sign in sign up
<<
Home , Il Canto degli Italiani, Italian war crimes, Kingdom of Sardinia

Italy From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia This article is about the republic. For other uses, see (disambiguation). "Italia" and "Italian Republic" redirect here. For other uses, see Italia (disambiguation). For the short- lived 19th-century , see Italian Republic (Napoleonic).

Italian Republic Repubblica italiana

Flag Emblem

Anthem: (Italian) The Song of the

MENU

0:00

Location of Italy (dark green) – in (light green & dark grey) – in the European Union (light green) – [Legend]

Capital and largest city 41°54′N 12°29′E

Official languages Italiana

Demonym Italian Government Unitaryparliamentaryconstitutional

republic

- President

- Prime Minister Matteo Renzi

Legislature Parliament

- Upper house Senate of the Republic

- Lower house Chamber of Deputies

Formation

- Unification 17 March 1861

- Republic 2 June 1946 - Founded the EEC(now 1 January 1958 the European Union)

Area - Total 301,338 km2(72nd) 116,347 sq mi - Water (%) 2.4

Population - 2013 estimate 60,782,668[1](23rd) - 2011 census 59,433,744[2](23rd) - Density 201.7/km2 (63rd) 522.4/sq mi

GDP (PPP) 2014 estimate - Total $1.847 trillion[3](11th) - Per capita $30,803[3] (32nd)

GDP (nominal) 2014 estimate - Total $2.171 trillion[3](8th) - Per capita $36,216[3] (27th)

Gini (2011) 31.9[4] medium

HDI (2013) 0.881[5] very high · 25th

Currency Euro (€)b (EUR)

Time zone CET (UTC+1) - Summer (DST) CEST (UTC+2) Drives on the right

c

Calling code 39

ISO 3166 code IT

d

Internet TLD .it

a. French is co-official in the ; Slovene is co-official in the province of

Trieste and the province of Gorizia; German andLadin are co-official in South Tyrol.

b. Before 2002, the Italian Lira. The euro is accepted in Campione d'Italia, but the official

currency there is the Swiss Franc.[6]

c. To call Campione d'Italia, it is necessary to use the Swiss code+41.

d. The .eu domain is also used, as it is shared with otherEuropean Union member states.

