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...
,
Genoa
Genoa ( ; it, Genova ; lij, Zêna ). is the capital of the Italian region of Liguria and the List of cities in Italy, sixth-largest city in Italy. In 2015, 594,733 people lived within the city's administrative limits. As of the 2011 Italian ce ...
,
Pisa
Pisa ( , or ) is a city and ''comune'' in Tuscany, central Italy, straddling the Arno just before it empties into the Ligurian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Pisa. Although Pisa is known worldwide for its leaning tower, the cit ...
and
Amalfi
Amalfi (, , ) is a town and ''comune'' in the province of Salerno, in the region of Campania, Italy, on the Gulf of Salerno. It lies at the mouth of a deep ravine, at the foot of Monte Cerreto (1,315 metres, 4,314 feet), surrounded by dramatic c ...
; the others were
Ancona
Ancona (, also , ) is a city and a seaport in the Marche region in central Italy, with a population of around 101,997 . Ancona is the capital of the province of Ancona and of the region. The city is located northeast of Rome, on the Adriatic S ...
,
Gaeta
Gaeta (; lat, Cāiēta; Southern Laziale: ''Gaieta'') is a city in the province of Latina, in Lazio, Southern Italy. Set on a promontory stretching towards the Gulf of Gaeta, it is from Rome and from Naples.
The town has played a consp ...
,
Noli
Noli (; lij, Nöi ) is a coast ''comune'' of Liguria, Italy, in the Province of Savona, it is about southwest of Genoa by rail, about above sea-level. The origin of the name may come from ''Neapolis'', meaning "new city" in Greek.
From 1192 ...
, and
Ragusa Ragusa is the historical name of Dubrovnik. It may also refer to:
Places Croatia
* the Republic of Ragusa (or Republic of Dubrovnik), the maritime city-state of Ragusa
* Cavtat (historically ' in Italian), a town in Dubrovnik-Neretva County, Cro ...
. Each of the maritime republics had dominion over different overseas lands, including many Mediterranean islands (especially Sardinia and Corsica), lands on the Adriatic, Aegean, and Black Sea (Crimea), and commercial colonies in the Near East and in North Africa. Venice maintained enormous tracts of land in Greece, Cyprus, Istria, and Dalmatia until as late as the mid-17th century.
Venice and Genoa were Europe's main gateways to trade with the East, and producers of fine glass, while Republic of Florence, Florence was a capital of silk, wool, banking, and jewellery. The wealth such business brought to Italy meant that large public and private artistic projects could be commissioned. The republics were heavily involved in the Crusades, providing support and transport, but most especially taking advantage of the political and trading opportunities resulting from these wars.
Italy first felt the huge economic changes in Europe which led to the commercial revolution: the Republic of Venice was able to Sack of Constantinople, defeat the Byzantine Empire and finance the voyages of Marco Polo to Asia; the first universities were formed in Italian cities, and scholars such as Thomas Aquinas obtained international fame; Frederick I of Sicily made Italy the political-cultural centre of a reign that temporarily included the Holy Roman Empire and the Kingdom of Jerusalem; capitalism and banking families emerged in Florence, where Dante and Giotto were active around 1300.
In the south, Sicily had become an Emirate of Sicily, Islamic emirate in the 9th century, thriving until the Italo-Normans conquered it in the late 11th century together with most of the Lombard and Byzantine principalities of southern Italy. Through a complex series of events, southern Italy developed as a unified kingdom, first under the House of Hohenstaufen, then under the Capetian House of Anjou and, from the 15th century, the House of Aragon. In
Sardinia
Sardinia ( ; it, Sardegna, label=Italian, Corsican and Tabarchino ; sc, Sardigna , sdc, Sardhigna; french: Sardaigne; sdn, Saldigna; ca, Sardenya, label=Algherese and Catalan) is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after ...
, the former Byzantine provinces became independent states known in Italian as Sardinian medieval kingdoms, Judicates, although some parts of the island fell under Genoese or Pisan rule until eventual Aragonese annexation in the 15th century. The Black Death pandemic of 1348 left its mark on Italy by killing perhaps one third of the population. However, the recovery from the plague led to a resurgence of cities, trade, and economy, which allowed the blossoming of Humanism and
Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...
that later spread to Europe.
Early Modern
![Italy 1494](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/Italy_1494.svg)
Italy was the birthplace and heart of the
Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...
during the 1400s and 1500s. The Italian Renaissance marked the transition from the medieval period to the modern age as Europe recovered, economically and culturally, from the crises of the Late Middle Ages and entered the Early Modern Period. The Italian polities were now regional states effectively ruled by Princes, ''de facto'' monarchs in control of trade and administration, and their courts became major centres of the Arts and Sciences. The Italian princedoms represented a first form of modern states as opposed to feudal monarchies and multinational empires. The princedoms were led by Political family, political dynasties and merchant families such as the Medici in Florence, the Visconti of Milan, Visconti and Sforza in the Duchy of Milan, the Doria (family), Doria in the Republic of Genoa, the House of Loredan, Loredan, Mocenigo and Barbarigo family, Barbarigo in the Republic of Venice, the House of Este, Este in Ferrara, and the House of Gonzaga, Gonzaga in Mantua.
The Renaissance was therefore a result of the wealth accumulated by Italian merchant cities combined with the patronage of its dominant families.
[Strathern, Paul ''The Medici: Godfathers of the Renaissance'' (2003)] Italian Renaissance exercised a dominant influence on subsequent European painting and sculpture for centuries afterwards, with artists such as Leonardo da Vinci, Brunelleschi, Botticelli, Michelangelo, Raphael, Giotto, Donatello, and Titian, and architects such as Filippo Brunelleschi, Leon Battista Alberti, Andrea Palladio, and Donato Bramante.
![Leonardo self](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/Leonardo_self.jpg)
Following the conclusion of the western schism in favour of Rome at the Council of Constance (1415–1417), the new Pope Martin V returned to the
Papal States
The Papal States ( ; it, Stato Pontificio, ), officially the State of the Church ( it, Stato della Chiesa, ; la, Status Ecclesiasticus;), were a series of territories in the Italian Peninsula under the direct sovereign rule of the pope fro ...
after a three years-long journey that touched many Italian cities and restored Italy as the sole centre of Western Christianity. During the course of this voyage, the Medici Bank was made the official credit institution of the Papacy, and several significant ties were established between the Church and the new political dynasties of the peninsula. The Popes' status as elective monarchs turned the conclaves and papal consistory, consistories of the Renaissance into political battles between the courts of Italy for primacy in the peninsula and access to the immense resources of the Catholic Church. In 1439, Pope Eugenius IV and the Byzantine Emperor John VIII Palaiologos signed a reconciliation agreement between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church at the Council of Florence hosted by Cosimo de Medici, Cosimo ''the old'' de Medici. In 1453, Italian forces under Giovanni Giustiniani were sent by Pope Nicholas V to defend the Walls of Constantinople but the decisive battle was lost to the more advanced Turkish army equipped with cannons, and Fall of Constantinople, Byzantium fell to Sultan Mehmed II.
The fall of Constantinople led to the migration of Greek scholars in the Renaissance, Greek scholars and texts to Italy, fueling the rediscovery of Greco-Roman Humanism.
[Encyclopædia Britannica, ''Renaissance'', 2008, O.Ed.][Har, Michael H. ''History of Libraries in the Western World'', Scarecrow Press Incorporate, 1999, ][Norwich, John Julius, ''A Short History of Byzantium'', 1997, Knopf, ] Humanist rulers such as Federico da Montefeltro and Pope Pius II worked to establish ideal city, ideal cities where ''man is the measure of all things'', and therefore founded Urbino and Pienza respectively. Pico della Mirandola wrote the ''Oration on the Dignity of Man'', considered the manifesto of Renaissance Humanism, in which he stressed the importance of free will in human beings. The humanist historian Leonardo Bruni was the first to divide human history in three periods: Antiquity, Middle Ages and Modernity.
The second consequence of the Fall of Constantinople was the beginning of the
Age of Discovery
The Age of Discovery (or the Age of Exploration), also known as the early modern period, was a period largely overlapping with the Age of Sail, approximately from the 15th century to the 17th century in European history, during which seafarin ...
.
![Columbus Taking Possession](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/95/Columbus_Taking_Possession.jpg)
Italian List of Italian explorers, explorers and navigators from the dominant maritime republics, eager to find an alternative route to the Indies in order to bypass the Ottoman Empire, offered their services to monarchs of Atlantic countries and played a key role in ushering the
Age of Discovery
The Age of Discovery (or the Age of Exploration), also known as the early modern period, was a period largely overlapping with the Age of Sail, approximately from the 15th century to the 17th century in European history, during which seafarin ...
and the European colonization of the Americas. The most notable among them were: Christopher Columbus ( it, Cristoforo Colombo), colonizer in the name of Spain, who is credited with discovering the New World and the opening of the Americas for conquest and settlement by Europeans; John Cabot ( it, Giovanni Caboto), sailing for England, who was the first European to set foot in "New Found Land" and explore parts of the North American continent in 1497; Amerigo Vespucci, sailing for Portugal, who first demonstrated in about 1501 that the New World (in particular Brazil) was not Asia as initially conjectured, but a fourth continent previously unknown to people of the Old World (America is named after him); and Giovanni da Verrazzano, at the service of France, renowned as the first European to explore the Atlantic coast of North America between Florida and New Brunswick in 1524.
Following the fall of Constantinople, the wars in Lombardy came to an end and a defensive alliance known as Italic League was formed between Venice, Naples, Florence, Milan, and the Papacy. Lorenzo de Medici, Lorenzo ''the Magnificent'' de Medici was the greatest Florentine patron of the Renaissance and supporter of the Italic League. He notably avoided the collapse of the League in the aftermath of the Pazzi Conspiracy and during the Siege of Otranto, aborted invasion of Italy by the Turks. However, the military campaign of Charles VIII of France in Italy caused the end of the Italic League and initiated the
Italian Wars
The Italian Wars, also known as the Habsburg–Valois Wars, were a series of conflicts covering the period 1494 to 1559, fought mostly in the Italian peninsula, but later expanding into Flanders, the Rhineland and the Mediterranean Sea. The pr ...
between the Valois and the Habsburgs. During the High Renaissance of the 1500s, Italy was therefore both the main European battleground and the cultural-economic centre of the continent. Popes such as Pope Julius II, Julius II (1503–1513) fought for the control of Italy against foreign monarchs, others such as Pope Paul III, Paul III (1534–1549) preferred to mediate between the European powers in order to secure peace in Italy. In the middle of this conflict, the Medici popes Pope Leo X, Leo X (1513–1521) and Pope Clement VII, Clement VII (1523–1534) opposed the Protestant reformation and Caterina de Medici, advanced the interests of their family. In 1559, at the end of the French invasions of Italy and of the Italian wars, the many states of northern Italy remained part of the Holy Roman Empire, indirectly subject to the Austrian Habsburgs, while all of Southern Italy (Naples, Sicily, Sardinia) and Milan were under Spanish Habsburg rule.
![Flag of Repubblica Cispadana1](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c5/Flag_of_Repubblica_Cispadana1.jpg)
The Papacy remained a powerful force and launched the Counter-reformation. Key events of the period include: the Council of Trent (1545–1563); the excommunication of Elizabeth I (1570) and the Battle of Lepanto (1571), both occurring during the pontificate of Pope Pius V, Pius V; the construction of the Gregorian Tower, Gregorian observatory, the adoption of the Gregorian calendar, and the Jesuit China mission of Matteo Ricci under Pope Gregory XIII; the French Wars of Religion; the Long Turkish War and the execution of Giordano Bruno in 1600, under Pope Clement VIII; the birth of the Lyncean Academy of the
Papal States
The Papal States ( ; it, Stato Pontificio, ), officially the State of the Church ( it, Stato della Chiesa, ; la, Status Ecclesiasticus;), were a series of territories in the Italian Peninsula under the direct sovereign rule of the pope fro ...
, of which the main figure was Galileo Galilei (later put Galileo affair, on trial); the final phases of the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) during the pontificates of Pope Urban VIII, Urban VIII and Pope Innocent X, Innocent X; and the formation of the last Holy League (1684), Holy League by Pope Innocent XI, Innocent XI during the Great Turkish War.
The Italian economy declined during the 1600s and 1700s, as the peninsula was excluded from the rising Atlantic slave trade. Following the European wars of succession of the 18th century, the south passed to a cadet branch of the Spanish Bourbons and the North fell under the influence of the Habsburg-Lorraine of Austria. During the Coalition Wars, northern-central Italy was reorganised by Napoleon in a number of Sister Republics of France and later as a Kingdom of Italy (Napoleonic), Kingdom of Italy in personal union with the Napoleonic France, French Empire. The southern half of the peninsula was administered by Joachim Murat, Napoleon's brother-in-law, who was crowned as Kingdom of Naples, King of Naples. The 1814 Congress of Vienna restored the situation of the late 18th century, but the ideals of the French Revolution could not be eradicated, and soon re-surfaced during the political upheavals that characterised the first part of the 19th century.
Flags of Napoleonic Italy, During the Napoleonic era, in 1797, the first official adoption of the Flag of Italy, Italian tricolour as a national flag by a sovereign Italian state, the Cispadane Republic, a Napoleonic sister republic of Revolutionary France, took place, on the basis of the events following the French Revolution (1789–1799) which, among its ideals, advocated the national self-determination. This event is celebrated by the Tricolour Day.
[Article 1 of the law n. 671 of 31 December 1996 ("National celebration of the bicentenary of the first national flag")] The Italian national colours appeared for the first time on Cockade of Italy, a tricolour cockade in 1789,
anticipating by seven years the first green, white and red Italian military war flag, which was adopted by the Lombard Legion in 1796.
Unification
The birth of the Kingdom of Italy was the result of efforts by Italian nationalists and monarchists loyal to the House of Savoy to establish a united kingdom encompassing the entire Italian Peninsula. Following the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the political and social Italian unification movement, or ''Risorgimento'', emerged to unite Italy consolidating the different states of the peninsula and liberate it from foreign control. A prominent radical figure was the patriotic journalist Giuseppe Mazzini, member of the secret revolutionary society ''Carbonari'' and founder of the influential political movement Young Italy (historical), Young Italy in the early 1830s, who favoured a unitary republic and advocated a broad nationalist movement. His prolific output of propaganda helped the unification movement stay active.
In this context, in 1847, the first public performance of the song ''Il Canto degli Italiani'', the Italian national anthem since 1946, took place. ''Il Canto degli Italiani'', written by Goffredo Mameli set to music by Michele Novaro, is also known as the ''Inno di Mameli'', after the author of the lyrics, or ''Fratelli d'Italia'', from its incipit, opening line.
![Image-Inno di Mameli 2](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/30/Image-Inno_di_Mameli_2.jpg)
The most famous member of Young Italy was the revolutionary and general Giuseppe Garibaldi, renowned for his extremely loyal followers, who led the Italian republican drive for unification in Southern Italy. However, the Northern Italy monarchy of the House of Savoy in the Kingdom of Sardinia, whose government was led by Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour, also had ambitions of establishing a united Italian state. In the context of the revolutions of 1848, 1848 liberal revolutions that swept through Europe, an unsuccessful First Italian War of Independence, first war of independence was declared on Austria-Hungary, Austria. In 1855, the Kingdom of Sardinia became an ally of Britain and France in the Crimean War, giving Cavour's diplomacy legitimacy in the eyes of the great powers. The Kingdom of Sardinia again attacked the Austrian Empire in the Second Italian War of Independence of 1859, with the aid of Second French Empire, France, resulting in liberating Lombardy. On the basis of the Plombières Agreement, the Kingdom of Sardinia ceded Savoy and Nice to France, an event that caused the Niçard exodus, that was the emigration of a quarter of the Niçard Italians to Italy.
![Italian-unification](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/00/Italian-unification.gif)
In 1860–1861, Garibaldi led the drive for unification in Naples and Sicily (the Expedition of the Thousand), while the House of Savoy troops occupied the central territories of the Italian peninsula, except Rome and part of Papal States. Teano was the site of the famous meeting of 26 October 1860 between Giuseppe Garibaldi and Victor Emmanuel II of Italy, Victor Emmanuel II, last King of Sardinia, in which Garibaldi shook Victor Emanuel's hand and hailed him as King of Italy; thus, Garibaldi sacrificed republican hopes for the sake of Italian unity under a monarchy. Cavour agreed to include Garibaldi's Southern Italy allowing it to join the union with the Kingdom of Sardinia in 1860. This allowed the Sardinian government to Proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy, declare a united Italian kingdom on 17 March 1861. Victor Emmanuel II then became the first king of a united Italy, and the capital was moved from Turin to Florence.
In 1866, Victor Emmanuel II allied with Prussia during the Austro-Prussian War, waging the Third Italian War of Independence which allowed Italy to annexe Veneto, Venetia. Finally, in 1870, as France abandoned its garrisons in Rome during the disastrous Franco-Prussian War to keep the large Prussian Army at bay, the Italians rushed to fill the power gap by Capture of Rome, taking over the Papal States. Italian unification was completed and shortly afterwards Italy's capital was moved to Rome. Victor Emmanuel, Garibaldi, Cavour, and Mazzini have been referred as Italy's ''Four Fathers of the Fatherland''.
