Italy
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| Repubblica Italiana Italian Republic | ||||||
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| Anthem Il Canto degli Italiani (also known as Fratelli d'Italia) | ||||||
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| Capital (and largest city) | Rome | |||||
| Official languages | Italian1 | |||||
| Demonym | Italian | |||||
| Government | Parliamentary republic | |||||
| - | President | Giorgio Napolitano | ||||
| - | Prime Minister | Romano Prodi | ||||
| Formation | ||||||
| - | Unification | 17 March 1861 | ||||
| - | Republic | 2 June 1946 | ||||
| Accession to the European Union | 25 March 1957 (founding member) | |||||
| Area | ||||||
| - | Total | 301,318 km² (71st) 116,346.5 sq mi | ||||
| - | Water (%) | 2.4 | ||||
| Population | ||||||
| - | 2006 estimate | 59,131,287 [1] (23rd) | ||||
| - | October 2001 census | 57,110,144 | ||||
| - | Density | 196.2 /km² (54th) 507.9 /sq mi | ||||
| GDP (PPP) | 2006 estimate | |||||
| - | Total | $1.956 trillion [1] (8th) | ||||
| - | Per capita | $31,200 [2] (20th) | ||||
| GDP (nominal) | 2006 estimate | |||||
| - | Total | $1.885 trillion [3] (7th) | ||||
| - | Per capita | $33,680 [4] (21st) | ||||
| Gini? (2000) | 36 (medium) | |||||
| HDI (2004) | 0.940 (high) (17th) | |||||
| Currency | Euro (€)2 (EUR) | |||||
| Time zone | CET (UTC+1) | |||||
| - | Summer (DST) | CEST (UTC+2) | ||||
| Internet TLD | .it3 | |||||
| Calling code | +39 | |||||
| 1 | French is co-official in the Aosta Valley; German is co-official in Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol. Sardinian, Catalonian and Corsican in Sardinia, Albanian and Greek in Southern Italy, Occitan in Piedmont, and Friulan and Slovenian in Friuli-Venezia Giulia are also officially recognized at different degrees. | |||||
| 2 | Prior to 2002: Italian Lira. | |||||
| 3 | The .eu domain is also used, as it is shared with other European Union member states. | |||||
Italy (Italian: Italia), officially the Italian Republic; (Italian: Repubblica Italiana), 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 Italian Renaissance. Italy's capital Rome has been the center of Western Civilization, and is the center of Roman Catholic Church.
Today, Italy is a democratic republic, and a developed country with the 7th-highest GDP and the 17th-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, the Council of Europe, the Western European Union, and the Central European Initiative. Beginning January 1, 2007, Italy became a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. Also Italy is considered a Great power.[citation needed]
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[edit] Etymology
The origin of the term "Italy" (It: Italia), from the Latin Ītalia, is uncertain. According to one of the more common explanations the term was borrowed through Greek, from Oscan Víteliú, meaning "the land of the cattle" and named for the god of cattle, Mars[2]. The bull was a symbol of the southern Italian tribes and is often depicted goring the Roman wolf as a defiant symbol of free Italy during the Samnite Wars.
The name Italia applied to a part of what is now southern Italy. According to Antiochus of Syracuse, it originally only referred to the southern portion of the Bruttium peninsula (modern Calabria), but by his time Oenotria and Italy had become synonymous, and the name also applied to most of Lucania as well. The Greeks gradually came to use the name "Italia" for a greater region, but it was not until the time of the Roman conquests that the term was expanded to cover the entire peninsula [3].
[edit] History
[edit] Prehistory to Magna Graecia
Excavations throughout Italy reveal human presence dating back to the Palaeolithic period (the "Old Stone Age") some 200,000 years ago. In the 8th and 7th centuries BC, driven by unsettled conditions at home, Greek colonies were established in places as widely separated as the eastern coast of the Black Sea and Massilia (what is now Marseille, France). They included settlements in Sicily and the southern part of the Italian peninsula. The Romans called the area of Sicily and the foot of the boot of Italy Magna Graecia (Latin, “Greater Greece”), since it was so densely inhabited by Greeks[4] [5] [6].
[edit] Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew from a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula circa the 8th century BC to a colossal empire straddling the Mediterranean Sea. In its twelve-century existence, Roman civilization shifted from a monarchy, to a republic based on a combination of oligarchy and democracy, to an autocratic empire. It came to dominate Western Europe and the entire area surrounding the Mediterranean Sea through conquest and assimilation.
Italia, under the Roman Republic and later Empire, was the name of the Italian peninsula. During the Republic, Italia (which extended at the time from Rubicon to Calabria) was not a province, but rather the territory of the city of Rome, thus having a special status: for example, military commanders were not allowed to bring their armies within Italia, and Julius Caesar passing the Rubicon with his legions marked the start of the civil war.
From the 3rd century, the Roman empire went into decline. The western half of the empire, including Hispania, Gaul, and Italy, broke into independent kingdoms in the 5th century. The eastern empire, governed from Constantinople, is usually referred to as the Byzantine Empire after 476, the traditional date for the "fall of Rome" and for the subsequent onset of the Early Middle Ages, also known as the Dark Ages.
[edit] The Dark Ages
In the sixth century AD the Emperor Justinian reconquered Italy from the Ostrogoths. The invasion of a new wave of Germanic tribes, the Lombards, doomed his attempt to resurrect the Western Roman Empire but the repercussions of Justinian's failure resounded further still. For the next thirteen centuries, whilst new nation-states arose in the lands north of the Alps, the Italian political landscape was a patchwork of feuding city states, petty tyrannies, and foreign invaders.