Italy i/ˈɪtəli/ (Italian: Italia [iˈtaːlja]), officially the Italian Republic (Italian: Repubblica italiana),[7][8][9][10] is a unitary parliamentary republic in Southern Europe. To the north, Italy borders , , Austria, and , and is approximately delimited by the Alpine watershed, enclosing the Po Valley and the Venetian Plain. To the south, it consists of the entirety of the and the two biggest Mediterranean islands of and . Italian territory also includes the islands of Pantelleria, 60 km (37 mi) east of the Tunisian coast and 100 km (62 mi) southwest of Sicily, and Lampedusa, at about 113 km (70 mi) from Tunisia and at 176 km (109 mi) from Sicily, in addition to many other smaller islands. The sovereign states of San Marino and the are enclaves within Italy, while Campione d'Italia is an Italian exclave in Switzerland. Italy covers an area of 301,338 km2 (116,347 sq mi) and has a largely temperate climate. With 61 million inhabitants, it is the 5th most populous country in Europe. Among the world's most developed countries, Italy has the 4th-largest economy in the European Union, 3rd in the Eurozone and 9th in the world by GDP (IMF, 2012). Italy's capital and largest city, Rome, has for centuries been the leading political and religious centre of Western civilisation, serving as the capital of both the and Christianity. During the Dark Ages, Italy endured cultural and social decline in the face of repeated invasions byGermanic tribes, Muslims and , with Greek-Roman heritage being preserved largely by Christian monks. Beginning around the 11th century, various Italian cities, communes and rose to great prosperity through shipping, commerce and banking (indeed, moderncapitalism has its roots in Medieval Italy);[11] concurrently, Italian culture flourished, especially during the Renaissance, which produced many notable scholars, artists, and polymaths such asLeonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Michelangelo and Machiavelli. Meanwhile, Italian explorers such asPolo, Columbus, Vespucci, and Verrazzano discovered new routes to the Far East and the New World, helping to usher in the European Age of Discovery. Nevertheless, Italy would remain fragmented into many warring states for the rest of the , subsequently falling prey to larger European powers such as the , France, Spain, and later Austria. Italy would thus enter a long period of decline that lasted until the beginning of the 18th century. After many unsuccessful attempts, the second and the third wars of Italian independence resulted in the unification of most of present-day Italy between 1859 and 1866.[12] From the late 19th century to the early 20th century, the new rapidly industrialised and acquired acolonial empire becoming a Great Power.[13] However, Southern and rural Italy remained largely excluded from industrialisation, fuelling a large and influential diaspora. Despite victory in as one of the Big Four with permanent membership in the security council of the , Italy entered a period of economic crisis and social turmoil, which favoured the establishment of a Fascist dictatorship in 1922. The subsequent participation in World War II, at the side of and Japan forming the Axis Alliance, ended in military defeat, economic destruction and . In the years that followed, Italy abolished the monarchy, reinstated democracy, and enjoyed a prolonged economic boom, thus becoming one of the most developed nations in the world,[5][14][15][16][17] with the fifth largest economy by nominal GDP by the early 1990s. Italy was a founding member of NATO in 1949 and one of the Inner Six of the European Community in 1957, which became the EU in 1993. It is part of the Schengen Area, and has been a member of the Eurozone since 1999. Italy is considered to be both a major regional power and a leading middle power,[18][19][20][21][22][23]with membership in prominent institutions such as the UN, the EU, the NATO, the OECD, theOSCE, the DAC, the WTO, the G4, G6, G7, G8, G10, G20, the Union for the Mediterranean, theLatin Union, the Council of Europe, the Central European Initiative and the Uniting for Consensus. Italy currently maintains the world's tenth-largest nominal defence budget and is a participant in theNATO nuclear sharing policy. On 1 July 2014, Italy replaced as the seat of the Presidency of the Council of the European Union.

Contents [hide]

 1 Name  2 History o 2.1 Prehistory and antiquity o 2.2 Middle Ages o 2.3 Early Modern o 2.4 , Liberal Italy and the Great War o 2.5 Fascist Regime o 2.6 Republican Italy  3 Geography o 3.1 Environment o 3.2 Climate  4 Politics o 4.1 Government o 4.2 Law and criminal justice o 4.3 Foreign relations o 4.4 Military o 4.5 Administrative divisions  5 Economy o 5.1 Infrastructure  6 Demographics o 6.1 Ethnic groups o 6.2 Languages o 6.3 Religion o 6.4 Education o 6.5 Healthcare  7 Culture o 7.1 Architecture o 7.2 Visual art o 7.3 Literature and theatre o 7.4 Music o 7.5 Cinema o 7.6 Science and Technology o 7.7 Sport o 7.8 Fashion and design o 7.9 Cuisine  8 See also  9 Notes  10 References  11 Bibliography  12 External links Name Main article: Name of Italy The assumptions on the etymology of the name "Italia" are very numerous and the corpus of the solutions proposed by historians and linguists is very wide.[24] According to one of the more common explanations, the term Italia, from Latin: Italia,[25] was borrowed through Greek from theOscan Víteliú, meaning "land of young cattle" (cf. Lat vitulus "calf", Umb vitlo "calf").[26] The bull was a symbol of the southern Italic tribes and was often depicted goring the Roman wolf as a defiant symbol of free Italy during the Social War. Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassusstates this account together with the legend that Italy was named after Italus,[27] mentioned also by Aristotle[28] and Thucydides.[29] The name Italia originally applied only to a part of what is now – according to Antiochus of Syracuse, the southern portion of the Bruttium peninsula (modern : province of Reggio, and part of the provinces of Catanzaro and Vibo Valentia). But by his time Oenotriaand Italy had become synonymous, and the name also applied to most of as well. The Greeks gradually came to apply the name "Italia" to a larger region, but it was during the reign of Emperor Augustus (end of the 1st century BC) that the term was expanded to cover the entire peninsula until the .[30] History Main article: Prehistory and antiquity Main articles: , , , , , , andRoman Empire