Liberal period
The new Kingdom of Italy obtained Great Power status. The Constitutional Law of the Kingdom of Sardinia the Statuto Albertino, Albertine Statute of 1848, was extended to the whole Kingdom of Italy in 1861, and provided for basic freedoms of the new State, but electoral laws excluded the non-propertied and uneducated classes from voting. The government of the new kingdom took place in a framework of parliamentary constitutional monarchy dominated by liberal forces. As Northern Italy quickly industrialised, the South and rural areas of the North remained underdeveloped and overpopulated, forcing millions of people to migrate abroad and fuelling a large and influential
diaspora
A diaspora ( ) is a population that is scattered across regions which are separate from its geographic place of origin. Historically, the word was used first in reference to the dispersion of Greeks in the Hellenic world, and later Jews after ...
. The Italian Socialist Party constantly increased in strength, challenging the traditional liberal and conservative establishment.
Starting in the last two decades of the 19th century, Italy developed into a Italian Empire, colonial power by forcing under its rule Italian Eritrea, Eritrea and Italian Somalia, Somalia in East Africa, Italian Tripolitania, Tripolitania and Italian Cyrenaica, Cyrenaica in North Africa (later unified in the colony of Italian Libya, Libya) and the Italian Dodecanese, Dodecanese islands. From 2 November 1899 to 7 September 1901, Italy also participated as part of the Eight-Nation Alliance forces during the Boxer Rebellion in China; on 7 September 1901, a Italian concession of Tientsin, concession in Tientsin was ceded to the country, and on 7 June 1902, the concession was taken into Italian possession and administered by a Consul (representative), consul. In 1913, male universal suffrage was adopted. The pre-war period dominated by Giovanni Giolitti, Prime Minister five times between 1892 and 1921, was characterised by the economic, industrial, and political-cultural modernization of Italian society.
![Vittoriano Altare della Patria 2013-09-16](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1d/Vittoriano_Altare_della_Patria_2013-09-16.jpg)
Italy entered into the First World War in 1915 with the aim of completing national unity: for this reason, the Italian intervention in the First World War is also considered the Fourth Italian War of Independence, in a historiographical perspective that identifies in the latter the conclusion of the unification of Italy, whose military actions began during the revolutions of 1848 with the First Italian War of Independence.
Italy, nominally allied with the German Empire and the Empire of Austria-Hungary in the Triple Alliance (1882), Triple Alliance, in 1915 joined the Allies of World War I, Allies into World War I with a Treaty of London (1915), promise of substantial territorial gains, that included western Inner Carniola, former Austrian Littoral, Dalmatia as well as parts of the Ottoman Empire. The country gave a fundamental contribution to the victory of the conflict as one of the "The Big Four (World War I), Big Four" top Allied powers. The war on the Italian front (World War I), Italian Front was initially inconclusive, as the Italian army got stuck in a long trench warfare, attrition war in the Alps, making little progress and suffering heavy losses. However, the reorganization of the army and the conscription of the so-called 99 Boys'' (''Ragazzi del '99'', all males born in 1899 who were turning 18) led to more effective Italian victories in major battles, such as on First Battle of Monte Grappa, Monte Grappa and in a series of battles on the Battle of Monte Grappa, Piave river. Eventually, in October 1918, the Italians launched a massive offensive, culminating in the victory of Battle of Vittorio Veneto, Vittorio Veneto. The Italian victory, which was announced by the ''Bollettino della Vittoria'' and the ''Bollettino della Vittoria Navale'', marked the end of the war on the Italian Front, secured the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and was chiefly instrumental in Armistice with Germany, ending the First World War less than two weeks later. Italian armed forces were also involved in the African theatre of World War I, African theatre, the Balkans Campaign (World War I), Balkan theatre, the Middle Eastern theatre of World War I, Middle Eastern theatre, and then took part in the Occupation of Constantinople.
During the war, more than 650,000 Italian soldiers and as many civilians died, and the kingdom went to the brink of bankruptcy. The Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye (1919), Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye (1919) and the Treaty of Rapallo (1920), Treaty of Rapallo (1920) allowed the annexation of Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, Trentino Alto-Adige, Julian March, Istria, Kvarner Gulf, Kvarner as well as the Dalmatian city of Zadar, Zara. The subsequent Treaty of Rome (1924), Treaty of Rome (1924) led to the annexation of the city of Fiume to Italy. Italy did not receive other territories promised by the Treaty of London (1915), so this outcome was denounced as a ''Mutilated victory''. The rhetoric of ''Mutilated victory'' was adopted by Benito Mussolini and led to the Fascist Italy (1922–1943), rise of Italian fascism, becoming a key point in the propaganda of Fascist Italy. Historians regard ''Mutilated victory'' as a "political myth", used by fascists to fuel Italian imperialism and obscure the successes of liberal Italy in the aftermath of World War I. Italy also gained a permanent seat in the League of Nations's executive council.
Fascist regime
![Duce Benito Mussolini](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/38/Duce_Benito_Mussolini.jpg)
The Biennio Rosso, socialist agitations that followed the devastation of the Great War, inspired by the Russian Revolution, led to counter-revolution and repression throughout Italy. The liberal establishment, fearing a Soviet-style revolution, started to endorse the small National Fascist Party, led by Benito Mussolini. In October 1922 the Blackshirts of the National Fascist Party attempted a mass demonstration and a coup d'état, coup named the "March on Rome" which failed but at the last minute, King Victor Emmanuel III refused to proclaim a state of siege and appointed Mussolini prime minister, thereby transferring political power to the fascists without armed conflict. Over the next few years, Mussolini banned all political parties and curtailed personal liberties, thus forming a Totalitarianism, dictatorship. These actions attracted international attention and eventually inspired similar dictatorships such as Nazi Germany and Francoist Spain.
Italian Fascism is based upon Italian nationalism and imperialism, and in particular seeks to complete what it considers as the incomplete project of the unification of Italy by incorporating ''Italian irredentism, Italia Irredenta'' (unredeemed Italy) into the state of Italy.
[Aristotle A. Kallis. ''Fascist ideology: territory and expansionism in Italy and Germany, 1922–1945''. London, England, UK; New York City, USA: Routledge, 2000, pp. 41.][Terence Ball, Richard Bellamy. The Cambridge History of Twentieth-Century Political Thought. Pp. 133] To the east of Italy, the Fascists claimed that Italian irredentism in Dalmatia, Dalmatia was a land of Italian culture whose Italians, including those of Italianized South Slavs, South Slavic descent, had been driven out of Dalmatia and into exile in Italy, and supported the return of Italians of Dalmatian heritage. Mussolini identified Dalmatia as having strong Italian cultural roots for centuries, similarly to Italian irredentism in Istria, Istria, via the
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediterr ...
and the Republic of Venice.
[Larry Wolff. Venice And the Slavs: The Discovery of Dalmatia in the Age of Enlightenment. Stanford, California, USA: Stanford University Press, P. 355.] To the south of Italy, the Fascists claimed Italian irredentism in Malta, Malta, which belonged to the United Kingdom, and Corfiot Italians#Corfiot Italians and the Risorgimento, Corfu, which instead belonged to Greece; to the north claimed Italian irredentism in Switzerland, Italian Switzerland, while to the west claimed Italian irredentism in Corsica, Corsica, Italian irredentism in Nice, Nice, and Italian irredentism in Savoy, Savoy, which belonged to France. The Fascist regime produced literature on Corsica that presented evidence of the island's ''italianità''.
[Davide Rodogno. ''Fascism's European Empire: Italian Occupation during the Second World War''. Cambridge, England, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006. P. 88.] The Fascist regime produced literature on Nice that justified that Nice was an Italian land based on historic, ethnic, and linguistic grounds.
![Italy's colonial empire](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bf/Italy%27s_colonial_empire.png)
The Armistice of Villa Giusti, which ended fighting between Italy and Austria-Hungary at the end of World War I, resulted in Italian annexation of neighbouring parts of Yugoslavia. During the interwar period, the fascist Italian government undertook a campaign of Italianization, Italianisation in the areas it annexed, which suppressed Slavic language, schools, political parties, and cultural institutions. Between 1922 and the beginning of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, the affected people were also the German language, German-speaking and Ladin language, Ladin-speaking populations of Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, Trentino-Alto Adige, and the French language, French- and Arpitan-speaking regions of the western Alps, such as the Val d'Aoste, Aosta valley.
Mussolini promised to bring Italy back as a
great power
A great power is a sovereign state that is recognized as having the ability and expertise to exert its influence on a global scale. Great powers characteristically possess military and economic strength, as well as diplomatic and soft power inf ...
in Europe, building a "New
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediterr ...
" and holding power over the
Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the ea ...
. In Propaganda in Fascist Italy, propaganda, Fascists used the ancient Roman motto "''Mare Nostrum''" (
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
for "Our Sea") to describe the Mediterranean. For this reason the Fascist regime engaged in interventionism (politics), interventionist foreign policy. In 1923, the Greek island of Corfiot Italians#Corfiot Italians and the Risorgimento, Corfu was Corfu incident, briefly occupied by Italy, after the assassination of Enrico Tellini, General Tellini in Greek territory. In 1925, Italy forced Albania to become a ''
de facto
''De facto'' ( ; , "in fact") describes practices that exist in reality, whether or not they are officially recognized by laws or other formal norms. It is commonly used to refer to what happens in practice, in contrast with ''de jure'' ("by la ...
'' protectorate. In 1935, Mussolini Second Italo-Abyssinian War, invaded Ethiopia and founded Italian East Africa, resulting in an international alienation and leading to Italy's withdrawal from the League of Nations; Italy Pact of Steel, allied with Nazi Germany and the Tripartite Pact, Empire of Japan and strongly supported Francisco Franco in the Spanish civil war. In 1939, Italy Italian invasion of Albania, formally annexed Albania. Italy entered World War II on 10 June 1940. The Italians initially advanced in Italian conquest of British Somaliland, British Somaliland, Italian invasion of Egypt, Egypt, the Balkan Campaign (World War II), Balkans, where the Governorate of Dalmatia was created, and eastern fronts. They were, however, subsequently defeated on the Italian participation on the Eastern Front, Eastern Front as well as in the East African campaign (World War II), East African campaign and the North African campaign, loosing as a result their territories in Africa and in the Balkans.
During World War II, Italian war crimes included extrajudicial killings and ethnic cleansing
[James H. Burgwyn (2004)]
General Roatta's war against the partisans in Yugoslavia: 1942
, Journal of Modern Italian Studies, Volume 9, Number 3, pp. 314–329(16) by deportation of about 25,000 people, mainly Jews, Croats, and Slovenians, to the List of Italian concentration camps, Italian concentration camps, such as Rab concentration camp, Rab, Gonars concentration camp, Gonars, Monigo, Renicci di Anghiari, and elsewhere. Yugoslav Partisans perpetrated their own crimes against the local ethnic Italians, Italian population (Istrian Italians and Dalmatian Italians) during and after the war, including the foibe massacres.
In Italy and Yugoslavia, unlike in Germany, few war crimes were prosecuted.
[Italy's bloody secret](_blank)
(archived by WebCite), written by Rory Carroll, Education, The Guardian, June 2001[Effie Pedaliu (2004) Britain and the 'Hand-over' of Italian War Criminals to Yugoslavia, 1945–48. Journal of Contemporary History. Vol. 39, No. 4, Special Issue: Collective Memory, pp. 503–529][Gianni Oliva, Oliva, Gianni (2006]
''«Si ammazza troppo poco». I crimini di guerra italiani. 1940–43''
, Mondadori, [Baldissara, Luca & Pezzino, Paolo (2004). ''Crimini e memorie di guerra: violenze contro le popolazioni e politiche del ricordo'', L'Ancora del Mediterraneo. ]
![01 partigiani a milano1](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a6/01_partigiani_a_milano1.jpg)
An Allied invasion of Sicily began in July 1943, leading to the collapse of the Fascist regime and the fall of Mussolini on 25 Luglio, 25 July. Mussolini was deposed and arrested by order of King Victor Emmanuel III in co-operation with the majority of the members of the Grand Council of Fascism, which passed a motion of no confidence. On 8 September, Italy signed the Armistice of Cassibile, ending its war with the Allies. Shortly thereafter, the Germans, with the assistance of the Italian fascists, succeeded in taking control of northern and central Italy. The country remained a Italian Campaign (World War II), battlefield for the rest of the war, with the Allies slowly moving up from the south.
In the north, the Germans set up the Italian Social Republic (RSI), a Nazi puppet state with Mussolini installed as leader after he was Gran Sasso raid, rescued by German paratroopers. Some Italian troops in the south were organised into the Italian Co-belligerent Army, which fought alongside the Allies for the rest of the war, while other Italian troops, loyal to Mussolini and his RSI, continued to fight alongside the Germans in the National Republican Army. Also, the post-armistice period saw the rise of a large anti-fascist resistance movement, the ''Resistenza'', which fought a guerrilla war against the Operation Achse, Nazi German occupiers and Italian Fascist forces. As result, the country descended into Italian Civil War, civil war. In late April 1945, with total defeat looming, Mussolini attempted to escape north, but was captured and Death of Benito Mussolini, summarily executed near Lake Como by Italian partisans. His body was then taken to Milan, where it was hung upside down at a service station for public viewing and to provide confirmation of his demise.
Hostilities ended on 29 April 1945, Surrender of Caserta, when the German forces in Italy surrendered. World War II casualties, Nearly half a million Italians (including civilians) died in the conflict,
society was divided and the Italian economy had been all but destroyed; per capita income in 1944 was at its lowest point since the beginning of the 20th century. The aftermath of World War II left Italy also with an anger against the monarchy for its endorsement of the Fascist regime for the previous twenty years. These frustrations contributed to a revival of the Italian republican movement.
Republican era
![Alcide de Gasperi 2](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b7/Alcide_de_Gasperi_2.jpg)
Italy became a republic after the 1946 Italian institutional referendum held on 2 June 1946, a day celebrated since as ''Festa della Repubblica''. This was the first time that Italian women voted at the national level, and the second time overall considering the local elections that were held a few months earlier in some cities. Victor Emmanuel III's son, Umberto II, was forced to abdicate and exiled. The Constitution of Italy, Republican Constitution was approved on 1 January 1948. Under the Treaty of Peace with Italy, 1947, Istria, Kvarner Gulf, Kvarner, most of the Julian March as well as the Dalmatian city of Zadar, Zara was annexed by Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Yugoslavia causing the Istrian-Dalmatian exodus, which led to the emigration of between 230,000 and 350,000 of local ethnic
Italians
, flag =
, flag_caption = The national flag of Italy
, population =
, regions = Italy 55,551,000
, region1 = Brazil
, pop1 = 25–33 million
, ref1 =
, region2 ...
(Istrian Italians and Dalmatian Italians), the others being ethnic Slovenians, ethnic Croatians, and ethnic Istro-Romanians, choosing to maintain Italian citizenship. Later, the Free Territory of Trieste was divided between the two states. Italy also lost all of its colonial possessions, formally ending the Italian Empire. In 1950, Italian Somaliland was made a Trust Territory of Somaliland, United Nations Trust Territory under Italian administration until 1 July 1960. The Italian border that applies today has existed since 1975, when Trieste was formally re-annexed to Italy.
Fears of a possible Communist takeover (especially in the United States) proved crucial for the first universal suffrage electoral outcome on Italian general election, 1948, 18 April 1948, when the Christian Democracy (Italy), Christian Democrats, under the leadership of Alcide De Gasperi, obtained a landslide victory. Consequently, in 1949 Italy became a member of
NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...
. The Marshall Plan helped to revive the Italian economy which, until the late 1960s, enjoyed a period of sustained economic growth commonly called the "Italian economic miracle, Economic Miracle". In the 1950's, Italy became one of the six founding countries of the European Communities, following the 1952 establishment of the European Coal and Steel Community, and subsequent 1958 creations of the European Economic Community and European Atomic Energy Community. In 1993, the former two of these were incorporated into the
European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...
.
![Римський договір](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1a/%D0%A0%D0%B8%D0%BC%D1%81%D1%8C%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%B9_%D0%B4%D0%BE%D0%B3%D0%BE%D0%B2%D1%96%D1%80.jpg)
From the late 1960s until the early 1980s, the country experienced the Years of Lead (Italy), Years of Lead, a period characterised by economic crisis (especially after the 1973 oil crisis), widespread social conflicts and terrorist massacres carried out by opposing extremist groups, with the alleged involvement of US and Soviet intelligence.
[ ] The Years of Lead culminated in the assassination of the Christian Democrat leader Aldo Moro in 1978 and the Bologna massacre, Bologna railway station massacre in 1980, where 85 people died.