For several centuries the armies and Exarchs, Justinian's successors, were a tenacious force in Italian affairs - strong enough to prevent other powers such as the Arabs, the Holy Roman Empire, or the Papacy from establishing a unified Italian Kingdom, but too weak to drive out these "interlopers" and recreate Roman Italy. Later Imperial orders such as the Carolingians, the Ottonians and Hohenstaufens also managed to impose their overlordship in Italy. But their successes were as transitory as Justinian's and a unified Italian state remained a dream until the nineteenth century.
No ultramontane Empire could succeed in unifying Italy - or in achieving more than a temporary hegemony - because its success threatened the survival of medieval Italy's other powers: the Byzantines, the Papacy, and the Normans. These - and the descendants of the Lombards, who became fused with earlier Italian ethnic groups - conspired against, fought, and eventually destroyed any attempt to create a dominant political order in Italy. It was against this vacuum of authority that one must view the rise of the institutions of the Signoria and the Communi.
[edit] Comuni and Signoria
In Italian history the rise of the Signoria is a phase often associated with the decline of the medieval commune system of government and the rise of the dynastic state. In this context the word Signoria (here to be understood as "Lordly Power") is used in opposition to the institution of the Commune or city republic.
Indeed, contemporary observers and modern historians see the rise of the Signoria as a reaction to the failure of the Communi to maintain law-and-order and suppress party strife and civil discord. In the anarchic conditions that often prevailed in medieval Italian city states, people looked to strong men to restore order and disarm the feuding elites. In times of anarchy or crisis, cities sometimes offered the Signoria to individuals perceived as strong enough to save the state. For example, the Tuscan state of Pisa offered the Signoria to Charles VIII of France in the hope that he would protect the independence of Pisa from its long term enemy Florence. Similarly, Siena offered the Signoria to Cesare Borgia.
[edit] Types of Signoria
The composition and specific functions of the Signoria varied from city to city. In some states (such as Verona under the Della Scala family or Florence in the days of Cosimo de Medici and Lorenzo the Magnificent) the polity was what we would term today a single party state in which the dominant party had vested the Signoria of the state in a single family or dynasty.
In Florence this arrangement was unofficial as it was not constitutionally formalized before the Medici were expelled from the city in 1494.
In other states (such as the Milan of the Visconti) the dynasty's right to the Signoria was a formally recognized part of the Commune's constitution, which had been "ratified" by the People and recognized by the Pope or the Holy Roman Empire.
[edit] Maritime Republics
Italy at this time was notable for its merchant Republics, including the Republic of Florence and the Maritime Republics. They were city-states and they were generally republics in that they were formally independent, though most of them originated from territories once belonging to the Byzantine Empire (the main exceptions being Genoa and Pisa). All these cities during the time of their independence had similar (though not identical) systems of government in which the merchant class had considerable power. Although in practice these were oligarchical, and bore little resemblance to a modern democracy, the relative political freedom they afforded was conducive to academic and artistic advancement.
The four classic Maritime Republics in Italy are Venice, Genoa, Pisa, Amalfi and they are always given in that order, reflecting the temporal sequence of their dominance. However, other towns in Italy also have a history of being Maritime Republics, though historically less prominent. These include Gaeta, Ancona, Molfetta, Trani and, in Dalmatia, Ragusa and Zara.
Venice and Genoa were Europe's gateway to trade with the East, and a producer of fine glass, while Florence was a capital of silk and jewelry. The wealth such business brought to Italy meant that large public and private artistic projects could be commissioned. The Maritime Republics were heavily involved in the Crusades, providing support but most especially taking advantage of the political and trading opportunities resulting from these wars. The Fourth Crusade, notionally intended to "liberate" Jerusalem, actually entailed the Venetian conquest of Zara and Constantinople.
Each of the Maritime Republics over time had dominion over different overseas lands, including many of the islands of the Mediterranean and especially Sardinia and Corsica, lands on the Adriatic, and lands in the Near East and North Africa.
[edit] Renaissance
The unique political structures of late Middle Ages Italy have led some to theorize that its unusual social climate allowed the emergence of a rare cultural efflorescence. Italy was divided into smaller city states and territories: the kingdom of Naples controlled the south, the Republic of Florence and the Papal States the center, the Genoese and the Milanese the north and west, and the Venetians the east. Fifteenth-century Italy was one of the most urbanised areas in Europe. Most historians agree that the ideas that characterized the Renaissance had their origin in late 13th century Florence, in particular with the writings of Dante Alighieri (1265–1321) and Francesco Petrarch (1304–1374), as well as the painting of Giotto di Bondone (1267-1337).
The Renaissance was so called because it was a "rebirth" of certain classical ideas that had long been lost to Europe. It has been argued that the fuel for this rebirth was the rediscovery of ancient texts that had been forgotten by Western civilization, but were preserved in some monastic libraries and in the Islamic world, and the translations of Greek and Arabic texts into Latin.
Renaissance scholars such as Niccolò de' Niccoli and Poggio Bracciolini scoured the libraries in search of works by such classical authors as Plato, Cicero and Vitruvius. The works of ancient Greek and Hellenistic writers (such as Plato, Aristotle, Euclid, and Ptolemy) and Muslim scientists were imported into the Christian world, providing new intellectual material for European scholars.
The Black Death in 1348 inflicted a terrible blow to Italy, killing one third of the population[8].
The recovery from the disaster led to a resurgence of cities, trade and economy which greatly stimulated the successive phase of the Humanism and Renaissance (15th-16th centuries) when Italy again returned to be the centre of Western civilization, strongly influencing the other European countries with Courts like Este in Ferrara and De Medici in Florence.