The Colosseum in Rome, built c. 70 – 80 AD, is considered one of the greatest works of Roman architecture andengineering. Excavations throughout Italy revealed a Neanderthal presence dating back to the Paleolithic period, some 200,000 years ago,[31] modern Humans arrived about 40,000 years ago. The Ancient peoples of pre-Roman Italy – such as the Umbrians, the Latins (from which the Romans emerged), Volsci,Samnites, the Celts and the Ligures which inhabited , and many others – were Indo-European peoples; the main historic peoples of non-Indo-European heritage include the Etruscans, theElymians and Sicani in Sicily and the prehistoric Sardinians. Between the 17th and the 11th centuries BC Mycenaean Greeks established contacts with Italy[32][33][34][35] and in the 8th and 7th centuries BC Greek colonies were established all along the coast of Sicily and the southern part of the Italian Peninsula became known as Magna Graecia. Also thePhoenicians established colonies on the coasts of Sardinia and Sicily. Rome, a modest agricultural community conventionally founded in 753 BC, grew over the course of centuries into a massive empire, stretching from Britain to the borders of Persia, and engulfing the whole Mediterranean basin, in which Greek and Roman cultures merged into a uniquecivilisation. The Roman Imperial legacy has deeply influenced Western civilisation for the following millennia. Ancient Rome shaped most of the Modern World.[36] In a slow decline since the late 2nd century AD, the Empire broke into two parts in 395 AD. The , under the of the Barbarian invasions, eventually dissolved in 476 AD, when the last western Emperor was deposed by the Germanic chief , while the Eastern half of the Empire survived for another thousand years. Middle Ages Main article: Italy in the Middle Ages

The Iron Crown of , for centuries symbol of the of Italy. After the fall of the Roman Empire, Italy was seized by the Ostrogoths,[37] followed in the 6th century by a brief reconquest under Byzantine Emperor Justinian. The invasion of another Germanic tribe, theLombards, late in the same century, reduced the Byzantine presence to a rump realm (the ) and started the end of political unity of the peninsula for the next 1,300 years. The Lombard kingdom was subsequently absorbed into the Frankish Empire by Charlemagne in the late 8th century. The also helped the formation of the in . Until the 13th century, Italian politics was dominated by the relations between the Holy Roman Emperors and the Papacy, with most of the Italian city-states siding for the former (Ghibellines) or for the latter (Guelphs) from momentary convenience.[38]

Castel del Monte, built by German Emperor Frederick II. It was during this chaotic era that Italy saw the rise of a peculiar institution, the . Given the power vacuum caused by extreme territorial fragmentation and the struggle between the Empire and the , local communities sought autonomous ways to restore law and order.[39] In 1176 a league of city-states, the , defeated the German emperor Frederick Barbarossaat the Battle of , thus ensuring effective independence for most of northern and central Italian cities. In coastal and southern areas, the maritime republics, the most notable being , , Pisaand Amalfi, heavily involved in the Crusades, grew to eventually dominate the Mediterranean and monopolise trade routes to the Orient.[40] In the south, Sicily had become an Islamic emirate in the 9th century, thriving until the Italo- Normansconquered it in the late 11th century together with most of the Lombard and Byzantine principalities of southern Italy.[41] Through a complex series of events, southern Italy developed as a unified kingdom, first under the House of Hohenstaufen, then under the and, from the 15th century, the House of . In Sardinia, the former Byzantine provinces became independent states known as Giudicati, although some parts of the island were under Genoese or Pisan control until the Aragonese conquered it in the 15th century. The Black Death pandemic of 1348 left its mark on Italy by killing perhaps one third of the population.[42][43] However, the recovery from the plague led to a resurgence of cities, trade and economy which allowed the bloom of Humanism and Renaissance, that later spread in Europe. Early Modern Main articles: , and Kingdom of Italy (Napoleonic)