In the 1980s, for the first time since 1945, two governments were led by non-Christian-Democrat premiers: one republican (Giovanni Spadolini) and one socialist (Bettino Craxi); the Christian Democrats remained, however, the main government party. During Craxi's government, the economy recovered and Italy became the world's fifth-largest industrial nation after it gained the entry into the Group of Seven in the 1970s. However, as a result of his spending policies, the Italian national debt skyrocketed during the Craxi era, soon passing 100% of the country's GDP.
![Strage di bologna funerali 1](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/85/Strage_di_bologna_funerali_1.jpg)
Italy faced several terror attacks between 1992 and 1993 perpetrated by the Sicilian Mafia as a consequence of several life sentences pronounced during the "Maxi Trial", and of the new anti-mafia measures launched by the government. In 1992, two major dynamite attacks killed the judges Giovanni Falcone (23 May in the Capaci bombing) and Paolo Borsellino (19 July in the Via D'Amelio bombing). One year later (May–July 1993), tourist spots were attacked, such as the Via dei Georgofili bombing, Via dei Georgofili in Florence, Via Palestro massacre, Via Palestro in Milan, and the Piazza San Giovanni in Laterano and Via San Teodoro in Rome, leaving 10 dead and 93 injured and causing severe damage to cultural heritage such as the Uffizi Gallery. The Catholic Church openly condemned the Mafia, and two churches were bombed and an anti-Mafia priest shot dead in Rome.
![2015 sicily](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1e/2015_sicily.jpg)
Also in the early 1990s, Italy faced significant challenges, as voters – disenchanted with political paralysis, massive public debt and the extensive corruption system (known as ''Tangentopoli'') uncovered by the Mani pulite, Clean Hands (''Mani Pulite'') investigation – demanded radical reforms. The scandals involved all major parties, but especially those in the government coalition: the Christian Democrats, who ruled for almost 50 years, underwent a severe crisis and eventually disbanded, splitting up into several factions. The Communists reorganised as a social-democratic force. During the 1990s and the 2000s, Centre-right coalition (Italy), centre-right (dominated by media magnate Silvio Berlusconi) and Centre-left coalition (Italy), centre-left coalitions (led by university professor Romano Prodi) alternately governed the country.
Amidst the Great Recession, Berlusconi Resignation of Silvio Berlusconi, resigned in 2011, and his conservative government was replaced by the technocratic cabinet of Mario Monti. Following the Italian general election, 2013, 2013 general election, the Vice-Secretary of the Democratic Party (Italy), Democratic Party Enrico Letta formed a Letta Cabinet, new government at the head of a right-left Grand coalition (Italy), Grand coalition. In 2014, challenged by the new List of Secretaries of the Democratic Party, Secretary of the Partito Democratico, PD Matteo Renzi, Letta resigned and was replaced by Renzi. The new government started constitutional reforms such as the abolition of the Italian Senate, Senate and a new electoral law. On 4 December the constitutional reform was rejected in a Italian constitutional referendum, 2016, referendum and Renzi resigned; the Foreign Affairs Minister Paolo Gentiloni was appointed new Prime Minister of Italy, Prime Minister.
![2020 coronavirus task force](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/81/2020_coronavirus_task_force.jpg)
In the European migrant crisis of the 2010s, Italy was the entry point and leading destination for most asylum seekers entering the EU. From 2013 to 2018, the country took in over 700,000 migrants and refugees, mainly from sub-Saharan Africa, which caused strain on the public purse and a surge in the support for far-right or euro-sceptic political parties. The Italian general election, 2018, 2018 general election was characterised by a strong showing of the Five Star Movement and the Lega Nord, League and the university professor Giuseppe Conte became the Prime Minister at the head of a Government of Change, populist coalition between these two parties. However, after only fourteen months the League withdrew its support to Conte, who formed a new unprecedented government coalition between the Five Star Movement and the centre-left.
In 2020, Italy was severely hit by the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy, COVID-19 pandemic. From March to May, Conte's government imposed a COVID-19 lockdown in Italy, national lockdown as a measure to limit the spread of the disease, while further restrictions were introduced during the following winter. The measures, despite being widely approved by the public opinion, were also described as the largest suppression of constitutional rights in the history of the republic. With more than 155,000 confirmed victims, Italy was one of the countries with the highest total number of deaths in the COVID-19 pandemic, worldwide coronavirus pandemic. The pandemic caused also a Economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, severe economic disruption, in which Italy resulted as one of the most affected countries.
In February 2021, after a 2021 Italian government crisis, government crisis within his majority, Conte was forced to resign and Mario Draghi, former president of the European Central Bank, formed a Draghi Cabinet, national unity government supported by almost all the main parties, pledging to oversee implementation of economic stimulus to face the crisis caused by the pandemic. On 22 October 2022, Giorgia Meloni was sworn in as Italy's first female prime minister. Her Brothers of Italy party formed a right-wing government with the far-right Lega (political party), League and Berlusconi's Forza Italia (2013), Forza Italia.
Geography
![Italy relief location map](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/79/Italy_relief_location_map.jpg)
Italy, whose territory largely coincides with the
homonymous geographical region,
is located in
Southern Europe
Southern Europe is the southern regions of Europe, region of Europe. It is also known as Mediterranean Europe, as its geography is essentially marked by the Mediterranean Sea. Definitions of Southern Europe include some or all of these countrie ...
and it is also considered a part of western Europe,
between latitudes 35th parallel north, 35° and 47th parallel north, 47° N, and longitudes 6th meridian east, 6° and 19th meridian east, 19° E. To the north, Italy borders France, Switzerland, Austria, and Slovenia and is roughly delimited by the Alps, Alpine watershed, enclosing the Po Valley and the Venetian Plain. To the south, it consists of the entirety of the Italian Peninsula and the two Mediterranean islands of
Sicily
(man) it, Siciliana (woman)
, population_note =
, population_blank1_title =
, population_blank1 =
, demographics_type1 = Ethnicity
, demographics1_footnotes =
, demographi ...
and
Sardinia
Sardinia ( ; it, Sardegna, label=Italian, Corsican and Tabarchino ; sc, Sardigna , sdc, Sardhigna; french: Sardaigne; sdn, Saldigna; ca, Sardenya, label=Algherese and Catalan) is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after ...
(the two Mediterranean islands#By area, biggest islands of the Mediterranean), in addition to List of islands of Italy, many smaller islands. The sovereign states of
San Marino
San Marino (, ), officially the Republic of San Marino ( it, Repubblica di San Marino; ), also known as the Most Serene Republic of San Marino ( it, Serenissima Repubblica di San Marino, links=no), is the fifth-smallest country in the world an ...
and the
Vatican City
Vatican City (), officially the Vatican City State ( it, Stato della Città del Vaticano; la, Status Civitatis Vaticanae),—'
* german: Vatikanstadt, cf. '—' (in Austria: ')
* pl, Miasto Watykańskie, cf. '—'
* pt, Cidade do Vati ...
are Enclave and exclave, enclaves within Italy, while Campione d'Italia is an Italian
exclave
An enclave is a territory (or a small territory apart of a larger one) that is entirely surrounded by the territory of one other state or entity. Enclaves may also exist within territorial waters. ''Enclave'' is sometimes used improperly to deno ...
in Switzerland.
The country's total area is , of which is land and is water.
Including the islands, Italy has a coastline and border of on the Adriatic Sea, Adriatic, Ionian Sea, Ionian, Tyrrhenian Sea, Tyrrhenian seas (), and borders shared with France (), Austria (), Slovenia () and Switzerland (). San Marino () and Vatican City (), both enclaves, account for the remainder.
Over 35% of the Italian territory is mountainous.
The Apennine Mountains form the peninsula's backbone, and the
Alps
The Alps () ; german: Alpen ; it, Alpi ; rm, Alps ; sl, Alpe . are the highest and most extensive mountain range system that lies entirely in Europe, stretching approximately across seven Alpine countries (from west to east): France, Sw ...
form most of its northern boundary, where Italy's highest point is located on Mont Blanc (Monte Bianco) (). Other worldwide-known mountains in Italy include the Matterhorn (Monte Cervino), Monte Rosa, Gran Paradiso in the West Alps, and Bernina Range, Bernina, Stelvio Pass, Stelvio and Dolomites along the eastern side.
The Po river, Po, Italy's longest river (), flows from the Alps on the western border with France and crosses the Padan plain on its way to the Adriatic Sea. The Po Valley is the largest plain in Italy, with , and it represents over 70% of the total plain area in the country.
Many elements of the Volcanism of Italy, Italian territory are of volcanic origin. Most of the small islands and archipelagos in the south, like Capraia, Ponza, Ischia, Aeolian Islands, Eolie, Ustica and Pantelleria are volcanic islands. There are also active volcanoes: Mount Etna in Sicily (the largest active volcano in Europe), Vulcano, Stromboli, and Vesuvius (the only active volcano on mainland Europe).
The five largest lakes are, in order of diminishing size: Lake Garda, Garda (), Lake Maggiore, Maggiore (, whose minor northern part is part of Switzerland), Lake Como, Como (), Trasimeno Lake, Trasimeno () and Lake Bolsena, Bolsena (). Four different seas surround the Italian Peninsula in the
Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the ea ...
from three sides: the Adriatic Sea in the east, the Ionian Sea in the south, and the Ligurian Sea and the Tyrrhenian Sea in the west. The longest Italian river is the Po (river), Po, which flows for either or .
Most of the rivers of Italy drain either into the Adriatic Sea or the Tyrrhenian Sea.
Although the country includes the Italian peninsula, adjacent islands, and most of the southern Alpine basin, some of Italy's territory extends beyond the Alpine basin and some islands are located outside the Eurasian continental shelf. These territories are the ''comuni'' of: Livigno, Sexten, Innichen, Toblach (in part), Chiusaforte, Tarvisio, Graun im Vinschgau (in part), which are all part of the Danube#Drainage basin, Danube's drainage basin, while the Lago di Lei, Val di Lei constitutes part of the Rhine's basin and the islands of Lampedusa and Lampione are on the African continental shelf.
Environment
![National and Regional Parks of Italy](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3b/National_and_Regional_Parks_of_Italy.svg)
After its quick industrial growth, Italy took a long time to confront its environmental problems. After several improvements, it now ranks 84th in the world for ecological sustainability.
List of national parks of Italy, National parks cover about 5% of the country, while the total area protected by national parks, List of regional parks of Italy, regional parks and nature reserves covers about 10.5% of the Italian territory, to which must be added 12% of coasts protected by List of Marine Protected Areas of Italy, marine protected areas.
In the last decade, Italy has become one of the world's leading producers of renewable energy in Italy, renewable energy, ranking as the world's fourth largest holder of installed solar energy capacity
and the sixth largest holder of wind power capacity in 2010.
Renewable energies provided approximately 37% Italy's energy consumption in 2020.
However, air pollution remains a severe problem, especially in the industrialised north, reaching the tenth highest level worldwide of industrial carbon dioxide emissions in the 1990s.
Italy is the List of countries by carbon dioxide emissions, twelfth-largest carbon dioxide producer.
Extensive traffic and congestion in the largest metropolitan areas continue to cause severe environmental and health issues, even if smog levels have decreased dramatically since the 1970s and 1980s, and the presence of smog is becoming an increasingly rarer phenomenon and levels of sulphur dioxide are decreasing.
Many watercourses and coastal stretches have also been contaminated by industrial and agricultural activity, while because of rising water levels, Venice has been regularly flooded throughout recent years. Waste from industrial activity is not always disposed of by legal means and has led to permanent health effects on inhabitants of affected areas, as in the case of the Seveso disaster.
The country has also operated several nuclear reactors between 1963 and 1990 but, after the Chernobyl disaster and a Italian nuclear power referendum, 1987, referendum on the issue the nuclear programme was terminated, a decision that was overturned by the government in 2008, planning to build up to four nuclear power plants with French technology. This was in turn struck down by a referendum following the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, Fukushima nuclear accident.
Deforestation, illegal building developments and poor land-management policies have led to significant erosion all over Italy's mountainous regions, leading to major ecological disasters like the 1963 Vajont Dam flood, the 1998 Sarno
and 2009 2009 Messina floods and mudslides, Messina mudslides.
The country had a 2019 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 3.65/10, ranking it 142nd globally out of 172 countries.
Biodiversity
Italy has one the highest level of faunal biodiversity in Europe, with over 57,000 species recorded, representing more than a third of all European fauna. Italy's varied geological structure contributes to its high climate and habitat diversity. The Italian peninsula is in the centre of the Mediterranean Sea, forming a corridor between central Europe and
North Africa
North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...
, and has of coastline. Italy also receives species from the Balkans, Eurasia, and the Middle East. Italy's varied geological structure, including the Italian Alps, Alps and the Apennines, Central Italian woodlands, and Southern Italian Garigue and Maquis shrubland, also contribute to high climate and habitat diversity.
![C](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a0/C._l._italicus_in_MNP.jpg)
The fauna of Italy includes 4,777 Endemism, endemic animal species, which include the Sardinian long-eared bat, Corsican red deer, Sardinian red deer, spectacled salamander, brown cave salamander, Italian newt, Italian stream frog, Italian frog, Apennine yellow-bellied toad, Italian wall lizard, Aeolian wall lizard, Sicilian wall lizard, Italian Aesculapian snake, and Sicilian pond turtle. In Italy there are 119 List of mammals of Italy, mammals species, 550 List of birds of Italy, bird species, 69 List of reptiles of Italy, reptile species, 39 List of amphibians of Italy, amphibian species, 623 fish species
and 56,213 invertebrate species, of which 37,303 insect species.
The flora of Italy was traditionally estimated to comprise about 5,500 vascular plant species. However, , 6,759 species are recorded in the ''Data bank of Italian vascular flora''. Italy has 1,371 endemic plant species and subspecies, which include Abies nebrodensis, Sicilian Fir, Barbaricina columbine, Sea marigold, Santolina pinnata, Lavender cotton and Viola ucriana, Ucriana violet. Italy is a signatory to the Berne Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats and the Habitats Directive both affording protection to Italian fauna and flora.
Italy has many List of botanical gardens in Italy, botanical gardens and List of gardens in Italy, historic gardens, some of which are known outside the country. The Italian garden is stylistically based on symmetry, axial geometry and on the principle of imposing order over nature. It influenced the history of gardening, especially French gardens and English gardens. The Italian garden was influenced by Roman gardens and Italian Renaissance gardens.
The Italian wolf is the national animal of Italy, while the national tree of the country is the Arbutus unedo, strawberry tree.
The reasons for this choice are related to the fact that the Italian wolf, which inhabits the Apennine Mountains and the Western Alps, features prominently in Latin and Italian cultures, such as in the legend of the founding of Rome, while the green leaves, white flowers and red berries of the strawberry tree, which is native to the Mediterranean region, recall the colours of the flag of Italy.
Climate
![Italy Köppen](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8e/Italy_K%C3%B6ppen.svg)
The climate of Italy is influenced by the large body of water of the
Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the ea ...
that surrounds Italy on every side except the north. These seas constitute a reservoir of heat and humidity for Italy. Within the southern temperate zone, they determine a Mediterranean climate with local differences due to the geomorphology of the territory, which tends to make its mitigating effects felt, especially in Anticyclone, high pressure conditions.
Because of the length of the peninsula and the mostly mountainous hinterland, the climate of Italy is highly diverse. In most of the inland northern and central regions, the climate ranges from humid subtropical to humid continental and oceanic climate, oceanic. The climate of the Po valley geographical region is mostly humid subtropical, with cool winters and hot summers. The coastal areas of Liguria, Tuscany and most of the Southern Italy, South generally fit the Mediterranean climate stereotype (Köppen climate classification).
Conditions on the coast are different from those in the interior, particularly during winter months when the higher altitudes tend to be cold, wet, and often snowy. The coastal regions have mild winters and hot and generally dry summers; lowland valleys are hot in summer. Average winter temperatures vary from around in the Alps to in Sicily, so average summer temperatures range from to over .
Winters can vary widely across the country with lingering cold, foggy and snowy periods in the north and milder, sunnier conditions in the south. Summers are hot across the country, except for at high altitude, particularly in the south. Northern and central areas can experience occasional strong thunderstorms from spring to autumn.
Politics
Italy has been a unitary state, unitary parliamentary republic since 2 June 1946, when the monarchy was abolished by a Italian constitutional referendum, 1946, constitutional referendum. The President of Italy (''Presidente della Repubblica''), currently Sergio Mattarella since 2015, is Italy's head of state. The President is elected for a single seven years mandate by the Parliament of Italy and some regional voters in joint session. Italy has a written democratic Constitution of Italy, constitution, resulting from the work of a Constituent Assembly of Italy, Constituent Assembly formed by the representatives of all the anti-fascist forces that contributed to the defeat of Nazi and Fascist forces during the
Italian Civil War
The Italian Civil War (Italian language, Italian: ''Guerra civile italiana'', ) was a civil war in the Kingdom of Italy fought during World War II by Italian Fascists against the Italian resistance movement, Italian partisans (mostly politically ...
.