[edit] Foreign Domination (16th century - 19th century)
After a century where the fragmented system of Italian states and principalities were able to maintain a relative independence and a balance of power in the peninsula, in 1494 the French king Charles VIII opened the first of a series of invasions, lasting half of the sixteenth century, and a competition between France and Spain for the possession of the country. Ultimately Spain prevailed (the Treaty of Cateau-Cambresis in 1559 recognised the Spanish possession of the Duchy of Milan and the Kingdom of Naples) and for almost two centuries became the hegemon in Italy. The holy alliance between Habsburg Spain and the Holy See resulted in the systematic persecution of any Protestant movement, with the result that Italy remained a Catholic country with marginal Protestant presence.
Austria succeeded Spain as Hegemon in Italy after the Peace of Utrecht (1713), having acquired the State of Milan and the Kingdom of Naples. The Austrian domination, thanks to the Enlightenment embraced by Habsburgic emperors, was a considerable improvement. The northern part of Italy, under the direct control of Vienna, gained economic dynamism and intellectual fervour.
The French Revolution and the Napoleonic War(1796-1815) introduced the ideas of equality, democracy, law and nation. The peninsula was not a main battle field as in the past but Napoleon (born in Corsica in 1769, one year after the cession of the island from Genoa to France) changed completely its political map, destroying in 1799 the Republic of Venice, which never recovered its independence. The states founded by Napoleon with the support of minority groups of Italian patriots were short-lived and did not survive the defeat of the French Emperor in 1815.
[edit] Risorgimento (1848-1870)
The creation of the Kingdom of Italy was the result of concerted efforts by Italian nationalists and monarchists loyal to the House of Savoy to establish a united kingdom encompassing the entire Italian Peninsula.
The Kingdom of Sardinia industrialized from 1830 onward. A constitution, the Statuto Albertino was enacted in the year of revolutions, 1848, under liberal pressure. Under the same pressure, the First Italian War of Independence was declared on Austria. After initial success the war took a turn for the worse and the Kingdom of Sardinia lost.
After the Revolutions of 1848, the apparent leader of the Italian unification movement was Italian nationalist Giuseppe Garibaldi. He was popular amongst southern Italians.[9] Garibaldi led the Italian republican drive for unification in southern Italy, but the northern Italian monarchy of the House of Savoy in the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia whose government was led by Camillo Benso, conte di Cavour, also had the ambition of establishing a united Italian state. Though the kingdom had no physical connection to Rome (deemed the natural capital of Italy), the kingdom had successfully challenged Austria in the Second Italian War of Independence, liberating Lombardy-Venetia from Austrian rule. The kingdom also had established important alliances which helped it improve the possibility of Italian unification, such as Britain and France in the Crimean War.
In 1866 Prussian Prime Minister Otto von Bismarck offered Victor Emmanuel II an alliance with the Kingdom of Prussia in the Austro-Prussian War. In exchange Prussia would allow Italy to annex Austrian-controlled Venice. King Emmanuel agreed to the alliance and the Third Italian War of Independence began. Italy fared poorly in the war with a badly organized military against Austria, but Germany's victory allowed Italy to annex Venice. The one major obstacle to Italian unity remained Rome.
In 1870, Prussia went to war with France starting the Franco-Prussian War. To keep the large Prussian army at bay, France abandoned its positions in Rome in order to fight the Prussians. Italy benefited from Prussia's victory against France by being able to take over the Papal State from French authority. Italian unification was completed, and shortly afterward Italy's capital was moved to Rome.
[edit] Liberalism to Fascism (1870-1922)
In Northern Italy, industrialisation and modernisation began in the last part of the nineteenth century. The south, at the same time, was overcrowded, forcing millions of people to search for a better life abroad. It is estimated that around one million Italian people moved to other European countries such as France, Switzerland, Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg. Parliamentary democracy developed considerably in the twentieth century. The Sardinian Statuto Albertino of 1848, extended to the whole Kingdom of Italy in 1861, provided for basic freedoms, but the electoral laws excluded the non-propertied and uneducated classes from voting. In 1913 male universal suffrage was allowed. The Socialist Party became the main political party, outclassing the traditional liberal and conservative organisations. In 1911, Giovanni Giolitti's government agreed to sending forces to occupy Libya. Italy declared war on the Ottoman Empire which held Libya as a colony. The annexation of Libya caused nationalists to advocate Italy's domination of the Mediterranean Sea by occupying Greece as well as the Adriatic coastal region of Dalmatia.[10]
The path to a modern liberal democracy was interrupted by the tragedy of the First World War (1914-1918), which Italy fought alongside the United Kingdom and France. Italy was able to defeat the Austrian-Hungarian Empire in November 1918. In that war 600,000 Italians died and the economy collapsed with high inflation and unemployment.
[edit] Fascism and World War II (1922-1945)
After the devastations of WWI, many Italian workers joined lengthy strikes to demand more rights and better working conditions. Some, inspired by the Russian Revolution, began taking over their factories, mills, farms and workplaces. The liberal establishment, fearing a socialist revolution, started to endorse the small National Fascist Party, led by Benito Mussolini, whose violent reaction to the strikes (by means of the "Blackshirts" party militia) was often compared to the relatively moderate reactions of the government. After several years of struggle, in October 1922 the fascists attempted a coup (the "Marcia su Roma", i.e. March on Rome); the fascist forces were largely inferior, but the king ordered the army not to intervene, formed an alliance with Mussolini, and convinced the liberal party to endorse a fascist-led government. Over the next few years, Mussolini (who became known as "Il Duce", Italian words for "the leader") eliminated all political parties (including the liberals) and curtailed personal liberties under the pretext of preventing revolution.