Leonardo da Vinci, the quintessential Renaissance man (self portrait, c. 1512). In the 14th and 15th centuries, northern-central Italy was divided into a number of warring city- states, the rest of the peninsula being occupied by the larger Papal States and the , referred to here as . The strongest among these city-states gradually absorbed the surrounding territories giving birth to the Signorie, regional states often led by merchant families which founded local dynasties. War between the city-states was endemic, and primarily fought by armies of mercenaries known as condottieri, bands of soldiers drawn from around Europe, especially Germany and Switzerland, led largely by Italian captains.[44] Decades of fighting eventually saw , and Venice emerged as the dominant players that agreed to the Peace of Lodi in 1454, which saw relative calm brought to the region for the first time in centuries. This peace would hold for the next forty years. The Renaissance, a period of vigorous revival of the arts and culture, originated in Italy thanks to a number of factors, as the great wealth accumulated by merchant cities, the patronage of its dominant families like theMedici of Florence,[45][46] and the migration of Greek scholars and texts to Italy following the Conquest of Constantinople at the hands of the Ottoman Turks.[47][48][49] The Italian Renaissance peaked in the mid-16th century as foreign invasions plunged the region into the turmoil of the Italian Wars. The ideas and ideals of the Renaissance soon spread into Northern Europe, France, England and much of Europe. In the meantime, thediscovery of the Americas, the new routes to Asia discovered by the Portuguese and the rise of the , all factors which eroded the traditional Italian dominance in trade with the East, caused a long economic decline in the peninsula. Following the Italian Wars (1494 to 1559), ignited by the rivalry between France and Spain, the city- states gradually lost their independence and came under foreign domination, first under Spain (1559 to 1713) and then Austria (1713 to 1796). In 1629-1631, a new outburst of plagueclaimed about 14% of Italy’s population.[50] In addition, as the started to decline in the 17th century, so did its possessions in Naples, Sicily, Sardinia, and Milan. In particular, Southern Italy was impoverished and cut off from the mainstream of events in Europe.[51] In the 18th century, as a result of the War of Spanish Succession, Austria replaced Spain as the dominant foreign power, while the House of Savoyemerged as a regional power expanding to and Sardinia. In the same century, the two-century long decline was interrupted by the economic and state reforms pursued in several states by the ruling élites.[52] During the , northern-central Italy was invaded and reorganised as a new Kingdom of Italy, a client state of the French Empire,[53] while the southern half of the peninsula was administered byJoachim Murat, 's brother-in-law, who was crowned as of Naples. The 1814 restored the situation of the late 18th century, but the ideals of the French could not be eradicated, and soon re-surfaced during the political upheavals that characterised the first part of the 19th century. Italian unification, Liberal Italy and the Great War Main articles: Italian unification and Military history of Italy during World War I

The legendary "handshake of Teano" between and Victor Emmanuel II: on 26 October 1860, General Garibaldi sacrificed republican hopes for the sake of Italian unity. The birth of the Kingdom of Italy was the result of efforts by Italian nationalists and monarchists loyal to the House of to establish a united kingdom encompassing the entire Italian Peninsula. In the context of the 1848 liberal that swept through Europe, an unsuccessful war was declared onAustria. The again attacked the in the Second Italian War of Independence of 1859, with the aid of France, resulting in liberating Lombardy. In 1860–61, general Giuseppe Garibaldi led the drive for unification in Naples and Sicily,[54] allowing the Sardinian government led by the Count of Cavour to declare a united Italian kingdom on 17 March 1861. In 1866, Victor Emmanuel II allied with Prussia during the Austro-Prussian War, waging the Third Italian War of Independence which allowed Italy to annexe Venetia. Finally, as France during the disastrousFranco-Prussian War of 1870 abandoned its garrisons in Rome, the Italians rushed to fill the power gap by taking over the Papal States. The Piedmontese Albertine Statute of 1848, extended to the whole Kingdom of Italy in 1861, provided for basic freedoms, 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 dominated by liberal forces. In 1913, male universal suffrage was adopted. As Northern Italy quickly industrialised, the South and rural areas of North remained underdeveloped and overpopulated, forcing millions of people to migrate abroad, while the Italian Socialist Party constantly increased in strength, challenging the traditional liberal and conservative establishment. Starting from the last two decades of the 19th century, Italy developed into a colonial power by forcing Somalia, Eritrea and later Libya and the Dodecanese under its rule.[55]