Government
Italy has a parliamentary government based on a mixed proportional representation, proportional and majoritarian voting system. The parliament is perfectly bicameral: the two houses, the Chamber of Deputies of Italy, Chamber of Deputies that meets in Palazzo Montecitorio, and the Senate of Italy, Senate of the Republic that meets in Palazzo Madama, Rome, Palazzo Madama, have the same powers. The Prime Minister, officially President of the Council of Ministers of Italy, President of the Council of Ministers (''Presidente del Consiglio dei Ministri''), is Italy's head of government. The Prime Minister and the cabinet are appointed by the President of the Republic of Italy and must pass a vote of confidence in Parliament to come into office. To remain the Prime Minister has to pass also eventual further votes of confidence or no confidence in Parliament.
The prime minister is the President of the Council of Ministers of Italy, Council of Ministers – which holds effective executive power – and he must receive a vote of approval from it to execute most political activities. The office is similar to those in most other parliamentary systems, but the head of the Italian government is not authorised to request the dissolution of the Parliament of Italy.
![Camera dei deputati Aula Palazzo Montecitorio Roma](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/41/Camera_dei_deputati_Aula_Palazzo_Montecitorio_Roma.jpg)
Another difference with similar offices is that the overall political responsibility for intelligence is vested in the President of the Council of Ministers. By virtue of that, the Prime Minister has exclusive power to: co-ordinate intelligence policies, determining the financial resources and strengthening national cyber security; apply and protect State secrets; authorise agents to carry out operations, in Italy or abroad, in violation of the law.
A peculiarity of the Italian Parliament is the representation given to Italian nationality law, Italian citizens permanently living abroad: 8 Deputies and 4 Senators elected in four distinct Parliament of Italy#Overseas constituency, overseas constituencies. In addition, the Italian Senate is characterised also by a small number of senator for life, senators for life, appointed by the President "for outstanding patriotic merits in the social, scientific, artistic or literary field". Former Presidents of the Republic are ''ex officio'' life senators.
Italy's three major political parties are the Democratic Party (Italy), Democratic Party, the Five Star Movement and the Brothers of Italy. During the 2022 general election these three parties and their coalitions won 357 out of 400 seats available in the Chamber of Deputies and 187 out of 200 in the Senate. The centre-right coalition, which included Giorgia Meloni's Brothers of Italy, Matteo Salvini's Lega Nord, League, Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia (2013), Forza Italia and Maurizio Lupi's Us Moderates, won a majority of the seats in parliament. The rest of the seats were taken by the centre-left coalition, which included Enrico Letta's Democratic Party (Italy), Democratic Party, Angelo Bonelli's Greens and Left Alliance, Aosta Valley (political coalition), Aosta Valley, Emma Bonino's More Europe & Luigi Di Maio's Civic Commitment, as well as by Giuseppe Conte's Five Star Movement, Carlo Calenda's Action - Italia Viva, Philipp Achammer and Stefan Premstaller's South Tyrolean People's Party, Cateno De Luca's South Calls North and Ricardo Antonio Merlo's Associative Movement of Italians Abroad.
Law and criminal justice
![Courthouse facade, Rome, Italy](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/76/Courthouse_facade%2C_Rome%2C_Italy.jpg)
The law of Italy has a plurality of sources of production. These are arranged in a hierarchical scale, under which the rule of a lower source cannot conflict with the rule of an upper source (hierarchy of sources). The Constitution of Italy, Constitution of 1948 is the main source.
The judiciary of Italy is based on Roman law modified by the Napoleonic code and later statutes. The Court of Cassation (Italy), Supreme Court of Cassation is the highest court in Italy for both criminal and civil appeal cases. The Constitutional Court of Italy (''Corte Costituzionale'') rules on the conformity of laws with the constitution and is a post–World War II innovation.
Since their appearance in the middle of the 19th century, Organized crime in Italy, Italian organised crime and criminal organisations have infiltrated the social and economic life of many regions in Southern Italy, the most notorious of which being the Sicilian Mafia, which would later expand into some foreign countries including the United States. Mafia receipts may reach 9% of Italy's GDP.
A 2009 report identified 610 Comune, which have a strong Mafia presence, where 13 million
Italians
, flag =
, flag_caption = The national flag of Italy
, population =
, regions = Italy 55,551,000
, region1 = Brazil
, pop1 = 25–33 million
, ref1 =
, region2 ...
live and 14.6% of the Italian GDP is produced. The
Calabria
, population_note =
, population_blank1_title =
, population_blank1 =
, demographics_type1 =
, demographics1_footnotes =
, demographics1_title1 =
, demographics1_info1 =
, demographics1_title2 ...
n 'Ndrangheta, nowadays probably the most powerful crime syndicate of Italy, accounts alone for 3% of the country's GDP. However, at 0.013 per 1,000 people, Italy has only the 47th highest murder rate
compared to 61 countries and the 43rd highest number of rapes per 1,000 people compared to 64 countries in the world. These are relatively low figures among developed countries.
The Law enforcement in Italy, Italian law enforcement system is complex, with multiple police forces.
The national policing agencies are the Polizia di Stato (State Police), the Arma dei Carabinieri, the Guardia di Finanza (Financial Guard), and the Polizia Penitenziaria (Prison Police),
as well as the Guardia Costiera (Water police, coast guard police).
Although policing in Italy is primarily provided on a national basis,
there also exists ''Polizia Provinciale'' (provincial police) and ''Polizia Municipale'' (municipal police).
Foreign relations
![G7 Taormina family photo 2017-05-26](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b9/G7_Taormina_family_photo_2017-05-26.jpg)
Italy is a founding member of the European Economic Community (EEC), now the
European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...
(EU), and of
NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...
. Italy was admitted to the United Nations in 1955, and it is a member and a strong supporter of a wide number of international organisations, such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade/World Trade Organization (GATT/WTO), the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the Council of Europe, and the Central European Initiative. Its recent or upcoming turns in the rotating presidency of international organisations include the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe in 2018, the
G7 in 2017 and the Presidency of the Council of the European Union, EU Council from July to December 2014. Italy is also a recurrent List of members of the United Nations Security Council, non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, the most recently in 2017.
Italy strongly supports multilateral international politics, endorsing the United Nations and its international security activities. In 2013, Italy had 5,296 troops deployed abroad, engaged in 33 UN and NATO missions in 25 countries of the world. Italy deployed troops in support of UN peacekeeping missions in UNITAF, Somalia, United Nations Operation in Mozambique, Mozambique, and United Nations Integrated Mission in East Timor, East Timor and provides support for NATO and UN operations in IFOR, Bosnia, Kosovo Force, Kosovo and Operation Sunrise (Albania), Albania. Italy deployed over 2,000 troops in Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) from February 2003.
Italy supported international efforts to reconstruct and stabilise Iraq, but it had withdrawn its Multi-National Force – Iraq#2006 withdrawals, military contingent of some 3,200 troops by 2006, maintaining only humanitarian operators and other civilian personnel.
In August 2006 Italy deployed about 2,450 troops in Lebanon for the United Nations' peacekeeping mission UNIFIL.
["Italian soldiers leave for Lebanon"](_blank)
Corriere della Sera, 30 August 2006 Italy is one of the largest financiers of the Palestinian National Authority, contributing €60 million in 2013 alone.
Military
![Stemma dello Stato Maggiore della Difesa italiano](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/84/Stemma_dello_Stato_Maggiore_della_Difesa_italiano.svg)
The Italian Army, Italian Navy, Navy, Italian Air Force, Air Force and Carabinieri collectively form the Italian Armed Forces, under the command of the High Council of Defence (Italy), High Council of Defence, presided over by the President of Italy, as established by article 87 of the Constitution of Italy. According to article 78, the Italian Parliament, Parliament has the authority to declare a state of war and vest the necessary powers in the Italian government, Government.
Despite not being a branch of the armed forces, the Guardia di Finanza ("Financial Guard") has military status and is organized along military lines. Since 2005, military service is voluntary. In 2010, the Italian military had 293,202 personnel on active duty,
["The Military Balance 2010", pp. 141–145. International Institute for Strategic Studies, 3 February 2010.] of which 114,778 are Carabinieri. As part of Nuclear sharing, NATO's nuclear sharing strategy Italy also hosts 90 United States B61 nuclear bombs, located in the Ghedi Air Base, Ghedi and Aviano Air Base, Aviano air bases.
The Italian Army is the national ground defence force. Its best-known combat vehicles are the Dardo IFV, Dardo infantry fighting vehicle, the Centauro tank destroyer and the Ariete tank, and among its aircraft the Agusta A129 Mangusta, Mangusta attack helicopter, in the last years deployed in EU, NATO and UN missions. It also has at its disposal many Leopard 1 and M113 armored personnel carrier, M113 armoured vehicles. It was formed in 1946 from what remained of the ''Regio Esercito'' ("Royal Army", which was established on the occasion of the proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy, 1861) after World War II, when Italy became a republic following a referendum.
The Italian Navy is a blue-water navy. In modern times the Italian Navy, being a member of the EU and NATO, has taken part in many coalition peacekeeping operations around the world. It was formed in 1946 from what remained of the ''Regia Marina'' ("Royal Navy", which was established on the occasion of the proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy, 1861) after World War II, when Italy became a republic following a referendum. The Italian Navy in 2014 operates 154 vessels in service, including minor auxiliary vessels.
The Italian Air Force in 2021 operates 219 combat jets. A transport capability is guaranteed by a fleet of 27 Lockheed Martin C-130J Super Hercules, C-130Js and C-27J Spartan. The Italian Air Force was founded as an independent service arm on 28 March 1923 by Victor Emmanuel III of Italy, King Victor Emmanuel III as the ("Royal Air Force"). After
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, when Italy became a republic following a referendum, the was given its current name. The acrobatic display team is the ("Tricolour Arrows").
An autonomous corps of the military, the Carabinieri are the gendarmerie and military police of Italy, policing the military and civilian population alongside Law enforcement in Italy, Italy's other police forces. While the different branches of the Carabinieri report to separate ministries for each of their individual functions, the corps reports to the Ministry of Internal Affairs when maintaining public order and security.
Administrative divisions
Italy is constituted by 20 regions (''Regions of Italy, regioni'')—five of these regions having a Autonomous regions with special statute, special autonomous status that enables them to enact legislation on additional matters, 107 provinces (''Provinces of Italy, province'') or metropolitan cities (''Metropolitan cities of Italy, città metropolitane''), and 7,904 municipalities (''Comune, comuni'').
This is a list of regions in Italy:
* Abruzzo
* Aosta Valley – ''Valle d'Aosta''
* Apulia – ''Puglia''
* Basilicata
*
Calabria
, population_note =
, population_blank1_title =
, population_blank1 =
, demographics_type1 =
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, demographics1_title1 =
, demographics1_info1 =
, demographics1_title2 ...
* Campania
* Emilia-Romagna
* Friuli Venezia Giulia
* Lazio
* Liguria
* Lombardy – ''Lombardia''
* Marche
* Molise
* Piedmont – ''Piemonte''
*
Sardinia
Sardinia ( ; it, Sardegna, label=Italian, Corsican and Tabarchino ; sc, Sardigna , sdc, Sardhigna; french: Sardaigne; sdn, Saldigna; ca, Sardenya, label=Algherese and Catalan) is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after ...
– ''Sardegna''
*
Sicily
(man) it, Siciliana (woman)
, population_note =
, population_blank1_title =
, population_blank1 =
, demographics_type1 = Ethnicity
, demographics1_footnotes =
, demographi ...
– ''Sicilia''
* Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol
* Tuscany – ''Toscana''
* Umbria
* Veneto
Economy
![Italy Product Exports (2019)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f7/Italy_Product_Exports_%282019%29.svg)
Italy has a major advanced capitalist mixed economy, ranking as the third-largest in the Eurozone and the List of countries by GDP (nominal), eighth-largest in the world. A founding member of the
G7, the Eurozone and the
OECD
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD; french: Organisation de coopération et de développement économiques, ''OCDE'') is an intergovernmental organisation with 38 member countries, founded in 1961 to stimulate e ...
, it is regarded as one of the world's most industrialised nations and a leading country in international trade, world trade and exports. It is a highly
developed country
A developed country (or industrialized country, high-income country, more economically developed country (MEDC), advanced country) is a sovereign state that has a high quality of life, developed economy and advanced technological infrastruct ...
, with the world's 8th highest quality of life in 2005
and the 26th List of countries by Human Development Index, Human Development Index. The country is well known for its creative and innovative business, a large and competitive agricultural sector (with the world's largest wine production), and for its influential and high-quality automobile, machinery, food, design and fashion industry.
Italy is the world's sixth-largest manufacturing country, characterised by a smaller number of global multinational corporations than other economies of comparable size and many dynamic small and medium-sized enterprises, notoriously clustered in several industrial districts, which are the backbone of the Italian industry. This has produced a manufacturing sector often focused on the export of niche market and luxury products, that if on one side is less capable to compete on the quantity, on the other side is more capable of facing the competition from China and other emerging Asian economies based on lower labour costs, with higher quality products. Italy was the world's tenth-largest List of countries by exports, exporter in 2019. Its closest trade ties are with the other countries of the European Union. Its largest export partners in 2019 were Germany (12%), France (11%), and the United States (10%).
![Colonnata, marble-quarry - panoramio - Frans-Banja Mulder (2)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/69/Colonnata%2C_marble-quarry_-_panoramio_-_Frans-Banja_Mulder_%282%29.jpg)
The automotive industry in Italy, automotive industry is a significant part of the Italian manufacturing sector, with over 144,000 firms and almost 485,000 employed people in 2015, and a contribution of 8.5% to Italian GDP.
Stellantis is currently the world's Automotive industry#Top vehicle manufacturing groups by volume, fifth-largest auto maker. The country boasts a wide range of acclaimed products, from compact city cars to luxury supercars such as Maserati, Lamborghini, and Ferrari.
The Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena is the world's List of oldest banks, oldest or second oldest bank in continuous operation, depending on the definition, and the fourth-largest Italian commercial and retail bank.
Italy has a strong cooperative sector, with the largest share of the population (4.5%) employed by a cooperative in the EU. The Val'd Agri oil field, Val d'Agri area, Basilicata, hosts the largest Onshore (hydrocarbons), onshore hydrocarbon field in Europe. Moderate natural gas reserves, mainly in the Po Valley and offshore Adriatic Sea, have been discovered in recent years and constitute the country's most important mineral resource. Italy is one of the world's leading producers of pumice, pozzolana, and feldspar.
Another notable mineral resource is marble, especially the world-famous white Carrara marble from the Province of Massa and Carrara, Massa and Carrara quarries in Tuscany.
Italy is part of a monetary union, the Eurozone, and of the Internal Market (European Union), European single market, which represents more than 500 million consumers. Several domestic commercial policies are determined by agreements among European Union (EU) members and by EU legislation. Italy introduced the common European currency, the Euro in 2002.
It is a member of the Eurozone which represents around 330 million citizens. Its monetary policy is set by the European Central Bank.
Italy has been hit hard by the Financial crisis of 2007–08, that exacerbated the country's structural problems. Effectively, after a strong GDP growth of 5–6% per year from the 1950s to the early 1970s, and a progressive slowdown in the 1980-90s, the country virtually stagnated in the 2000s. The political efforts to revive growth with massive government spending eventually produced a severe rise in public debt, that stood at over 131.8% of GDP in 2017, ranking second in the EU only after the Greek one. For all that, the largest chunk of Italian government debt, Italian public debt is owned by national subjects, a major difference between Italy and Greece, and the level of household debt is much lower than the OECD average.
A gaping Economy of Italy#Southern question, North–South divide is a major factor of socio-economic weakness. It can be noted by the huge difference in statistical income between the northern and southern regions and municipalities. The richest province, South Tyrol, Alto Adige-South Tyrol, earns 152% of the national GDP per capita, while the poorest region, Calabria, 61%. The unemployment rate (11.1%) stands slightly above the Eurozone average, but the disaggregated figure is 6.6% in the North and 19.2% in the South. The Youth unemployment in Italy, youth unemployment rate (31.7% in March 2018) is extremely high compared to EU standards.
Agriculture
According to the last national agricultural census, there were 1.6 million farms in 2010 (−32.4% since 2000) covering (63% of which are located in Southern Italy).
The vast majority (99%) are family-operated and small, averaging only in size.
Of the total surface area in agricultural use (forestry excluded), grain fields take up 31%, olive tree orchards 8.2%, vineyards 5.4%, citrus orchards 3.8%, sugar beets 1.7%, and horticulture 2.4%. The remainder is primarily dedicated to pastures (25.9%) and feed grains (11.6%).
Italy is the List of wine-producing countries, world's largest wine producer,
and one of the leading in olive oil, fruits (apples, olives, grapes, Orange (fruit), oranges, lemons, pears, apricots, hazelnuts, peaches, Cherry, cherries, plums, Strawberry, strawberries and kiwifruits), and vegetables (especially artichokes and tomatoes). The most famous Italian wines are probably the Tuscany (wine), Tuscan Chianti and the Piedmont (wine), Piedmontese Barolo. Other famous wines are Barbaresco, Barbera d'Asti, Brunello di Montalcino, Frascati DOC, Frascati, Montepulciano d'Abruzzo, Morellino di Scansano, and the sparkling wines Franciacorta DOCG, Franciacorta and Prosecco.