In 1935, Mussolini declared war on Ethiopia on a territorial pretext. Ethiopia was subjugated in a few months. This resulted in the alienation of Italy from its traditional allies, France and the United Kingdom, and its support for Nazi Germany. A first pact with Germany was concluded in 1936, and in 1938 (the Pact of Steel). Italy supported Franco's revolution in the Spanish civil war and Hitler's pretensions in central Europe, accepting the annexation of Austria to Germany in 1938, although the disappearance of a buffer state between Germany and Italy was unfavourable for the country.
In October 1938 Mussolini brought together the United Kingdom, France and Germany at the expense of Czechoslovakia's integrity.
In April 1939, Italy occupied Albania, a de-facto protectorate for decades, but in September 1939, after the invasion of Poland, Mussolini decided not to intervene on Germany's side, due to the poor preparation of the armed forces. Italy entered the war in 1940 when France was beaten. Mussolini hoped that Italy would be able to win in a very short time. However, the country had a very poor army.
Italy invaded Greece in October 1940 via Albania but was forced to withdraw after a few days. After Italy conquered British Somalia in 1940, a counter-attack by the Allies led to the loss of the whole Italian empire in the Horn of Africa. Italy was also defeated by Allied forces in North Africa and was saved only by the German armed forces led by Erwin Rommel.
After several defeats, Italy was invaded in June 1943. King Vittorio Emanuele and a group of fascists set themselves against Mussolini. In July 1943, Mussolini was arrested. As the old pre-Fascist political parties resurfaced, secret peace negotiations with the Allies were started. In September 1943, Italy surrendered. Immediately Germany invaded the country and Italy was divided for almost two years and became a battlefield. The Nazi-occupied part of the country, where a fascist state under Mussolini was reconstituted, saw a savage civil war between Italian partisans ("partigiani") and Nazi and fascist troops. The country was liberated on April 25, 1945. The liberation is still celebrated on April 25.
[edit] The First Republic (1946-1992)
In 1946 the Vittorio Emanuele III's son,Umberto II arose. Italy became a Republic after the result of a popular referendum held on June 2, 1946, a day celebrated since as Republic Day. The republic won with a 9% margin. The Republican Constitution was approved and came into force on January 1, 1948.
Under the Paris Peace Treaties of 1947, the eastern border area was annexed by Yugoslavia. In 1954, the free territory of Trieste was divided between Italy and Yugoslavia. In 1949, Italy became an ally of the United States, which helped to revive the Italian economy through the Marshall Plan. Moreover, Italy became a member of the European Economic Community, which later transformed into the European Union (EU). In 1950s and 1960s the country enjoyed prolonged economic growth.
Italy underwent political ferment in the 1970s, which ended in the 1980s. Known as the Years of Lead, this period was characterized by widespread social conflicts and terrorist acts carried out by extra-parliamentary movements. The assassination of the leader of the Christian Democracy (DC), Aldo Moro, led at the end of a "historic compromise" between the DC and the Communist Party (PCI). In the 1980s, for the first time, two governments were managed by a republican and a socialist (Bettino Craxi) rather than by a member of DC.
At the end of the Lead years, the PCI gradually increased their votes thanks to Enrico Berlinguer. The Socialist party (PSI), led by Bettino Craxi, became more and more critical of the communists and of the Soviet Union; Craxi himself pushed in favour of US president Ronald Reagan's positioning of Pershing missiles in Italy.
In 2000, a Parliament Commission report from the Olive Tree left-of-center coalition concluded that the strategy of tension had been supported by the United States to "stop the PCI, and to a certain degree also the PSI, from reaching executive power in the country".[11][12][13]
[edit] The Second Republic (1992-present)
From 1992 to 1997, Italy faced significant challenges as voters disenchanted with political paralysis, massive government debt, extensive corruption, and organized crime's considerable influence collectively called Tangentopoli after being uncovered by Mani pulite (Italian for "Clean hands") demanded political, economic, and ethical reforms. The scandals involved all major parties, but especially those in the government coalition: between 1992 and 1994 the DC underwent a severe crisis and was dissolved, splitting up into several pieces, among whom the Italian People’s Party and the Christian Democratic Center. The PSI (and the other governing minor parties) completely dissolved.
The 1994 elections also swept media magnate Silvio Berlusconi (leader of "Pole of Freedoms" coalition) into office as Prime Minister. Berlusconi, however, was forced to step down in December 1994 when the Lega Nord withdrew support. The Berlusconi government was succeeded by a technical government headed by Prime Minister Lamberto Dini, which left office in early 1996.
In April 1996, national elections led to the victory of a center-left coalition under the leadership of Romano Prodi. Prodi's first government became the third-longest to stay in power before he narrowly lost a vote of confidence, by three votes, in October 1998. A new government was formed by Democrats of the Left leader and former communist Massimo D'Alema, but in April 2000, following poor performance by his coalition in regional elections, D'Alema resigned. The succeeding center-left government, including most of the same parties, was headed by Giuliano Amato (social-democratic), who previously served as Prime Minister in 1992-93, from April 2000 until June 2001. In 2001 the centre-right formed the government and Silvio Berlusconi was able to remain in power for a complete five year mandate, became the longest government in post-war Italy. Berlusconi participated in the US-led military coalition in Iraq.
The last elections in 2006 returned Prodi in the government with a slim majority. In the first year of his government, Mr. Prodi has followed a cautious policy of economic liberalization and reduction of public debt.