The military cemetery of Redipuglia, resting place of approximately 100,000 Italian soldiers. More than 650,000 died on the battlefields of World War I. The total deaths for Italy amounted to 1,240,000. Italy, nominally allied with the German Empire and the Empire of Austria-Hungary in the Triple Alliance, in 1915 joined the Allies into the war with a promise of substantial territorial gains, that included westernInner Carniola, former Austrian Littoral, Dalmatia as well as parts of the Ottoman Empire. The war was initially inconclusive, as the Italian army get struck in a long attrition war on the Alps mountains, making little progress and suffering very heavy losses. Eventually, in October 1918, the Italians launched a massive offensive, culminating in the victory of Vittorio . The Italian victory[56][57][58] marked the end of the war on the Italian Front, secured the dissolution of the Austro- Hungarian Empire and was chiefly instrumental in ending the First World War less than two weeks later. During the war, more than 650,000 Italian soldiers died[59] and the kingdom went on the brink of bankruptcy. Whereas many Italians were left in the new founded Kingdom of Yugoslavia[note 1] half a million South Slavs,[60] mainly and Croatians, and about two hundred thousand germanophoneTyroleans became part of the Kingdom of Italy. Under the Peace Treaties of Saint-Germain, andRome, Italy obtained most of the promised territories, but not Dalmatia (except Zara), allowing nationalists to define the victory as "mutilated". Moreover, Italy could annexe the Hungarian harbour ofFiume, that was not part of territories promised at but had been occupied after the end of the war by Gabriele D'Annunzio. Fascist Regime Main articles: Italian and Military history of Italy during World War II

Benito Mussolini, Duce ofFascist Italy. The socialist agitations that followed the devastation of the Great War, inspired by the Russian Revolution, led to turmoil and anarchy throughout Italy. The liberal establishment, fearing a Soviet- style revolution, started to endorse the small , led by . In October 1922 the blackshirts attempted acoup (the ""). The coup itself was a failure, but at the last minute king Victor Emmanuel IIIrefused to proclaim the state of siege and appointed Mussolini prime minister. Over the next few years, Mussolini banned all political parties and curtailed personal liberties, thus forming a dictatorship, who attracted international attention and that served as the inspiration, among others countries, for Nazi Germany andFrancoist Spain, in Europe and outside. In 1935 Mussolini invaded , resulting in an international alienation and leading to Italy's withdrawal from the League of Nations. Consequently, Italy allied with Nazi Germany and the and strongly supported Francisco Franco in the . In 1939, Italy annexed Albania, a de facto for decades. Italy entered World War II on 10 June 1940. After initially advancing in British Somalialand and Egypt, the Italians suffered heavy defeats in Greece, Russia and North Africa. After the attack on Yugoslavia by Germany and Italy, suppression of the resistance and attempts to Italianization resulted in the Italian war crimes[61] and deportation of about 25,000 people to the Italian concentration camps, such asRab, Gonars, Monigo, Renicci di Anghiari and elsewhere. After the war, due to the , a long period of censorship, disinterest and denial occurred about the Italian war crimes and the Yugoslav's foibe killings.[62][63][64][65] Meanwhile about 250,000 Italians and anti- communistYugoslavs fled to Italy in the Istrian exodus. Sicily was then invaded by the Allies in July 1943, leading to the collapse of the Fascist regime and the fall of Mussolini on 25 July. On 8 September 1943, Italy surrendered. The Germans shortly succeeded in taking control of northern and central Italy. The country remained abattlefield for the rest of the war, as the Allies were slowly moving up from the south. In the north, the Germans set up the (RSI), a Nazi puppet state with Mussolini installed as leader. The post-armistice period saw the rise of a large anti-fascist resistance movement, the Resistenza. Hostilities ended on 29 April 1945, when the German forces in Italy surrendered. Nearly half a million Italians (including civilians) died in the conflict,[66] and the Italian economy had been all but destroyed; per capita income in 1944 was at its lowest point since the beginning of the 20th century.[67] Following the 1947 Paris Peace Treaties, Italy surrendered