Quality goods in which Italy specialises, particularly the already mentioned wines and List of Italian DOP cheeses, regional cheeses, are often protected under the quality assurance labels Denominazione di origine controllata, DOC/DOP. This Geographical indications and traditional specialities in the European Union, geographical indication certificate, which is attributed by the
European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...
, is considered important in order to avoid confusion with low-quality mass-produced Ersatz good, ersatz products.
Transport
![Elettrotreno ETR](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ea/Elettrotreno_ETR.400.jpg)
Italy was the first country in the world to build motorways, the so-called ''Autostrade of Italy, autostrade'', reserved for fast traffic and for motor vehicles only.
Regarding the national road network, in 2002 there were of serviceable roads in Italy, including of motorways, state-owned but privately operated by Atlantia (company), Atlantia. In 2005, about 34,667,000 Automobile, passenger cars (590 cars per 1,000 people) and 4,015,000 goods vehicles circulated on the national road network.
![Porttrieste old](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a8/Porttrieste_old.jpg)
The rail transport in Italy, national railway network, state-owned and operated by Ferrovie dello Stato, Rete Ferroviaria Italiana (FSI), in 2008 totalled of which is electrified, and on which 4,802 locomotives and railcars run. The main public operator of high-speed trains is Trenitalia, part of FSI. Higher-speed trains are divided into three categories: Frecciarossa ( en, red arrow) trains operate at a maximum speed of 300 km/h on dedicated high-speed tracks; Frecciargento ( en, silver arrow) trains operate at a maximum speed of 250 km/h on both high-speed and mainline tracks; and Frecciabianca ( en, white arrow) trains operate on high-speed regional lines at a maximum speed of 200 km/h. Italy has 11 rail border crossings over the Alpine mountains with its neighbouring countries.
Italy is the fifth in Europe by number of passengers by air transport, with about 148 million passengers or about 10% of the European total in 2011. In 2022 there were 45 civil airports in Italy, including the two Airline hub, hubs of Malpensa International Airport in Milan and Leonardo da Vinci International Airport in Rome. Since October 2021, Italy's flag carrier airline is ITA Airways, which took over the brand, the IATA ticketing code, and many assets belonging to the former flag carrier Alitalia, after its bankruptcy.
In 2004 there were 43 major seaports, including the seaport of Genoa, the country's largest and second-largest in the
Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the ea ...
. In 2005 Italy maintained a civilian air fleet of about 389,000 units and a merchant fleet of 581 ships.
The national inland waterways network has a length of for commercial traffic in 2012.
Italy has been the final destination of the Silk Road for many centuries. In particular, the construction of the Suez Canal intensified sea trade with East Africa and
Asia
Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an area ...
from the 19th century. Since the end of the Cold War and increasing European integration, the trade relations, which were often interrupted in the 20th century, have intensified again and the northern Italian ports such as the deep-water port of Trieste in the northernmost part of the Mediterranean with its extensive rail connections to Central Europe, Central and Eastern Europe are once again the destination of government subsidies and significant foreign investment.
Energy
![Pannelli solari Unicoop Tirreno](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/53/Pannelli_solari_Unicoop_Tirreno.JPG)
In the last decade, Italy has become one of the world's List of countries by electricity production from renewable sources, largest producers of renewable energy, ranking as the second largest producer in the European Union and the ninth in the world. Wind power in Italy, Wind power, Hydroelectricity in Italy, hydroelectricity, and Geothermal power in Italy, geothermal power are also significant Electricity sector in Italy, sources of electricity in the country. Renewable energy in Italy, Renewable sources account for the 27.5% of all electricity produced in Italy, with hydro alone reaching 12.6%, followed by solar at 5.7%, wind at 4.1%, bioenergy at 3.5%, and geothermal at 1.6%.
The rest of the national demand is covered by fossil fuels (38.2% natural gas, 13% coal, 8.4% oil) and by imports.
Eni, with operations in 79 countries, is considered one of the seven "Supermajor" oil companies in the world, and one of the world's largest industrial companies.
Solar power in Italy, Solar energy production alone accounted for almost 9% of the total electric production in the country in 2014, making Italy the country with the highest contribution from solar energy in the world.
The Montalto di Castro Photovoltaic Power Station, completed in 2010, is the largest photovoltaic power station in Italy with 85 MW. Other examples of large PV plants in Italy are San Bellino (70.6 MW), Cellino san Marco (42.7 MW) and Sant’ Alberto (34.6 MW). Italy was the Geothermal power in Italy, first country in the world to exploit geothermal energy to produce electricity.
Italy had managed four nuclear reactors until the 1980s. However, nuclear power in Italy has been abandoned following a Italian referendums, 1987, 1987 referendum (in the wake of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in Soviet Ukraine), though Italy still import nuclear energy from Italy-owned reactors in foreign territories.
Science and technology
![Enrico Fermi 1943-49](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d4/Enrico_Fermi_1943-49.jpg)
Through the centuries, Italy has fostered the scientific community that produced many major discoveries in physics and the other sciences. During the
Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...
Italian polymaths such as Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519), Michelangelo (1475–1564) and Leon Battista Alberti (1404–1472) made contributions in a variety of fields, including biology, architecture, and engineering. Galileo Galilei (1564–1642), an astronomer, physicist, engineer, and polymath, played a major role in the Scientific Revolution. He is considered the "father" of observational astronomy, modern physics, the scientific method, and modern science.
Other astronomers such as Giovanni Domenico Cassini (1625–1712) and Giovanni Schiaparelli (1835–1910) made discoveries about the Solar System. In mathematics, Joseph Louis Lagrange (born Giuseppe Lodovico Lagrangia, 1736–1813) was active before leaving Italy. Fibonacci (c. 1170 – c. 1250), and Gerolamo Cardano (1501–1576) made fundamental advances in mathematics. Luca Pacioli established accounting to the world. Physicist Enrico Fermi (1901–1954), a Nobel prize laureate, led the team in Chicago that developed the Chicago Pile-1, first nuclear reactor. He is considered the "architect of the Atomic Age, nuclear age"
and the "architect of the atomic bomb".
He, Emilio G. Segrè (1905–1989) who discovered the elements technetium and astatine, and the antiproton), Bruno Rossi (1905–1993) a pioneer in Cosmic Rays and X-ray astronomy) and a number of Italian physicists were forced to leave Italy in the 1930s by Italian Racial Laws, Fascist laws against Jews.
Other prominent physicists include: Amedeo Avogadro (most noted for his contributions to molecular theory, in particular the Avogadro's law and the Avogadro constant), Evangelista Torricelli (inventor of barometer), Alessandro Volta (inventor of electric battery), Guglielmo Marconi (inventor of radio), Galileo Ferraris and Antonio Pacinotti, pioneers of the induction motor, Alessandro Cruto, pioneer of light bulb and Innocenzo Manzetti, eclectic pioneer of auto and robotics, Ettore Majorana (who discovered the Majorana fermions), Carlo Rubbia (1984 Nobel Prize in Physics for work leading to the discovery of the W and Z particles at CERN). Antonio Meucci is known for developing a voice-communication device which is often credited as the first telephone. Pier Giorgio Perotto in 1964 designed one of the first desktop programmable calculators, the Programma 101.
In biology, Francesco Redi has been the first to challenge the theory of spontaneous generation by demonstrating that maggots come from eggs of flies and he described 180 parasites in details and Marcello Malpighi founded microscopic anatomy, Lazzaro Spallanzani conducted research in bodily functions, animal reproduction, and cellular theory, Camillo Golgi, whose many achievements include the discovery of the Golgi complex, paved the way to the acceptance of the Neuron doctrine, Rita Levi-Montalcini discovered the nerve growth factor (awarded 1986 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine). In chemistry, Giulio Natta received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1963 for his work on high polymers. Giuseppe Occhialini received the Wolf Prize in Physics for the discovery of the pion or pi-meson decay in 1947. Ennio de Giorgi, a Wolf Prize in Mathematics recipient in 1990, solved Bernstein's problem about minimal surfaces and the Hilbert's nineteenth problem, 19th Hilbert problem on the regularity of solutions of Elliptic partial differential equations.
Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS) is the largest underground research center in the world. ELETTRA, Eurac Research, ESA Centre for Earth Observation, Institute for Scientific Interchange, International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, Centre for Maritime Research and Experimentation and the International Centre for Theoretical Physics conduct basic research. Trieste has the highest percentage of researchers in Europe in relation to the population. Italy was ranked 29th in the Global Innovation Index in 2021, up from 30th in 2019. There are numerous technology parks in Italy such as the Science and Technology Parks Kilometro Rosso (Bergamo), the AREA Science Park (Trieste), The VEGA-Venice Gateway for Science and Technology (Venezia), the Toscana Life Sciences (Siena), the Technology Park of Lodi Cluster (Lodi), and the Technology Park of Navacchio (Pisa), as well as science museums such as the Museo Nazionale Scienza e Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci in Milan, the Città della Scienza in Naples and the Institute and Museum of the History of Science in Florence.
Tourism
![Positano - Fornillo Beach](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bc/Positano_-_Fornillo_Beach.jpg)
People have visited Italy for centuries, yet the first to Tourism in Italy, visit the peninsula for touristic reasons were aristocrats during the Grand Tour, beginning in the 17th century, and flourishing in the 18th and the 19th century.
This was a period in which European aristocrats, many of whom were British, visited parts of Europe, with Italy as a key destination.
For Italy, this was in order to study ancient architecture, local culture and to admire the natural beauties.
Nowadays Italy is the World Tourism rankings, fifth most visited country in international tourism, with a total of 52.3 million international arrivals in 2016.
The total contribution of travel & tourism to GDP (including wider effects from investment, the supply chain and induced income impacts) was EUR162.7bn in 2014 (10.1% of GDP) and generated 1,082,000 jobs directly in 2014 (4.8% of total employment).
Factors of tourist interest in Italy are mainly Culture of Italy, culture,
cuisine
A cuisine is a style of cooking characterized by distinctive ingredients, techniques and dishes, and usually associated with a specific culture or geographic region. Regional food preparation techniques, customs, and ingredients combine to ...
, History of Italy, history,
fashion
Fashion is a form of self-expression and autonomy at a particular period and place and in a specific context, of clothing, footwear, lifestyle, accessories, makeup, hairstyle, and body posture. The term implies a look defined by the fashion in ...
, Architecture of Italy, architecture,
art
Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas.
There is no generally agreed definition of wha ...
, religious sites and routes, naturalistic beauties, nightlife, underwater sites and spas.
Winter and summer tourism are present in many locations in the
Alps
The Alps () ; german: Alpen ; it, Alpi ; rm, Alps ; sl, Alpe . are the highest and most extensive mountain range system that lies entirely in Europe, stretching approximately across seven Alpine countries (from west to east): France, Sw ...
and the Apennines,
while seaside tourism is widespread in coastal locations on the
Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the ea ...
.
Italy is the leading cruise tourism destination in the Mediterranean Sea.
The most visited regions of Italy, measured by nights spent in tourist accommodation establishments, are Veneto, Tuscany, Lombardy, Emilia-Romagna and Lazio.
Rome
, established_title = Founded
, established_date = 753 BC
, founder = King Romulus (legendary)
, image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg
, map_caption ...
is the 3rd most visited city in Europe and the 12th in the world, with 9.4 million arrivals in 2017 while Milan is the 27th worldwide with 6.8 million tourists. In addition, Venice and Florence are also among the world's top 100 destinations.
Italy is also the World Heritage Sites by country, country with the highest number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites in the world (58).
Out of Italy's 58 heritage sites, List of World Heritage Sites in Italy, 53 are cultural and 5 are natural. In Italy there is a broad variety of hotels, going from 1-5 stars. According to Italian National Institute of Statistics, ISTAT, in 2017, there were 32,988 hotels with 1,133,452 rooms and 2,239,446 beds.
As for non-hotel facilities (campsites, tourist villages, accommodations for rent, agritourism, etc.), in 2017 their number was 171,915 with 2,798,352 beds.
Demographics
![Map of population density in Italy (2011 census) alt colours](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/53/Map_of_population_density_in_Italy_%282011_census%29_alt_colours.jpg)
At the beginning of 2020, Italy had 60,317,116 inhabitants.
The resulting population density, at , is higher than that of most Western European countries. However, the distribution of the population is widely uneven. The most densely populated areas are the Po Valley (that accounts for almost a half of the national population) and the metropolitan areas of Rome and Naples, while vast regions such as the Alps and Apennines highlands, the plateaus of Basilicata and the island of Sardinia, as well as much of Sicily, are sparsely populated.
The population of Italy almost doubled during the 20th century, but the pattern of growth was extremely uneven because of large-scale Italian diaspora#Internal migrations, internal migration from the rural South to the industrial cities of the North, a phenomenon which happened as a consequence of the Italian economic miracle of the 1950–1960s. High fertility and birth rates persisted until the 1970s, after which they started to decline. The population rapidly population ageing, aged; by 2010, one in five
Italians
, flag =
, flag_caption = The national flag of Italy
, population =
, regions = Italy 55,551,000
, region1 = Brazil
, pop1 = 25–33 million
, ref1 =
, region2 ...
was over 65 years old, and the country currently has the fifth oldest population in the world, with a median age of 46.5 years.
However, in recent years Italy has experienced significant growth in birth rates. The total fertility rate has also climbed from an all-time low of 1.18 children per woman in 1995 to 1.41 in 2008, albeit still below the replacement rate of 2.1 and considerably below the high of 5.06 children born per woman in 1883. Nevertheless, the total fertility rate is expected to reach 1.6–1.8 in 2030.
From the late 19th century until the 1960s Italy was a country of mass emigration. Between 1898 and 1914, the peak years of Italian diaspora, approximately 750,000
Italians
, flag =
, flag_caption = The national flag of Italy
, population =
, regions = Italy 55,551,000
, region1 = Brazil
, pop1 = 25–33 million
, ref1 =
, region2 ...
emigrated each year. The diaspora concerned more than 25 million Italians and it is considered the biggest mass migration of contemporary times. As a result, today more than 4.1 million Italian citizens are living abroad,
while at least 60 million people of full or part Italian ancestry live outside of Italy, most notably in Italians in Argentina, Argentina, Italian Brazilians, Brazil, Italian Uruguayans, Uruguay, Italians in Venezuela, Venezuela, the Italians in the United States, United States, Italians in Canada, Canada, Italian Australians, Australia and Italians in France, France.
Largest cities
Immigration
![COB data Italy](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/61/COB_data_Italy.PNG)
In 2016, Italy had about 5.05 million foreign residents, making up 8.3% of the total population. The figures include more than half a million children born in Italy to foreign nationals (second generation immigrants) but exclude foreign nationals who have subsequently acquired Italian citizenship; in 2016, about 201,000 people became Italian citizens. The official figures also exclude Illegal immigration, illegal immigrants, who estimated to number at least 670,000 as of 2008.
Starting from the early 1980s, until then a linguistically and culturally homogeneous society, Italy begun to attract substantial flows of foreign immigrants. After the fall of the Berlin Wall and, more recently, the 2004 enlargement of the European Union, 2004 and 2004 enlargement of the European Union, 2007 enlargements of the European Union, large waves of migration originated from the former socialist countries of Eastern Europe (especially Romania, Albania, Ukraine and Poland). Another source of immigration is neighbouring North Africa (in particular, Morocco, Egypt and Tunisia), with soaring arrivals as a consequence of the Arab Spring. Furthermore, in recent years, growing migration fluxes from Asia-Pacific (notably China and the Philippines) and Latin America have been recorded.
Currently, about one million Romanian diaspora, Romanian citizens (around 10% of them being ethnic Romani people) are officially registered as living in Italy, representing the largest migrant population, followed by Albanians and Moroccans with about 500,000 people each. The number of unregistered Romanians is difficult to estimate, but the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network suggested in 2007 that there might have been half a million or more.
As of 2010, the foreign born population of Italy was from the following regions: Europe (54%), Africa (22%), Asia (16%), the Americas (8%) and Oceania (0.06%). The distribution of foreign population is geographically varied in Italy: in 2020, 61.2% of foreign citizens lived in Northern Italy (in particular 36.1% in the North West and 25.1% in the North East), 24.2% in the centre, 10.8% in the South and 3.9% in the Islands.
Languages
![Linguistic map of Italy](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ae/Linguistic_map_of_Italy.png)
Italy's official language is Italian language, Italian, as stated by the framework law no. 482/1999
and Trentino Alto-Adige's special Statute, which is adopted with a constitutional law. Around the world there are an estimated 64 million native Italian speakers
and another 21 million who use it as a second language.
[Italian language](_blank)
University of Leicester Italian is often natively spoken in a Regional Italian, regional variety, not to be confused with Italy's regional and minority languages; however, the establishment of a national education system led to a decrease in variation in the languages spoken across the country during the 20th century. Standardisation was further expanded in the 1950s and 1960s due to economic growth and the rise of Media of Italy, mass media and television (the state broadcaster RAI helped set a standard Italian).