[edit] Geography
[edit] Topography
Italy is a long peninsula shaped like a boot, surrounded on the west by the Tyrrhenian Sea and on the east by the Adriatic. It is bounded by France, Switzerland, Austria, and Slovenia to the north. The Apennine Mountains form the peninsula's backbone; the Alps form its northern boundary. The largest of its many northern lakes is Garda (143 sq mi; 370 sq km); the Po, its principal river, flows from the Alps on Italy's western border and crosses the Lombard plain to the Adriatic Sea. Several islands form part of Italy; the largest are Sicily (9,926 sq mi; 25,708 sq km) and Sardinia (9,301 sq mi; 24,090 sq km).
[edit] Climate
The climate in Italy is highly diverse and can be far from the stereotypical Mediterranean climate and "land of sun", depending on the location. The inland northern areas of Italy (Turin, Milan, and Bologna) have a continental climate, while the coastal areas of Liguria and the peninsula south of Florence fit the stereotype. The coastal areas of the peninsula can be very different from the interior, particularly during the winter months. The higher altitudes are cold, wet, and often snowy. The coastal regions, where most of the large towns are located, have a typical Mediterranean climate with mild winters and hot and generally dry summers. The length and intensity of the summer dry season increases southwards (compare the tables for Rome, Naples, and Brindisi).
Between the north and south there can be a considerable difference in temperature, above all during the winter: in some winter days it can be -2 °C and snowing in Milan while Rome gets +12°C and it is +18°C in Palermo. Temperature differences are less extreme in the summer.
The east coast of the peninsula is not as wet as the west coast, but is usually colder in the winter. The east coast north of Pescara is occasionally affected by the cold bora winds in winter and spring, but the wind is less strong here than around Trieste. During these frosty spells from E-NE cities like Rimini, Ancona, Pescara and the entire eastern hillside of the Apennines can be affected by true "blizzards". The town of Fabriano, located just around 300 meters in elevation, can often see 0.50-0.60 m of fresh snow fall in 24 hours during these episodes.
On the coast line from Ravenna to Venice and Trieste, snow falls more rarely: during cold spells from east, the cold can be harsh but with bright skies; while, during the snowfalls that affects Northern Italy, the Adriatic coast can see a milder Scirocco wind which makes snow turn to rain - the mild effects of this wind often disappear just a few kilometers inside the plain, and sometime the coast from Venice to Grado sees snow while it is raining in Trieste, the Po mouths and Ravenna. Rarely, the city of Trieste may see snow blizzards with north-eastern winds; in the colder winters, the Venice Lagoon may freeze, and in the coldest ones even enough to walk on the ice sheet[5].
Summer is usually more stable, although the northern regions often have thunderstorms in the afternoon/night hours and some grey and rainy days. So, while south of Florence the summer is typically dry and sunny, the north is tends to be more humid and cloudy. Spring and Autumn weather can be very changeable, with sunny and warm weeks (sometime with Summer-like temperatures) suddenly broken off by cold spells or followed by rainy and cloudy weeks.
The least number of rainy days and the highest number of hours of sunshine occur in the extreme south of the mainland and in Sicily and Sardinia. Here sunshine averages from four to five hours a day in winter and up to ten or eleven hours in summer. In the north precipitation is more evenly distributed during the year, although the summer is usually slightly wetter. Between November and March the Po valley is often covered by fog, especially in the central zone (Pavia, Cremona, and Mantua), while the number of days with lows below 0°C usually goes from 60 to 90 a year, with peaks of 100-110 days in the mainly rural zones[6]. Snow is quite common between early December and early March in cities like Turin, Milan and Bologna, but sometime it appears in late November or late March and even April. In the winter of 2005-2006, Milan received around 0.75-0.80 m of fresh snow, Como around 1.00 m, Brescia 0.50 m, Trento 1.60 m, Vicenza around 0.45 m, Bologna around 0.30 m, and Piacenza around 0.80 m[7].
Summer temperatures are often similar north to south. July temperatures are 22-24 °C north of river Po, like in Milan or Venice, and south of river Po can reach 24-25 °C like in Bologna, with fewer thunderstorms; on the coasts of Central and Southern Italy, and in the near plains, mean temperatures goes from 23 °C to 27 °C. Generally, the hottest month is August in the south and July in the north; during these months the thermometer can reach 38-42 °C in the south and 32-35 °C in the north; Sometimes the country can be split as during winter, with rain and 20-22 °C during the day in the north, and 30 °C to 40 °C in the south; but, having a hot and dry summer does not mean that Southern Italy will not see rain from June to August.
The coldest month is January: the Po valley's mean temperature is between -1°C and +1°C, Venice +2°/+3°C, Trieste +4°C, Florence 5°/6°C, Rome 7°/8°C, Naples 9°C, Palermo 12°C. Winter morning lows can occasionally reach -30°C/-20 °C in the Alps, -14°C/-8 °C in Po valley, -7°C in Florence, -4°C in Rome, -2°C in Naples and 2°C in Palermo. In cities like Rome and Milan, strong heat islands can exist, so that inside the urban area, winters can be milder and summers more sultry.
Some winter mornings there can be just -3°C in Milan's Dome plaza while -8°/-9° in the metropolitan outskirts. Often, the biggest snowfalls happen in February, sometime in January or March; in the Alps, snow falls more in autumn and overall spring over 1500 m, because winter is usually marked by cold and dry weeks; while the Apennines see many more snow falls during winter, but they are warmer and less wet in the other seasons.
Both the mountain chains can see up to 5-10 m of snow in a year at 2000 m; on the highest peaks of the Alps, snow may fall even during mid summer, and glaciers are present.
The record low is -45 °C in the Alps, and -29.0 °C near sea level (recorded on January 12, 1985 at San Pietro Capofiume by Bologna), while in the south cities like Catania, Foggia, Lecce or Alghero have experienced highs of 46 °C in some hot summers.
