Portal:Italy
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Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe, and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia. The independent states of San Marino and the Vatican City are enclaves within the Italian Peninsula, while Campione d'Italia is an Italian exclave in Switzerland.
Italy has been the home of many European cultures, such as the Etruscans and the Romans, and later was the birthplace of the movement of the Renaissance, that began in Tuscany and spread all over Europe. Italy's capital Rome has been for centuries the center of Western civilization, and is the seat of the Catholic Church.
Today, Italy is a democratic republic, and a developed country with the 7th-highest GDP, the 8th-highest Quality-of-life index, and the 20th-highest Human Development Index rating in the world. It is a founding member of what is now the European Union (having signed the Treaty of Rome in 1957), and also a member of the G8, NATO, the Council of Europe, the Western European Union, and the Central European Initiative.
The Palazzo Pitti (sometimes called the Pitti Palace) is a vast mainly Renaissance palace in Florence, Italy. It is situated on the south side of the River Arno, a short distance from the Ponte Vecchio. The core of the present palazzo dates from 1458 and was originally the town residence of Luca Pitti, an ambitious Florentine banker. It was bought by the Medici family in 1539 as the official residence of the ruling families of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany.
In the 19th century, the palazzo, by then a great treasure house, was used as a power base by Napoleon, and later served for a brief period as the principal royal palace of the newly-united Italy. In the early 20th century, the palazzo together with its contents was given to the Italian people by King Victor Emmanuel III; subsequently its doors were opened to the public as one of Florence's largest art galleries. Today, housing several minor additions in addition to those of the Medici family, it is fully open to the public.
St Mark's Basilica (Italian: Basilica di San Marco in Venezia) is the most famous of the churches of Venice and one of the best known examples of Byzantine architecture. It lies on St Mark's Square, adjacent and connected to the Doge's Palace and has been the seat of the Patriarch of Venice, archbishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Venice since 1807.
- ...the famous biblical period movies Pier Paolo Pasolini’s "The Gospel According to St. Matthew" (1964), Bruce Beresford’s "King David" (1985) and Mel Gibson’s "The Passion of the Christ" (2004) were filmed in Matera?
- ...that the first Prime Minister of Italy, Camillo Benso, conte di Cavour, was also one of the first Italian landowners to use chemical fertilizers?
- ...that Italy's 1957 Eurovision entry, "Corde Della Mia Chitarra", was so long that it resulted in the introduction of length restrictions for competing songs?
- ...that Poliphilo, the main character in the Renaissance book Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, was said to have felt "extreme delight," "incredible joy," and "frenetic pleasure and cupidinous frenzy" when he saw the buildings depicted in the book?
- ...that the Italian automaker Autobianchi was founded by the bicycle manufacturer Bianchi, tire giant Pirelli and Fiat?
- ...that within a tomb in the town of Bergamo, Italy there is a statue dedicated to the life of Enrico Rastelli, the world's greatest juggler?
Camillo Benso, conte di Cavour (or Camillo di Cavour; August 10, 1810 – June 6, 1861) was an Italian statesman and a leading figure in the movement toward Italian unification. He became the first Prime Minister of the new Kingdom of Italy.
The XX Olympic Winter Games were held in Torino, Italy from February 10 to 26 in 2006. This was the second time that Italy hosted the Olympic Winter Games, as it had hosted the VII Olympic Winter Games in Cortina d'Ampezzo in 1956, and the third time overall that Italy hosted an Olympic Games, as it had also staged the Games of the XVII Olympiad in Rome in 1960.
- August 2006: Two of Italy's largest banks, Banca Intesa and Sanpaolo IMI announce their merging to found the biggest banking group in Italy, with about 100 000 employees.
- 9 July 2006: Italy is World Champion of Football, after defeating France in the Final, after a penalty kick shoot out. The match was played in Berlin.
- 2006: Giorgio Napolitano is elected as new President of Italy (Presidente della Repubblica). Romano Prodi is chosen as new Prime Minister (Presidente del Consiglio) of Italy, after slightly winning political elections.
- 20 October 2005:The next political election in Italy, for the election of the two house Italian Parlament, should take place on April 9, 2006.
- 7 October 2005:Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena has suggested that it was "no accident" when US troops shot at her car, resulting in the death of an Italian intelligence officer who had helped to secure her release from captivity earlier that day.
Francesco Hayez
(1859), Oil on linen
Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan
1900 (also called Novecento) is a 1976 epic film starring Robert de Niro, Gérard Depardieu, Dominique Sanda, Donald Sutherland, Alida Valli and Burt Lancaster, directed by Bernardo Bertolucci. Set in Bertolucci's ancestral region of Emilia, the film chronicles the lives of two men during the political turmoils that took place in Italy in the first half on the 20th century.
Alfredo Berlinghieri (de Niro) and Olmo Dalco (Depardieu) are born on the same day in 1900, but belong to opposite ends of the social spectrum. Alfredo is the son of a rich landowner, while Olmo is a misbegotten peasant son. As Alfredo is somewhat rebellious and despises the falseness of his family, in particular his father, he befriends Olmo, who is brought up as a socialist.
After World War I, their friendship continues, but slowly the rise of the fascists as embodied by the sadistic Attila (Donald Sutherland) separates them. Alfredo chooses the side of Fascism, while Olmo fights for the communists.
Invisible Cities (Italian: Le città invisibili) is a novel by Italian writer Italo Calvino. It was published in Italy in 1972 by Giulio Einaudi Editore.
The book explores imagination and the imaginable through the descriptions of cities by the narrator, Marco Polo. The book is framed as a conversation between the aging and busy emperor Kublai Khan, who constantly has merchants coming to describe the state of his empire, and Polo. The majority of the book consists of Polo's descriptions (1-3 pages each) of the 55 cities. Short dialogues between the two characters are interspersed every five to ten cities and are used to discuss various ideas presented by the cities on a wide range of topics including linguistics and human nature.