Twelve "historical minority languages" (''minoranze linguistiche storiche'') are formally recognised: Arberesh language, Albanian, Catalan language, Catalan, German language, German, Greek language, Greek, Slovene language, Slovene, Croatian language, Croatian, French language, French, Franco-Provençal language, Franco-Provençal, Friulian, Ladin language, Ladin, Occitan language, Occitan and Sardinian language, Sardinian.
Four of these also enjoy a co-official status in their respective region: French in the Aosta Valley; German in
South Tyrol
it, Provincia Autonoma di Bolzano – Alto Adige lld, Provinzia Autonoma de Balsan/Bulsan – Südtirol
, settlement_type = Autonomous province
, image_skyline =
, image_alt ...
, and Ladin language, Ladin as well in some parts of the same province and in parts of the neighbouring Trentino; and Slovene language, Slovene in the provinces of Province of Trieste, Trieste, Province of Gorizia, Gorizia and Province of Udine, Udine. A number of other Ethnologue, ISO and UNESCO languages are not recognised by Italian law. Like France, Italy has signed the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, but has not ratified it.
Because of recent immigration, Italy has sizeable populations whose native language is not Italian, nor a regional language. According to the National Institute of Statistics (Italy), Italian National Institute of Statistics, Romanian people, Romanian is the most common mother tongue among foreign residents in Italy: almost 800,000 people speak Romanian as their first language (21.9% of the foreign residents aged 6 and over). Other prevalent mother tongues are Arabic (spoken by over 475,000 people; 13.1% of foreign residents), Albanian language, Albanian (380,000 people) and Spanish language, Spanish (255,000 people).
Religion
![Rome San Pietro](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1f/Rome_San_Pietro.jpg)
In 2017, the proportion of
Italians
, flag =
, flag_caption = The national flag of Italy
, population =
, regions = Italy 55,551,000
, region1 = Brazil
, pop1 = 25–33 million
, ref1 =
, region2 ...
who identified themselves as Roman Catholicism, Roman Catholic Christians was 74.4%. Since 1985, Catholicism is no longer officially the state religion. Italy has the Catholic Church by country, world's fifth-largest Catholic population, and is the largest Catholic nation in Europe.
The
Holy See
The Holy See ( lat, Sancta Sedes, ; it, Santa Sede ), also called the See of Rome, Petrine See or Apostolic See, is the jurisdiction of the Pope in his role as the bishop of Rome. It includes the apostolic episcopal see of the Diocese of Rome ...
, the Diocese of Rome, episcopal jurisdiction of Rome, contains the central government of the Catholic Church. It is recognised by other subjects of international law as a Sovereignty, sovereign entity, headed by the Pope, who is also the Bishop of Rome, with which diplomatic relations can be maintained. Often incorrectly referred to as "the Vatican", the Holy See is not the same entity as the
Vatican City
Vatican City (), officially the Vatican City State ( it, Stato della Città del Vaticano; la, Status Civitatis Vaticanae),—'
* german: Vatikanstadt, cf. '—' (in Austria: ')
* pl, Miasto Watykańskie, cf. '—'
* pt, Cidade do Vati ...
State because the Holy See is the jurisdiction and administrative entity of the Pope. The Vatican City came into existence only in 1929.
In 2011, minority Christian faiths in Italy included an estimated 1.5 million Orthodox Christians, or 2.5% of the population; 500,000 Pentecostals and Evangelicals (of whom 400,000 are members of the Assemblies of God), 251,192 Jehovah's Witnesses, 30,000 Waldensians, 25,000 Seventh-day Adventists, 26,925 The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Latter-day Saints, 15,000 Baptists (plus some 5,000 Free Baptists), 7,000 Lutherans, 4,000 Methodists (Union of Methodist and Waldensian Churches, affiliated with the Waldensian Church).
One of the longest-established minority religious faiths in Italy is Judaism, Italian Jews, Jews having been present in Ancient Rome since before the birth of Christ. Italy has for centuries welcomed Jews expelled from other countries, notably Spain. However, about 20% of Italian Jews were killed during the Holocaust.
[ p. 403] This, together with the emigration which preceded and followed World War II, has left only around 28,400 Jews in Italy.
Soaring immigration in the last two decades has been accompanied by an increase in non-Christian faiths. Following immigration from the Indian subcontinent, in Italy there are 120,000 Hindus, 70,000 Sikhs and 22 gurdwaras across the country.
The Italian state, as a measure to protect religious freedom, devolves shares of income tax to recognised religious communities, under a regime known as Eight per thousand. Donations are allowed to Christian, Jewish, Buddhist and Hindu communities; however, Islam remains excluded, since no Muslim communities have yet signed a concordat with the Italian state. Taxpayers who do not wish to fund a religion contribute their share to the state welfare system.
Education
![Archiginnasio ora blu Bologna](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e7/Archiginnasio_ora_blu_Bologna.jpg)
Education in Italy is free and mandatory from ages six to sixteen, and consists of five stages: kindergarten (''scuola dell'infanzia''), primary school (''scuola primaria''), lower secondary school (''scuola secondaria di primo grado''), upper secondary school (''scuola secondaria di secondo grado'') and university (''università'').
Primary education lasts eight years. Students are given a basic education in Italian, English, mathematics, natural sciences, history, geography, social studies, physical education and visual and musical arts. Secondary education lasts for five years and includes three traditional types of schools focused on different academic levels: the ''Secondary education in Italy#liceo, liceo'' prepares students for university studies with a classical or scientific curriculum, while the ''istituto tecnico'' and the ''Istituto professionale'' prepare pupils for vocational education.
In 2018, the Italian secondary education was evaluated as below the
OECD
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD; french: Organisation de coopération et de développement économiques, ''OCDE'') is an intergovernmental organisation with 38 member countries, founded in 1961 to stimulate e ...
average.
Italy scored below the
OECD
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD; french: Organisation de coopération et de développement économiques, ''OCDE'') is an intergovernmental organisation with 38 member countries, founded in 1961 to stimulate e ...
average in reading and science, and near OECD average in mathematics. Mean performance in Italy declined in reading and science, and remained stable in mathematics.
Trento and Bolzano scored at an above the national average in reading.
Compared to school children in other
OECD
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD; french: Organisation de coopération et de développement économiques, ''OCDE'') is an intergovernmental organisation with 38 member countries, founded in 1961 to stimulate e ...
countries, children in Italy missed out on a greater amount of learning due to absences and indiscipline in classrooms. A wide gap exists between northern Italy, northern schools, which perform near average, and schools in the Southern Italy, South, that had much poorer results.
Tertiary education in Italy is divided between List of universities in Italy, public universities, private universities and the prestigious and selective Superior Graduate Schools in Italy, superior graduate schools, such as the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa. 33 Italian universities were ranked among the world's top 500 in 2019, the third-largest number in Europe after the United Kingdom and Germany. Bologna University, founded in 1088, is the list of oldest universities in continuous operation, oldest university in continuous operation, as well as one of the leading academic institutions in Italy and Europe. The Bocconi University, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Libera Università Internazionale degli Studi Sociali Guido Carli, LUISS, Polytechnic University of Turin, Polytechnic University of Milan, Sapienza University of Rome, and University of Milan are also ranked among the best in the world.
Health
![Oil-1383546 1920](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f6/Oil-1383546_1920.jpg)
Life expectancy in the country is 80 for males and 85 for females, placing the country List of countries by life expectancy, 5th in the world for life expectancy. In comparison to other Western countries, Italy has a relatively low rate of adult obesity (below 10%
), as there are several health benefits of the Mediterranean diet.
The proportion of daily smokers was 22% in 2012, down from 24.4% in 2000 but still slightly above the OECD average.
Smoking in public places including bars, restaurants, night clubs and offices has been restricted to specially ventilated rooms since 2005. In 2013, UNESCO added the Mediterranean diet to the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity of Italy (promoter), Morocco, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Cyprus and Croatia.
The Italian state runs a universal public healthcare system since 1978.
However, healthcare is provided to all citizens and residents by a mixed public-private system. The public part is the ''Servizio Sanitario Nazionale'', which is organised under the Ministry of Health and administered on a devolved regional basis. Healthcare spending accounted for 9.7% of GDP in 2020. Healthcare in Italy, Italy's healthcare system is consistently ranked among the best in the world. In 2018 Italy's healthcare is ranked 20th in Europe in the Euro health consumer index, Euro Health Consumer Index.
Culture
![Venice Carnival (2010)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5b/Venice_Carnival_%282010%29.jpg)
Italy is considered one of the birthplaces of Western culture, western civilization and a Power (international relations)#Power as status, cultural superpower. Divided by politics and geography for centuries until its eventual unification in 1861, Italy's culture has been shaped by a multitude of regional customs and local centres of power and patronage. Italy has had a central role in Western culture for centuries and is still recognised for its cultural traditions and artists. During the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, a number of Court (royal), courts competed to attract architects, artists and scholars, thus producing a legacy of monuments, paintings, music and literature. Despite the political and social isolation of these courts, Italy has made a substantial contribution to the cultural and historical heritage of Europe.
Italy has rich collections of art, culture and literature from many periods. The country has had a broad cultural influence worldwide, also because numerous Italians emigrated to other places during the Italian diaspora. Furthermore, Italy has, overall, an estimated 100,000 monuments of any sort (museums, palaces, buildings, statues, churches, art galleries, villas, fountains, historic houses and archaeological remains),
[Eyewitness Travel (2005), pg. 19] and according to some estimates the nation is home to half the world's art treasures.
Architecture
Italy is known for its considerable architectural achievements, such as the construction of arches, domes and similar structures during ancient Rome, the founding of the Renaissance architecture, Renaissance architectural movement in the late-14th to 16th centuries, and being the homeland of Palladianism, a style of construction which inspired movements such as that of Neoclassical architecture, and influenced the designs which noblemen built their country houses all over the world, notably in the UK, Australia and the US during the late 17th to early 20th centuries.
Along with pre-historic architecture, the first people in Italy to truly begin a sequence of designs were the Greeks and the Etruscans, progressing to classical Roman, then to the revival of the classical Roman era during the Renaissance and evolving into the Baroque era. The Christian concept of a Basilica, a style of church architecture that came to dominate the early Middle Ages, was invented in Rome. They were known for being long, rectangular buildings, which were built in an almost ancient Roman style, often rich in mosaics and decorations. The early Christians' art and architecture was also widely inspired by that of the pagan Romans; statues, mosaics and paintings decorated all their churches.
[Italy Architecture: Early Christian and Byzanthine]
, ItalyTravel.com The first significant buildings in the medieval Romanesque style were churches built in Italy during the 800s. Byzantine architecture was also widely diffused in Italy. The Byzantines kept Roman principles of architecture and art alive, and the most famous structure from this period is the St Mark's Basilica, Basilica of St Mark in Venice.
The Romanesque movement, which went from approximately 800 AD to 1100 AD, was one of the most fruitful and creative periods in Italian architecture, when several masterpieces, such as the Leaning Tower of Pisa in the Piazza dei Miracoli, and the Basilica of Sant'Ambrogio in Milan were built. It was known for its usage of the Roman arches, stained glass windows, and also its curved columns which commonly featured in cloisters. The main innovation of Italian Romanesque architecture was the vault, which had never been seen before in the history of Western architecture.
[Italy Architecture: Romanesque]
, ItalyTravel.com
A flowering of Italian architecture took place during the Renaissance. Filippo Brunelleschi contributed to architectural design with his dome for the Cathedral of Florence, a feat of engineering that had not been accomplished since antiquity. A popular achievement of Italian Renaissance architecture was St. Peter's Basilica, originally designed by Donato Bramante in the early 16th century. Also, Andrea Palladio influenced architects throughout western Europe with the villas and palaces he designed in the middle and late 16th century; the city of Vicenza, with its twenty-three buildings designed by Palladio, and twenty-four Palladian Villas of the Veneto are listed by UNESCO as part of a World Heritage Site named City of Vicenza and the Palladian Villas of the Veneto.
The Baroque period produced several outstanding Italian architects in the 17th century, especially known for their churches. The most original work of all late Baroque and Rococo architecture is the Palazzina di caccia di Stupinigi, dating back to the 18th century. Luigi Vanvitelli began in 1752 the construction of the Royal Palace of Caserta. In this large complex, the grandiose Baroque style interiors and gardens are opposed to a more sober building envelope. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries Italy was affected by the Neoclassical architectural movement. Villas, palaces, gardens, interiors and art began to be based on Roman and Greek themes.
[Italy Architecture: Neoclassicism]
, ItalyTravel.com
During the Fascist period, the so-called "Novecento movement" flourished, based on the rediscovery of imperial Rome, with figures such as Gio Ponti and Giovanni Muzio. Marcello Piacentini, responsible for the urban transformations of several cities in Italy and remembered for the disputed Via della Conciliazione in Rome, devised a form of simplified Neoclassicism.
Visual art
The history of Italian visual arts is significant to the history of Western painting. Roman art was influenced by Greece and can in part be taken as a descendant of ancient Greek painting. Roman painting does have its own unique characteristics. The only surviving Roman paintings are wall paintings, many from villas in Campania, in Southern Italy. Such paintings can be grouped into four main "styles" or periods and may contain the first examples of trompe-l'œil, pseudo-perspective, and pure landscape.
Panel painting becomes more common during the Romanesque art, Romanesque period, under the heavy influence of Byzantine icons. Towards the middle of the 13th century, Medieval art and Gothic painting became more realistic, with the beginnings of interest in the depiction of volume and perspective in Italy with Cimabue and then his pupil Giotto. From Giotto onwards, the treatment of composition in painting became much more free and innovative.
!['David' by Michelangelo Fir JBU004](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bb/%27David%27_by_Michelangelo_Fir_JBU004.jpg)
The Italian Renaissance is said by many to be the Golden Age (metaphor), golden age of painting; roughly spanning the 14th through the mid-17th centuries with a significant influence also out of the borders of modern Italy. In Italy artists like Paolo Uccello, Fra Angelico, Masaccio, Piero della Francesca, Andrea Mantegna, Filippo Lippi, Giorgione, Tintoretto, Sandro Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo Buonarroti, Raphael, Giovanni Bellini, and Titian took painting to a higher level through the use of Perspective (graphical), perspective, the study of human anatomy and proportion, and through their development of refined drawing and painting techniques. Michelangelo was active as a sculptor from about 1500 to 1520; works include his ''David (Michelangelo), David'', ''Pietà (Michelangelo), Pietà'', ''Moses (Michelangelo), Moses''. Other Renaissance sculptors include Lorenzo Ghiberti, Luca Della Robbia, Donatello, Filippo Brunelleschi and Andrea del Verrocchio.
In the 15th and 16th centuries, the High Renaissance gave rise to a stylised art known as Mannerism. In place of the balanced compositions and rational approach to perspective that characterised art at the dawn of the 16th century, the Mannerists sought instability, artifice, and doubt. The unperturbed faces and gestures of Piero della Francesca and the calm Virgins of Raphael are replaced by the troubled expressions of Pontormo and the emotional intensity of El Greco.
![Sandro Botticelli - La nascita di Venere - Google Art Project - edited](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0b/Sandro_Botticelli_-_La_nascita_di_Venere_-_Google_Art_Project_-_edited.jpg)
In the 17th century, among the greatest painters of Italian Baroque are Caravaggio, Annibale Carracci, Artemisia Gentileschi, Mattia Preti, Carlo Saraceni and Bartolomeo Manfredi. Subsequently, in the 18th century, Italian Rococo art, Italian Rococo was mainly inspired by French Rococo, since France was the founding nation of that particular style, with artists such as Giovanni Battista Tiepolo and Canaletto. Italian Neoclassical sculpture focused, with Antonio Canova's nudes, on the idealist aspect of the movement.
In the 19th century, major Italian Romantic painting, Romantic painters were Francesco Hayez, Giuseppe Bezzuoli and Francesco Podesti. Impressionism was brought from France to Italy by the ''Macchiaioli'', led by Giovanni Fattori, and Giovanni Boldini; Realism (arts), Realism by Gioacchino Toma and Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo. In the 20th century, with Futurism, primarily through the works of Umberto Boccioni and Giacomo Balla, Italy rose again as a seminal country for artistic evolution in painting and sculpture. Futurism was succeeded by the metaphysical paintings of Giorgio de Chirico, who exerted a strong influence on the Surrealists and generations of artists to follow like Bruno Caruso and Renato Guttuso.
Literature
Formal Latin literature began in 240 BC, when the first stage play was performed in Rome. Latin literature was, and still is, highly influential in the world, with numerous writers, poets, philosophers, and historians, such as
Pliny the Elder
Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/2479), called Pliny the Elder (), was a Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic '' ...
, Pliny the Younger, Virgil, Horace, Propertius, Ovid and Livy. The Romans were also famous for their oral tradition, poetry, drama and epigrams. In early years of the 13th century, St. Francis of Assisi was considered the first Italian poet by literary critics, with his religious song ''Canticle of the Sun''.