[edit] Government and politics
The 1948 Constitution of Italy established a bicameral parliament (Parlamento), consisting of a Chamber of Deputies (Camera dei Deputati) and a Senate (Senato della Repubblica), a separate judiciary, and an executive branch composed of a Council of Ministers (cabinet) (Consiglio dei ministri), headed by the prime minister (Presidente del consiglio dei ministri).
The President of the Italian Republic (Presidente della Repubblica) is elected for seven years by the parliament sitting jointly with a small number of regional delegates. The president nominates the prime minister, who proposes the other ministers (formally named by the president). The Council of Ministers must retain the support (fiducia) of both houses.
The houses of parliament are popularly and directly elected through a complex electoral system (latest amendment in 2005) which combines proportional representation with a majority prize for the largest coalition (Chamber). All Italian citizens older than 18 can vote. However, to vote for the senate, the voter must be at least 25 or older. The electoral system in the Senate is based upon regional representation. During the elections in 2006, the two competing coalitions were separated by few thousand votes, and in the Chamber the centre-left coalition (L'Unione; English: The Union ) got 345 Deputies against 277 for the centre-right one (Casa delle Libertà; English: House of Freedoms), while in the Senate l'Ulivo got only two Senators more than absolute majority. The Chamber of Deputies has 630 members and the Senate 315 elected senators; in addition, the Senate includes former presidents and appointed senators for life (no more than five) by the President of the Republic according to special constitutional provisions. As of May 15, 2006, there are seven life senators (of which three are former Presidents). Both houses are elected for a maximum of five years, but both may be dissolved by the President before the expiration of their normal term if the Parliament is unable to elect a stable government. In the post war history, this has happened in 1972, 1976, 1979, 1983, 1994 and 1996.
A peculiarity of the Italian Parliament is the representation given to Italians permanently living abroad (about 2.7 million people). Among the 630 Deputies and the 315 Senators there are respectively 12 and 6 elected in four distinct foreign constituencies. Those members of Parliament were elected for the first time in April 2006 and they enjoy the same rights as members elected in Italy. Legislative bills may originate in either house and must be passed by a majority in both. The Italian judicial system is based on Roman law modified by the Napoleonic code and later statutes. The Constitutional Court of Italy (Corte Costituzionale) rules on the conformity of laws with the Constitution and is a post-World War II innovation.
- See also: List of Prime Ministers of Italy
[edit] Foreign relations
Italy was a founding member of the European Community--now the European Union (EU). Italy was admitted to the United Nations in 1955 and is a member and strong supporter of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade/World Trade Organization (GATT/WTO), the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), and the Council of Europe. It chaired the CSCE (the forerunner of the OSCE) in 1994, the EU in 1996, and the G-8 in 2001 and served as EU president from July to December 2003.
Italy supports the United Nations and its international security activities. Italy deployed troops in support of UN peacekeeping missions in Somalia, Mozambique, and East Timor and provides support for NATO and UN operations in Bosnia, Kosovo and Albania. Italy deployed 1,000 Alpini troops to Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) in February 2003. Italy also supports international efforts to reconstruct and stabilize Iraq through its military contingent of some 3,200 troops, as well as humanitarian workers and other officials. The troops remained in Iraq under UN mandate and at the request of the sovereign Iraqi Government until December 2006.
In August 2006 Italy sent about 3,000 soldiers to Lebanon for the ONU peacekeeping mission UNIFIL.[14] Furthermore, since 2 February 2007 an Italian, Claudio Graziano is the commander of the UN force in the country.
- See also: Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs
[edit] Military
Article 11 of the Italian Constitution says: "Italy rejects war as an instrument of aggression against the freedoms of others peoples and as a means for settling international controversies; it agrees, on conditions of equality with other states, to the limitations of sovereignty necessary for an order that ensures peace and justice among Nations; it promotes and encourages international organizations having such ends in view".
The Italian armed forces are divided into four branches:
- Esercito Italiano (Army)
- Aeronautica Militare (Air Force)
- Marina Militare (Navy)
- Carabinieri (Gendarmerie)
The Italian armed forces are under the command of the Italian Supreme Defense Council, presided over by the President of the Italian Republic. The total number of military personnel is approximately 308,000. Italy has the eighth highest military expenditure in the world.[citation needed]
The Italian Army (Esercito Italiano) is the ground defense force of the Italian Republic. It has recently (July 29th, 2004) become a professional all-volunteer force of 115,687 active duty personnel. Its most famous combat vehicles are Dardo, Centauro and Ariete, and Mangusta attack helicopters, recently deployed in UN missions; but the Esercito Italiano also has at its disposal a large number of Leopard 1 and M113 armored cars.
The Aeronautica Militare Italiana (AMI) is the air force of Italy. It was founded as an independent service arm on the 28th March, 1923, by King Vittorio Emanuele III as the Regia Aeronautica (which equates to "Royal Air Force")[citation needed]. After World War II, when Italy was made a republic by referendum, the Regia Aeronautica was given its current name. Today the Aeronautica Militare has a strength of 45,879 and operates 585 aircraft, including 219 combat jets and 114 helicopters. As a stopgap and as replacement for leased Tornado ADV interceptors, the AMI has leased 30 F-16A Block 15 ADF and four F-16B Block 10 Fighting Falcons, with an option for some more. The coming years also will see the introduction of 121 EF2000 Eurofighter Typhoons, replacing the leased F-16 Fighting Falcons. Furthermore updates are foreseen on the Tornado IDS/IDT and the AMX-fleet. The transport capacity is guaranteed by a fleet of 22 C-130Js, also a completely-new developed G222, called C-27J Spartan (12 aircrafts ordered), will enter service replacing the G222's.[citation needed]
The Marina Militare (the Italian Navy) is one of the four branches of the military forces of Italy. It was created in 1946, as the Navy of the Italian Republic, from the Regia Marina. Today's Marina Militare is a modern navy with a strength of 35,261 and ships of every type, such as aircraft carriers, destroyers, modern frigates, submarines, amphibious ships and other smaller ships such as oceanographic research ships.[citation needed]
The Marina Militare is now equipping herself with a bigger aircraft carrier (the Cavour), new destroyers, submarines and multipurpose frigates. In modern times, the Marina Militare, being a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), has taken part in many coalition peacekeeping operations. The Marina Militare is considered the fifth strongest navy of the world.
