Name
Hypotheses for the etymology of the name "Italia" are numerous.Alberto Manco, ''Italia. Disegno storico-linguistico'', 2009, Napoli, L'Orientale, One is that it was borrowed via Ancient Greek from theHistory
Prehistory and antiquity
Thousands of Lower Paleolithic artefacts have been recovered fromAncient Rome
Rome, a settlement around a ford on the river Tiber in central Italy conventionallyMiddle Ages
After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, Italy fell under the power of Odoacer's kingdom, and, later, was seized by the Ostrogoths, followed in the 6th century by a brief reconquest under Byzantine Emperor Justinian. The invasion of another Germanic tribe, the Lombards, late in the same century, reduced the Byzantine presence to the rump realm of theEarly Modern
Italy was the birthplace and heart of the Renaissance 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 dynasties and merchant families such as the Medici inUnification
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 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 opening line. 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 1848 liberal revolutions that swept through Europe, an unsuccessful first war of independence was declared on 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 ofLiberal period
The new Kingdom of Italy obtained Great Power status. The Constitutional Law of the Kingdom of Sardinia the 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. 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 colonial power by forcing under its rule Eritrea and Somalia in East Africa, Tripolitania and Cyrenaica in North Africa (later unified in the colony of Libya) and the 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 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. 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. Italy entered into theFascist regime
The 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 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 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 '' 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 Dalmatia was a land of Italian culture whose Italians, including those of Italianized 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 Istria, via the Roman Empire 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 Malta, which belonged to the United Kingdom, and Corfu, which instead belonged to Greece; to the north claimed Italian Switzerland, while to the west claimed Corsica, Nice, and 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. 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 ofRepublican era
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,Geography
Italy, whose territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical region, is located in Southern Europe and it is also considered a part of western Europe, between latitudes 35° and 47° N, and longitudes 6° and 19° E. To the north, Italy borders France, Switzerland, Austria, and Slovenia and is roughly delimited by the 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 and Sardinia (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 and the Vatican City are Enclave and exclave, enclaves within Italy, while Campione d'Italia is an Italian exclave 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 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 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
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, 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. 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
The climate of Italy is influenced by the large body of water of the Mediterranean Sea 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.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. 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, the Five Star Movement and theLaw and criminal justice
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 live and 14.6% of the Italian GDP is produced. The Calabrian '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
Italy is a founding member of the European Economic Community (EEC), now the European Union (EU), and of NATO. 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"Military
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"). AfterAdministrative 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 * Campania * Emilia-Romagna * Friuli Venezia Giulia * Lazio * Liguria * Lombardy – ''Lombardia'' * Marche * Molise * Piedmont – ''Piemonte'' * Sardinia – ''Sardegna'' * Sicily – ''Sicilia'' * Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol * Tuscany – ''Toscana'' * Umbria * VenetoEconomy
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, 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, 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%). 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, is considered important in order to avoid confusion with low-quality mass-produced Ersatz good, ersatz products.Transport
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. 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. 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 andEnergy
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
Through the centuries, Italy has fostered the scientific community that produced many major discoveries in physics and the other sciences. During the Renaissance 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 inTourism
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, History of Italy, history, fashion, Architecture of Italy, architecture, art, religious sites and routes, naturalistic beauties, nightlife, underwater sites and spas. Winter and summer tourism are present in many locations in the Alps and the Apennines, while seaside tourism is widespread in coastal locations on the Mediterranean Sea. 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 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 andDemographics
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 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 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
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
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 languageReligion
In 2017, the proportion of Italians 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 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 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
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 average. Italy scored below the OECD 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 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
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
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 ByzanthineVisual 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. 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. 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, 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''. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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.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, in Southern Italy, the theatre of the Italic peoples 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 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. 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 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 inSport
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 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 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, 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 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) andSee also
* Outline of ItalyNotes
References
Bibliography
* * * * 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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