![Dante Domenico di Michelino Duomo Florence](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/58/Dante_Domenico_di_Michelino_Duomo_Florence.jpg)
Another Italian voice originated in Sicily. At the court of Emperor Frederick II, who ruled the Sicilian kingdom during the first half of the 13th century, lyrics modelled on Provençal forms and themes were written in a refined version of the local vernacular. One of these poets was the notary Giacomo da Lentini, inventor of the sonnet form, though the most famous early sonneteer was Petrarch.
Guido Guinizelli is considered the founder of the ''Dolce Stil Novo'', a school that added a philosophical dimension to traditional love poetry. This new understanding of love, expressed in a smooth, pure style, influenced Guido Cavalcanti and the Florence, Florentine poet Dante Alighieri, who established the basis of the modern Italian language; his greatest work, the ''Divine Comedy'', is considered among the foremost literary statements produced in Europe during the Middle Ages; furthermore, the poet invented the difficult ''terza rima''. Two major writers of the 14th century, Petrarch and Giovanni Boccaccio, sought out and imitated the works of antiquity and cultivated their own artistic personalities. Petrarch achieved fame through his collection of poems, ''Il Canzoniere''. Petrarch's love poetry served as a model for centuries. Equally influential was Boccaccio's ''The Decameron'', one of the most popular collections of short stories ever written.
![Portrait of Niccolò Machiavelli by Santi di Tito](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e2/Portrait_of_Niccol%C3%B2_Machiavelli_by_Santi_di_Tito.jpg)
Italian Renaissance authors produced works including Niccolò Machiavelli's ''The Prince'', an essay on political science and modern philosophy in which the "effectual truth" is taken to be more important than any abstract ideal; Ludovico Ariosto's ''Orlando Furioso'', continuation of Matteo Maria Boiardo's unfinished romance ''Orlando Innamorato''; and Baldassare Castiglione's dialogue ''The Book of the Courtier'' which describes the ideal of the perfect court gentleman and of spiritual beauty. The lyric poet Torquato Tasso in ''Jerusalem Delivered'' wrote a Christian epic in ''ottava rima'', with attention to the Aristotelian canons of unity.
Giovanni Francesco Straparola and Giambattista Basile, which have written ''The Facetious Nights of Straparola'' (1550–1555) and the ''Pentamerone'' (1634) respectively, printed some of the first known versions of fairy tales in Europe. In the early 17th century, some literary masterpieces were created, such as Giambattista Marino's long mythological poem, ''Giambattista Marino#L'Adone, L'Adone''. The Baroque period also produced the clear scientific prose of Galileo Galilei, Galileo as well as Tommaso Campanella's ''The City of the Sun'', a description of a perfect society ruled by a philosopher-priest. At the end of the 17th century, the Academy of Arcadia, Arcadians began a movement to restore simplicity and classical restraint to poetry, as in Metastasio's heroic melodramas. In the 18th century, playwright Carlo Goldoni created full written plays, many portraying the middle class of his day.
![Pinocchio](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/Pinocchio.jpg)
The Romanticism coincided with some ideas of the ''Risorgimento'', the patriotic movement that brought Italy political unity and freedom from foreign domination. Italian writers embraced Romanticism in the early 19th century. The time of Italy's rebirth was heralded by the poets Vittorio Alfieri, Ugo Foscolo, and Giacomo Leopardi. The works by Alessandro Manzoni, the leading Italian Romantic, are a symbol of the Italian unification for their patriotic message and because of his efforts in the development of the modern, unified Italian language; his novel ''The Betrothed (Manzoni novel), The Betrothed'' was the first Italian historical novel to glorify Christian values of justice and Providence, and it has been called the most famous and widely read novel in the Italian language.
[Archibald Colquhoun. ''Manzoni and his Times.'' J.M. Dent & Sons, London, 1954.]
In the late 19th century, a realistic literary movement called ''Verismo (literature), Verismo'' played a major role in Italian literature; Giovanni Verga and Luigi Capuana were its main exponents. In the same period, Emilio Salgari, writer of action-adventure swashbucklers and a pioneer of science fiction, published his ''Sandokan'' series. In 1883, Carlo Collodi also published the novel ''The Adventures of Pinocchio'', the most celebrated children's classic by an Italian author and one of the List of literary works by number of translations, most translated non-religious books in the world.
[Giovanni Gasparini. ''La corsa di Pinocchio''. Milano, Vita e Pensiero, 1997. p. 117. ] A movement called Futurism influenced Italian literature in the early 20th century. Filippo Tommaso Marinetti wrote ''Manifesto of Futurism'', called for the use of language and metaphors that glorified the speed, dynamism, and violence of the machine age.
Modern literary figures and Nobel laureates are Gabriele D'Annunzio from 1889 to 1910, nationalist poet Giosuè Carducci in 1906, realist writer Grazia Deledda in 1926, modern theatre author Luigi Pirandello in 1936, short stories writer Italo Calvino in 1960, poets Salvatore Quasimodo in 1959 and Eugenio Montale in 1975, Umberto Eco in 1980, and satirist and theatre author Dario Fo in 1997.
Philosophy
Over the ages, Italian philosophy and literature had a vast influence on Western philosophy, beginning with the Greeks and Romans, and going onto Renaissance humanism, the Age of Enlightenment and modern philosophy.
Philosophy was brought to Italy by Pythagoras, founder of the Italian school of philosophy in Crotone,
Magna Graecia
Magna Graecia (, ; , , grc, Μεγάλη Ἑλλάς, ', it, Magna Grecia) was the name given by the Romans to the coastal areas of Southern Italy in the present-day Italian regions of Calabria, Apulia, Basilicata, Campania and Sicily; these re ...
. Major Italian philosophers of the Greek period include Xenophanes, Parmenides, Zeno of Elea, Zeno, Empedocles and Gorgias. Roman philosophers include Cicero, Lucretius, Seneca the Younger, Musonius Rufus, Plutarch, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Clement of Alexandria, Sextus Empiricus, Alexander of Aphrodisias, Plotinus, Porphyry (philosopher), Porphyry, Iamblichus (philosopher), Iamblichus, Augustine of Hippo, John Philoponus, Philoponus of Alexandria and Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius, Boethius.
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Italian Medieval philosophy was mainly Christian, and included philosophers and theologians such as St Thomas Aquinas, the foremost classical proponent of natural theology and the father of Thomism, who reintroduced Aristotelianism, Aristotelian philosophy to Christianity. Notable Renaissance philosophers include: Giordano Bruno, one of the major scientific figures of the western world; Marsilio Ficino, one of the most influential humanist philosophers of the period; and Niccolò Machiavelli, one of the main founders of modern political science. Machiavelli's most famous work was ''The Prince'', whose contribution to the history of political thought is the fundamental break between political Realism (international relations), realism and political idealism. Italy was also affected by the Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment, a movement which was a consequence of the Renaissance. University cities such as Padua, Bologna and Naples remained centres of scholarship and the intellect, with several philosophers such as Giambattista Vico (widely regarded as being the founder of modern Italian philosophy) and Antonio Genovesi. Cesare Beccaria was a significant Enlightenment figure and is now considered one of the fathers of Classical school (criminology), classical criminal theory as well as modern penology. Beccaria is famous for his ''On Crimes and Punishments'' (1764), a treatise that served as one of the earliest prominent condemnations of torture and the death penalty and thus a landmark work in anti-death penalty philosophy.
Italy also had a renowned philosophical movement in the 1800s, with Idealism, Sensism and Empiricism. The main Sensist Italian philosophers were Melchiorre Gioja and Gian Domenico Romagnosi. Criticism of the Sensist movement came from other philosophers such as Pasquale Galluppi (1770–1846), who affirmed that ''a priori'' relationships were synthetic. Antonio Rosmini, instead, was the founder of Italian idealism. During the late 19th and 20th centuries, there were also several other movements which gained some form of popularity in Italy, such as Ontologism (whose main philosopher was Vincenzo Gioberti), Anarchism in Italy, anarchism, communism, socialism, futurism, fascism and Christian democracy. Giovanni Gentile and Benedetto Croce were two of the most significant 20th-century Idealist philosophers. Anarcho-communism first fully formed into its modern strain within the Italian section of the First International. Antonio Gramsci remains a relevant philosopher within Marxist and communist theory, credited with creating the theory of cultural hegemony. Italian philosophers were also influential in the development of the non-Marxist liberal socialism philosophy, including Carlo Rosselli, Norberto Bobbio, Piero Gobetti and Aldo Capitini. In the 1960s, many Italian left-wing activists adopted the anti-authoritarian pro-working class leftist theories that would become known as autonomism and ''operaismo''.
Early Feminism in Italy, Italian feminists include Sibilla Aleramo, Alaide Gualberta Beccari, and Anna Maria Mozzoni, though proto-feminist philosophies had previously been touched upon by earlier Italian writers such as Christine de Pizan, Moderata Fonte, and Lucrezia Marinella. Italian physician and educator Maria Montessori is credited with the creation of the Montessori education, philosophy of education that bears her name, an educational philosophy now practiced throughout the world.[ Giuseppe Peano was one of the founders of analytic philosophy and contemporary philosophy of mathematics. Recent analytic philosophers include Carlo Penco, Gloria Origgi, Pieranna Garavaso and Luciano Floridi.][
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Theatre
Italian theatre originates from the Middle Ages, with its background dating back to the times of the Ancient Greece, ancient Greek colonies of Magna Graecia
Magna Graecia (, ; , , grc, Μεγάλη Ἑλλάς, ', it, Magna Grecia) was the name given by the Romans to the coastal areas of Southern Italy in the present-day Italian regions of Calabria, Apulia, Basilicata, Campania and Sicily; these re ...
, in Southern Italy, the theatre of the Italic peoples
The Italic peoples were an ethnolinguistic group identified by their use of Italic languages, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
The Italic peoples are descended from the Indo-European speaking peoples who inhabited Italy from at leas ...
and the theatre of ancient Rome. It can therefore be assumed that there were two main lines of which the ancient Italian theatre developed in the Middle Ages. The first, consisting of the dramatization of Catholic liturgies and of which more documentation is retained, and the second, formed by pagan forms of spectacle such as the staging for city festivals, the court preparations of the jesters and the songs of the troubadours. The Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...
theatre marked the beginning of the modern theatre due to the rediscovery and study of the classics, the ancient theatrical texts were recovered and translated, which were soon staged at the court and in the curtensi halls, and then moved to real theatre. In this way the idea of theatre came close to that of today: a performance in a designated place in which the public participates. In the late 15th century two cities were important centres for the rediscovery and renewal of theatrical art: Ferrara and Rome
, established_title = Founded
, established_date = 753 BC
, founder = King Romulus (legendary)
, image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg
, map_caption ...
. The first, vital centre of art in the second half of the fifteenth century, saw the staging of some of the most famous Latin works by Plautus, rigorously translated into Italian.
During the 16th century and on into the 18th century, ''Commedia dell'arte'' was a form of improvisational theatre, and it is still performed today. Travelling troupes of players would set up an outdoor stage and provide amusement in the form of juggling, acrobatics and, more typically, humorous plays based on a repertoire of established characters with a rough storyline, called ''canovaccio''. Plays did not originate from written drama but from scenarios called lazzi, which were loose frameworks that provided the situations, complications, and outcome of the action, around which the actors would improvise. The characters of the ''commedia'' usually represent fixed social types and stock characters, each of which has a distinct Costumes in commedia dell'arte, costume, such as foolish old men, devious servants, or military officers full of false bravery, bravado. The main categories of these characters include servants, old men, lovers, and captains.
The first recorded ''Commedia dell'arte'' performances came from Rome as early as 1551, and was performed outdoors in temporary venues by professional actors who were costumed and masked, as opposed to , which were written comedies, presented indoors by untrained and unmasked actors. By the mid-16th century, specific troupes of ''commedia'' performers began to coalesce, and by 1568 the I Gelosi, Gelosi became a distinct company. ''Commedia'' often performed inside in court theatres or halls, and also in some fixed theatres such as Teatro Baldrucca in Florence. Flaminio Scala, who had been a minor performer in the Gelosi published the scenarios of the ''Commedia dell'arte'' around the start of the 17th century, really in an effort to legitimise the form—and ensure its legacy. These scenari are highly structured and built around the symmetry of the various types in duet: two , , and , among others.
In ''Commedia dell'arte'', female roles were played by women, documented as early as the 1560s, making them the first known professional actresses in Europe since antiquity. Lucrezia Di Siena, whose name is on a contract of actors from 10 October 1564, has been referred to as the first Italian actress known by name, with Vincenza Armani and Barbara Flaminia as the first primadonnas and the first well-documented actresses in Europe.
The Ballet dance genre also originated in Italy. It began during the Italian Renaissance court as an outgrowth of court pageantry, where aristocratic weddings were lavish celebrations. Court musicians and dancers collaborated to provide elaborate entertainment for them. Domenico da Piacenza was one of the first dancing masters. Along with his students, Antonio Cornazzano and Guglielmo Ebreo, he was trained in dance and responsible for teaching nobles the art. Da Piacenza left one work: ''De arte saltandi et choreus ducendi'' (On the art of dancing and conducting dances), which was put together by his students.
At first, ballets were woven into the midst of an opera to allow the audience a moment of relief from the dramatic intensity. By the mid-seventeenth century, Italian ballets in their entirety were performed in between the acts of an opera. Over time, Italian ballets became part of theatrical life: ballet companies in Italy's major opera houses employed an average of four to twelve dancers; in 1815 many companies employed anywhere from eighty to one hundred dancers.
Carlo Goldoni, who wrote a few scenarios starting in 1734, superseded the comedy of masks and the comedy of intrigue by representations of actual life and manners through the characters and their behaviours. He rightly maintained that Italian life and manners were susceptible of artistic treatment such as had not been given them before. Italian theatre has been active in producing contemporary European work and in staging revivals, including the works of Luigi Pirandello and Dario Fo.
The Teatro di San Carlo in Naples is the oldest continuously active venue for public opera in the world, opening in 1737, decades before both Milan's La Scala and Venice's La Fenice theatres.
Music
From Italian folk music, folk music to European classical music, classical, music is an intrinsic part of Italian culture. Instruments associated with classical music, including the piano and violin, were invented in Italy, and many of the prevailing classical music forms, such as the symphony, concerto, and sonata, can trace their roots back to innovations of 16th- and 17th-century Italian music.
Italy's most famous composers include the List of Renaissance composers#Italian, Renaissance composers Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Palestrina, Claudio Monteverdi, Monteverdi and Carlo Gesualdo, Gesualdo, the List of Baroque composers, Baroque composers Domenico Scarlatti, Scarlatti, Arcangelo Corelli, Corelli and Antonio Vivaldi, Vivaldi, the List of Classical era composers, Classical composers Giovanni Paisiello, Paisiello, Niccolò Paganini, Paganini and Gioachino Rossini, Rossini, and the List of Romantic-era composers, Romantic composers Giuseppe Verdi, Verdi and Giacomo Puccini, Puccini. Modern Italian composers such as Luciano Berio, Berio and Luigi Nono (composer), Nono proved significant in the development of experimental music, experimental and electronic music. While the classical music tradition still holds strong in Italy, as evidenced by the fame of its innumerable opera houses, such as ''La Scala'' of Milan and ''Teatro di San Carlo, San Carlo'' of Naples (the oldest continuously active venue for public opera in the world), and performers such as the pianist Maurizio Pollini and tenor Luciano Pavarotti, Italians
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, flag_caption = The national flag of Italy
, population =
, regions = Italy 55,551,000
, region1 = Brazil
, pop1 = 25–33 million
, ref1 =
, region2 ...
have been no less appreciative of their thriving contemporary music scene.
Italy is widely known for being the birthplace of opera. Italian opera was believed to have been founded in the early 17th century, in cities such as Mantua and Venice. Later, works and pieces composed by native Italian composers of the 19th and early 20th centuries, such as Rossini, Vincenzo Bellini, Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi and Puccini, are among the most famous operas ever written and today are performed in opera houses across the world. La Scala operahouse in Milan is also renowned as one of the best in the world. Famous Italian opera singers include Enrico Caruso and Alessandro Bonci.
Introduced in the early 1920s, jazz took a particularly strong foothold in Italy, and remained popular despite the xenophobic cultural policies of the Fascist regime. Today, the most notable centres of jazz music in Italy include Milan, Rome, and Sicily. Later, Italy was at the forefront of the progressive rock and pop movement of the 1970s, with bands like Premiata Forneria Marconi, PFM, Banco del Mutuo Soccorso, Le Orme, Goblin (band), Goblin, and Pooh (band), Pooh. The same period saw diversification in the cinema of Italy, and Cinecittà films included complex scores by composers including Ennio Morricone, Armando Trovaioli, Piero Piccioni and Piero Umiliani. In the early 1980s, the first star to emerge from the Italian hip hop scene was singer Jovanotti. Italian metal bands include Rhapsody of Fire, Lacuna Coil, Elvenking (band), Elvenking, Forgotten Tomb, and Fleshgod Apocalypse.