The Carabinieri are the gendarmerie and military police of Italy. At the Sea Islands Conference of the G8 in 2004, the Carabinieri was given the mandate to establish a Center of Excellence for Stability Police Units (CoESPU) to spearhead the development of training and doctrinal standards for civilian police units attached to international peacekeeping missions.[15]
[edit] Regions, provinces, and municipalities
Italy is subdivided into 20 regions (regioni, singular regione). Five of these regions enjoy a special autonomous status that enables them to enact legislation on some of their specific local matters, and are marked by an *. It is further divided into 109 provinces (province) and 8,101 municipalities (comuni).
| Region | Capital | Area | Population | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Abruzzo | L'Aquila | 10,794 km² | 1,305,000 |
| 2 | Basilicata | Potenza | 9,992 km² | 594,000 |
| 3 | Calabria | Catanzaro | 15,080 km² | 2,004,000 |
| 4 | Campania | Naples | 13,595 km² | 5,790,000 |
| 5 | Emilia-Romagna | Bologna | 22,124 km² | 4,187,000 |
| 6 | Friuli-Venezia Giulia* | Trieste | 7,855 km² | 1,208,000 |
| 7 | Lazio | Rome | 17,207 km² | 5,304,000 |
| 8 | Liguria | Genoa | 5,421 km² | 1,610,000 |
| 9 | Lombardy | Milan | 23,861 km² | 9,375,000 |
| 10 | Marche | Ancona | 9,694 km² | 1,528,000 |
| 11 | Molise | Campobasso | 4,438 km² | 320,000 |
| 12 | Piedmont | Turin | 25,399 km² | 4,341,000 |
| 13 | Apulia | Bari | 19,362 km² | 4,071,000 |
| 14 | Sardinia* | Cagliari | 24,090 km² | 1,655,000 |
| 15 | Aosta Valley* | Aosta | 3,263 km² | 123,000 |
| 16 | Tuscany | Florence | 22,997 km² | 3,619,000 |
| 17 | Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol* | Trento | 13,607 km² | 985,000 |
| 18 | Umbria | Perugia | 8,456 km² | 867,000 |
| 19 | Sicily* | Palermo | 25,708 km² | 5,017,000 |
| 20 | Veneto | Venice | 18,391 km² | 4,738,000 |
[edit] Demographics
[edit] Population
The latest population estimate from ISTAT (Italian Statistics Office) shows 59,131,287 inhabitants in Italy in December 2006[8], an increase of 3 percent since 2001. Italy has the fourth largest population in the European Union (after Germany, France and the United Kingdom), and the 22nd in the world. Gradual increase of population is mainly supplemented by immigrants and an increase in life expectancy of 79.81 years[9]. Despite population growth, Italy is rapidly ageing. With a fertility of 1.35 children per woman[10], almost one in five Italian inhabitants is a pensioner; if this ageing trend continues, the Italian population could shrink by a quarter by 2050.[11]
Italy has the fifth highest population density in Europe with 196 persons per square kilometre. The highest density is in Northwestern Italy, as two regions out of twenty (Lombardy and Piedmont) combined, contain one quarter of the Italian population, where an estimated 7.4 million people live in the metropolitan Milan area[12]. The literacy rate in Italy is 98% overall, and school is mandatory for children aged 6 to 18[16] Approximately two thirds of the population live in urban areas[13], which is much lower than other Western European nations.
[edit] Largest cities
Italian cities with a population of 300,000 or more (ISTAT data, December 2006):
| Pos. | Common | Region | Prov. | Inhabitants |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Rome | Lazio | RM | 2,705,603 |
| 2 | Milan | Lombardy | MI | 1,303,437 |
| 3 | Naples | Campania | NA | 1,005,139 |
| 4 | Turin | Piedmont | TO | 975,139 |
| 5 | Palermo | Sicily | PA | 666,552 |
| 6 | Genoa | Liguria | GE | 615,686 |
| 7 | Bologna | Emilia-Romagna | BO | 373,026 |
| 8 | Florence | Tuscany | FI | 365,966 |
| 9 | Bari | Apulia | BA | 325,052 |
| 10 | Catania | Sicily | CT | 301,564 |
[edit] Metropolitan areas
According to the OECD[14]., these are the major Italian metropolitan areas:
| Metropolitan area | Inhabitants |
|---|---|
| Milan | 7.4 million |
| Rome | 3.8 million |
| Naples | 3.1 million |
| Turin | 2.4 million |
[edit] Migration and ethnicity
During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Italy was a major source of immigrants to the Americas, Australia and other countries in Western Europe. However, Italy is now a destination for immigrants from all over the world with Eastern Europe, North Africa, and Asia being the chief areas. At the beginning of 2006, foreigners comprised 4.56% of the population or 2,670,514[15] people, an increase of 268,357 or 10 percent from the previous year. In many northern Italian cities, like Padua, Milan, and Brescia, migrants make up a significant portion of the population.