Italy contributed to the development of disco and electronic music, with Italo disco, known for its futuristic sound and prominent use of synthesisers and drum machines, being one of the earliest electronic dance genres, as well as European forms of disco aside from Euro disco (which later went on to influence several genres such as Eurodance and Nu-disco). By the latter half of the 1990s, a subgenre of Eurodance known as Italo dance emerged. Taking influences from Italo disco and Italo house, Italo dance generally included synthesizer riffs, a melodic sound, and the usage of vocoders. Notable Italian DJs and remixers include Gabry Ponte (member of the group Eiffel 65), Benny Benassi, Gigi D'Agostino, and the trio Tacabro.
Producers such as Giorgio Moroder, who won three Academy Awards and four Golden Globe Award, Golden Globes for his music, were highly influential in the development of electronic dance music. Today, Italian pop music is represented annually with the Sanremo Music Festival, which served as inspiration for the Eurovision song contest, and the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto. Singers such as Mina (Italian singer), Mina, Andrea Bocelli, Grammy winner Laura Pausini, Zucchero Fornaciari, Zucchero, Eros Ramazzotti, Elisa (Italian singer), Elisa, Tiziano Ferro and Mahmood (singer), Mahmood have attained international acclaim.
Gigliola Cinquetti, Toto Cutugno, and Måneskin have won the Eurovision Song Contest, in Eurovision Song Contest 1964, 1964, Eurovision Song Contest 1990, 1990, and Eurovision Song Contest 2021, 2021 respectively.
Cinema
The history of Cinema of Italy, Italian cinema began a few months after the Auguste and Louis Lumière, Lumière brothers began motion picture exhibitions. The first Italian director is considered to be Vittorio Calcina, a collaborator of the Lumière Brothers, who filmed Pope Leo XIII in 1896. In the 1910s the Italian film industry developed rapidly. In 1912, the year of the greatest expansion, 569 films were produced in Turin, 420 in Rome and 120 in Milan. ''Cabiria'', a 1914 Italian epic film directed by Giovanni Pastrone, is considered the most famous Italian silent film. It was also the first film in history to be shown in the White House. The oldest European avant-garde cinema movement, Italian Futurism (cinema), Italian futurism, took place in the late 1910s.
After a period of decline in the 1920s, the Italian film industry was revitalized in the 1930s with the arrival of sound film. A popular Italian genre during this period, the Telefoni Bianchi, consisted of comedies with glamorous backgrounds. Calligrafismo was instead in a sharp contrast to Telefoni Bianchi-American style comedies and is rather Imitation (art), artistic, highly Formalism (art), formalistic, Expressionism, expressive in complexity and deals mainly with contemporary literary material. Cinema was later used by Benito Mussolini, who founded Rome's renowned Cinecittà studio also for the production of Propaganda in Fascist Italy, Fascist propaganda until World War II.
After the war, Italian film was widely recognised and exported until an artistic decline around the 1980s. List of film directors from Italy, Notable Italian film directors from this period include Vittorio De Sica, Federico Fellini, Sergio Leone, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Luchino Visconti, Michelangelo Antonioni, Duccio Tessari, Dussio Tessari and Roberto Rossellini; some of these are recognised among the greatest and most influential filmmakers of all time. Movies include world cinema treasures such as ''Bicycle Thieves'', ''La dolce vita'', ''8½'', ''The Good, the Bad and the Ugly'', and ''Once Upon a Time in the West''. The mid-1940s to the early 1950s was the heyday of Italian neorealism, neorealist films, reflecting the poor condition of post-war Italy.
As the country grew wealthier in the 1950s, a form of neorealism known as pink neorealism succeeded, and starting from the 1950s through the Commedia all'italiana genre, and other film genres, such as sword-and-sandal followed as Spaghetti Westerns, were popular in the 1960s and 1970s. Actresses such as Sophia Loren, Giulietta Masina and Gina Lollobrigida achieved international stardom during this period. Erotic Italian thrillers, or giallos, produced by directors such as Mario Bava and Dario Argento in the 1970s, also influenced the horror genre worldwide. In recent years, the Italian scene has received only occasional international attention, with movies like ''Cinema Paradiso'' written and directed by Giuseppe Tornatore, ''Mediterraneo'' directed by Gabriele Salvatores, ''Life Is Beautiful'' directed by Roberto Benigni, ''Il Postino: The Postman'' with Massimo Troisi and ''The Great Beauty'' directed by Paolo Sorrentino.
The aforementioned Cinecittà studio is today the largest film and television production facility in Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
, where many international box office hits were filmed. In the 1950s, the number of international productions being made there led to Rome's being dubbed "''Hollywood on the Tiber''". More than 3,000 productions have been made on its lot, of which 90 received an Academy Award nomination and 47 of these won it, from some cinema classics to recent rewarded features (such as ''Roman Holiday'', ''Ben-Hur (1959 film), Ben-Hur'', ''Cleopatra (1963 film), Cleopatra'', ''Romeo and Juliet (1968 film), Romeo and Juliet'', ''The English Patient (film), The English Patient'', ''The Passion of the Christ'', and ''Gangs of New York'').
Italy is the most awarded country at the Academy Awards for Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, Best Foreign Language Film, with 14 awards won, 3 Academy Honorary Award, Special Awards and 28 List of Italian submissions for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, nominations. , Italian films have also won 12 Palme d'Or, Palmes d'Or, 11 Golden Lions and 7 Golden Bears.
Sport
The most popular sport in Italy is Association football, football. Italy's Italy national football team, national football team is one of the world's most successful teams with four FIFA World Cup victories (1934, 1938, 1982 and 2006). Italian clubs have won 48 major European trophies, making Italy the List of UEFA club competition winners#By country, second most successful country in European football. Italy's top-flight club football league is named Serie A and is followed by millions of fans around the world.
Other popular team sports in Italy include basketball, volleyball and rugby football, rugby. Italy's Italy national volleyball team, male and Italy women's national volleyball team, female national volleyball teams are often FIVB World Rankings, featured among the world's best. The Italian national basketball team's best results were gold at Eurobasket 1983 and EuroBasket 1999, as well as silver at the Olympics in Basketball at the 2004 Summer Olympics, 2004. Lega Basket Serie A is widely considered one of the most competitive in Europe. Italy's Italy national rugby union team, rugby national team competes in the Six Nations Championship, and is a regular at the Rugby World Cup. The Italy men's national volleyball team, men's volleyball team won three consecutive FIVB Volleyball Men's World Championship, World Championships (in 1990, 1994, and 1998) and earned the Olympics, Olympic silver medal in 1996, 2004, and 2016.
Italy has a long and successful tradition in individual sports as well. Bicycle racing is a familiar sport in the country. Italians
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have won the UCI Road World Championships – Men's road race, UCI World Championships UCI Road World Championships – Men's road race#Medalists by nation, more than any other country, except Belgium. The Giro d'Italia is a cycling race held every May, and constitutes one of the three Grand Tour (cycling), Grand Tours.
Alpine skiing is also a widespread sport in Italy, and the country is a popular international skiing destination, known for its ski resorts. Italian skiers achieved good results in Winter Olympic Games, FIS Alpine Ski World Cup, Alpine Ski World Cup, and tennis has a significant following in Italy, ranking as the fourth most practised sport in the country. The Italian Open (tennis), Rome Masters, founded in 1930, is one of the most prestigious tennis tournaments in the world. Italian professional tennis players won the Davis Cup in 1976 and the Fed Cup in 2006, 2009, 2010 and 2013.
Motorsports are also extremely popular in Italy. Italy has won, by far, List of Grand Prix motorcycle racing World champions#By country, the most MotoGP World Championships. Italian Scuderia Ferrari is the oldest surviving team in Grand Prix motor racing, Grand Prix racing, having competed since 1948, and statistically the List of Formula One Grand Prix winners (constructors), most successful Formula One team in history with a record of 232 wins. The Italian Grand Prix of Formula One, Formula 1 is the fifth oldest surviving Grand Prix, having been held since 1921. It is also one of the two Grand Prix present in every championship since the first one in 1950 Formula One season, 1950. Every Formula 1 Grand Prix (except for the 1980 Italian Grand Prix, 1980) has been held at Autodromo Nazionale di Monza, Autodromo Nazionale Monza. Formula 1 was also held at Imola Circuit, Imola (1980–2006, 2020 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, 2020) and Mugello Circuit, Mugello (2020 Tuscan Grand Prix, 2020). Other successful Italian car manufacturers in motorsports are Alfa Romeo, Lancia, Maserati and Fiat.
Historically, Italy has been successful in the Olympic Games, taking part from the 1896 Summer Olympics, first Olympiad and in 47 Games out of 48, not having officially participated in the 1904 Summer Olympics. Italy at the Olympics, Italian sportsmen have won 522 medals at the Summer Olympic Games, and another 106 at the Winter Olympic Games, for a combined total of 628 medals with 235 golds, which makes them the All-time Olympic Games medal table, fifth most successful nation in Olympic history for total medals. The country hosted two Winter Olympics and will host a third (in 1956 Winter Olympics, 1956, 2006 Winter Olympics, 2006, and 2026 Winter Olympics, 2026), and one Summer games (in 1960 Summer Olympics, 1960).
Fashion and design
Italian fashion has History of Italian fashion, a long tradition. Milan, Florence and Rome are Italy's main fashion capitals. According to ''Top Global Fashion Capital Rankings'' 2013 by Global Language Monitor, Rome ranked sixth worldwide when Milan was twelfth. Previously, in 2009, Milan was declared as the "fashion capital of the world" by Global Language Monitor itself. Major Italian fashion labels, such as Gucci, Armani, Prada, Versace, Valentino SpA, Valentino, Dolce & Gabbana, Missoni, Fendi, Moschino, Max Mara, Trussardi, and Ferragamo, to name a few, are regarded as among the finest fashion houses in the world. Jewellers like Bvlgari, Damiani and Buccellati have been founded in Italy. Also, the fashion magazine Vogue Italia, is considered one of the most prestigious fashion magazines in the world. The talent of young, creative fashion is also promoted, as in the ITS young fashion designer competition in Trieste.
Italy is also prominent in the field of design, notably interior design, architectural design, industrial design and urban design. The country has produced some well-known furniture designers, such as Gio Ponti and Ettore Sottsass, and Italian phrases such as ''"Bel Disegno"'' and ''"Linea Italiana"'' have entered the vocabulary of furniture design. Examples of classic pieces of Italian white goods and pieces of furniture include Zanussi's washing machines and fridges,[Insight Guides (2004) p. 220] the "New Tone" sofas by Atrium, and the post-modern bookcase by Ettore Sottsass, inspired by Bob Dylan's song "Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again". Today, Milan and Turin are the nation's leaders in architectural design and industrial design. The city of Milan hosts Fiera Milano, Europe's largest design fair. Milan also hosts major design and architecture-related events and venues, such as the "''Fuori Salone''" and the Salone del Mobile, and has been home to the designers Bruno Munari, Lucio Fontana, Enrico Castellani and Piero Manzoni.
Cuisine
The Italian cuisine has developed through centuries of social and political changes, with Ancient Roman cuisine, roots as far back as the 4th century BC. Italian cuisine in itself takes heavy influences, including Etruscan civilization, Etruscan, Ancient Greek cuisine, ancient Greek, Ancient Roman cuisine, ancient Roman, Byzantine cuisine, Byzantine, and Jewish cuisine, Jewish. Significant changes occurred with the discovery of the New World
The term ''New World'' is often used to mean the majority of Earth's Western Hemisphere, specifically the Americas."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: Oxford University Press, p. 3 ...
with the introduction of items such as potatoes, tomatoes, bell peppers and maize, now central to the cuisine but not introduced in quantity until the 18th century. Italian cuisine is noted for its regional diversity, abundance of difference in taste, and is known to be one of the most popular in the world, wielding strong influence abroad.
The Mediterranean diet forms the basis of Italian cuisine, rich in pasta, fish, fruits and vegetables and characterised by its extreme simplicity and variety, with many dishes having only four to eight ingredients. Italian cooks rely chiefly on the quality of the ingredients rather than on elaborate preparation. Dishes and recipes are often derivatives from local and familial tradition rather than created by chefs, so many recipes are ideally suited for home cooking, this being one of the main reasons behind the ever-increasing worldwide popularity of Italian cuisine, from America to Asia. Ingredients and dishes vary widely by Regions of Italy, region.
Italian cuisine relies heavily on traditional products; the country has a large number of List of Italian products with protected designation of origin, traditional specialities protected under Geographical indications and traditional specialities in the European Union, EU law. List of Italian cheeses, Cheese, salumi, cold cuts and Italian wine, wine are central to Italian cuisine, with many regional declinations and Protected Designation of Origin or Protected Geographical Indication labels, and along with pizza and coffee (especially espresso) form part of Italian gastronomic culture. Desserts have a long tradition of merging local flavours such as citrus fruits, pistachio and almonds with sweet cheeses like mascarpone and ricotta or exotic tastes as cocoa, vanilla and cinnamon. Gelato, tiramisù and cassata are among the most famous examples of Italian desserts, cakes and patisserie.
Italian meal structure is typical of the Mediterranean Basin, European Mediterranean region and differs from North, Central, and Eastern European meal structure, though it still often consists of breakfast (''colazione''), lunch (''pranzo''), and supper (''cena''). However, much less emphasis is placed on breakfast, and breakfast itself is often skipped or involves lighter meal portions than are seen in non-Mediterranean Western countries. Late-morning and mid-afternoon snacks, called ''merenda'' (plural ''merende''), are also often included in this meal structure.
The marketing phenomenon consisting of words and images, colour combinations (the Italian tricolour) and geographical references for brands that are evocative of Italy to promote and market agri-food products that have nothing to do with Italian cuisine is known by the name of ''Italian Sounding''.
Public holidays, festivals and folklore
Public holidays celebrated in Italy include religious, national and regional observances. Italy's National Day, the ''Festa della Repubblica'' (''Republic Day'') is celebrated on 2 June each year, with the main celebration taking place in Rome
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, and commemorates the Italian institutional referendum, 1946, birth of the Italian Republic in 1946. The ceremony of the event organized in Rome includes the deposition of a laurel wreath as a tribute to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (Italy), Italian Unknown Soldier at the Altare della Patria by the President of the Italian Republic and a military parade along Via dei Fori Imperiali in Rome.
The Saint Lucy's Day#Italy, Saint Lucy's Day, which take place on 13 December, is popular among children in some Italian regions, where she plays a role similar to Santa Claus. In addition, the Epiphany (holiday), Epiphany in Italy is associated with the Italian folklore, folkloristic figure of the Befana, a broomstick-riding old woman who, in the night between 5 and 6 January, bringing good children gifts and sweets, and bad ones charcoal or bags of ashes. The Assumption of Mary coincides with ''Ferragosto'' on 15 August, the summer vacation period which may be a long weekend or most of the month.
The Italian national Patronal festival, patronal day, on 4 October, celebrates Feast of Saints Francis and Catherine, Saints Francis and Catherine. Each city or town also celebrates a public holiday on the occasion of the festival of the local patron saint, for example: Rome
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on 29 June (Feast of Saints Peter and Paul, Saints Peter and Paul), Milan on 7 December (Ambrose, Saint Ambrose), Naples on 19 September (Januarius, Saint Januarius), Venice on 25 April (Mark the Evangelist, Saint Mark the Evangelist) and Florence on 24 June (John the Baptist, Saint John the Baptist).
There are many festivals and festivities in Italy. Some of them include the Palio di Siena horse race, Holy Week#Italy, Holy Week rites, Saracen Joust of Arezzo, Saint Ubaldo Day in Gubbio, Giostra della Quintana in Foligno, and the Calcio Fiorentino. In 2013, UNESCO has included among the intangible cultural heritage some Italian festivals and Paso (float), pasos (in Italian "macchine a spalla"), such as the Varia di Palmi, the Macchina di Santa Rosa in Viterbo, the Festa dei Gigli in Nola, and ''faradda di li candareri'' in Sassari.
Other festivals include the Carnival in Italy, carnivals in Carnival of Venice, Venice, Carnival of Viareggio, Viareggio, Carnival of Satriano di Lucania, Satriano di Lucania, Mamoiada, and Ivrea, mostly known for its Battle of the Oranges. The Venice International Film Festival, awarding the "Golden Lion" and held annually since 1932, is the oldest film festival in the world and one of the "Film festival#Notable festivals, Big Three" alongside Cannes Film Festival, Cannes and Berlin International Film Festival, Berlin.
See also
* Outline of Italy
Notes
References
Bibliography
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*
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* Hibberd, Matthew. ''The media in Italy'' (McGraw-Hill International, 2007)
* Sarti, Roland, ed. ''Italy: A reference guide from the Renaissance to the present'' (2004)
* Sassoon, Donald. ''Contemporary Italy: politics, economy and society since 1945'' (Routledge, 2014)
*
External links
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Official site of the Italian Parliament
Official site of the President of the Italian Republic
Italian Higher Education for International Students
Italian tourism official website
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Key Development Forecasts for Italy
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