The most recent wave of migration has been from Eastern Europe, replacing North Africans as a major source of migrants. As of 2006, some 1,025,874 Eastern Europeans live in Italy, 40% of the total population of migrants in Italy. The five largest foreign nationalities in Italy are: Albanian (348,813), Moroccan (319,537), Romanian (297,570), Chinese (127,822), and Ukrainian (107,188).[17]
| Ethnic group | Population | % of total* |
|---|---|---|
| Ethnic Italian | 56,081,000 | 95.45% |
| Arab | 485,000 | 0.82% |
| Albanian | 348,000 | 0.6% |
| Asian (non-Chinese) | 326,000 | 0.55% |
| Romanian | 297,000 | 0.51% |
| Other East European | 273,000 | 0.46% |
| South American | 239,000 | 0.41% |
| Black African | 210,000 | 0.36% |
| Chinese | 128,000 | 0.22% |
| Ukrainian | 107,000 | 0.18% |
| Other | 257,000 | 0.43% |
| * Percentage of total Italian population | ||
[17]
[edit] Religion
Roman Catholicism is by far the largest religion in the country. Although the Catholic Church is no longer officially the state religion, it still plays a role in the nation's political affairs, partly due to the Holy See's location in Rome. 87.8% of Italians identified as Roman Catholic [16], although only about one-third of these described themselves as active members (36.8%).
Other Christian groups in Italy include more than 700,000 Eastern Orthodox Christians [17], including 470,000 newcomers [18]PDF (65.4 KiB) and some 180,000 Greek Orthodox, 550,000 Pentecostals and Evangelicals (0.8%), of whom 400,000 are members of the Assemblies of God, 235,685 Jehovah's Witnesses (0.04%) [19], 30,000 Waldensians [20], 25,000 Seventh-day Adventists, 22,000 Mormons, 15,000 Baptists (plus some 5,000 Free Baptists), 7,000 Lutherans, 5,000 Methodists (affiliated to the Waldensian Church) [21].
The country's oldest religious minority is the Jewish community, comprising roughly 45,000 people. It is no longer the largest non-Christian group.
As a result of significant immigration from other parts of the world, some 825,000 Muslims [22] (1.4%) live in Italy, though only 50,000 are Italian citizens. In addition, there are 110,000 Buddhists (0.2%) [23] [24] [25]PDF (65.4 KiB), 70,000 Sikhs [26], and 70,000 Hindus (0.1%) in Italy.
- See also: Christianity in Italy, Islam in Italy, Jews in Italy, Buddhism in Italy, and List of Italian politicians belonging to a religious minority
[edit] Economy
According to GDP calculations, Italy was ranked as the seventh largest economy in the world in 2006, behind the United States, Japan, Germany, China, UK, and France, and the fourth largest in Europe. According to the OECD, in 2004 Italy was the world's sixth-largest exporter of manufactured goods. This capitalistic economy remains divided into a developed industrial north, dominated by private companies, and a less developed agricultural south. Italy's economy has an "underground" sector that is not included in the official data, which has recently been calculated by the Ministry of Finance to account for something close to one sixth of the official GDP.
Most raw materials needed by industry and more than 75% of energy requirements are imported. Over the past decade, Italy has pursued a tight fiscal policy in order to meet the requirements of the Economic and Monetary Union and has benefited from lower interest and inflation rates. Italy joined the Euro from its introduction in 1999.
Italy's economic performance has at times lagged behind that of its EU partners, and the current government has enacted numerous short-term reforms aimed at improving competitiveness and long-term growth. It has moved slowly, however, on implementing certain structural reforms favoured by economists, such as lightening the high tax burden and overhauling Italy's rigid labour market and expensive pension system, because of the current economic slowdown and opposition from labour unions.
Italy has a smaller number of world class multinational corporations than other economies of comparable size. Instead, the country's main economic strength has been its large base of small and medium size companies. Some of these companies manufacture products that are technologically moderately advanced and therefore face increasing competition from China and other emerging Asian economies which are able to undercut them on labour costs. These Italian companies are responding to the Asian competition by concentrating on products with a higher technological content, while moving lower-tech manufacturing to plants in countries where labour is less expensive. The small average size of Italian companies remains a limiting factor, and the government has been working to encourage integration and mergers and to reform the rigid regulations that have traditionally been an obstacle to the development of larger corporations in the country.
Italy's major exports are motor vehicles (Fiat Group, Aprilia, Ducati, Piaggio), chemicals, petrochemicals and electric goods (Eni, Enel, Edison), aerospace and defence tech (Alenia, Agusta, Finmeccanica), firearms (Beretta) ; but the country's more famous exports are in the fields of fashion (Armani, Valentino, Benetton, Prada, Luxottica), food industry (Barilla Group, Martini & Rossi, Campari, Parmalat), luxury vehicles (Ferrari, Maserati, Lamborghini) and motoryachts (Ferretti, Azimut).
Tourism is very important to the Italian economy: with over 37 million tourists a year, Italy is ranked as the fifth major tourist destination in the world.[18]
[edit] Transport
The railway network in Italy totals 19,394 kilometres (12,051 mi), ranking the country 16th in the world,[citation needed] and is operated by Ferrovie dello Stato. High speed trains include ETR-class trains, of which the ETR 500 travels at 300 km/h (186 mph).
In 1991 Treno Alta Velocità SpA was created, a special purpose entity owned by RFI (itself owned by Ferrovie dello Stato) for the planning and construction of high-speed rail lines along Italy's most important and saturated transport routes. These lines are often referred as "TAV" lines. The purpose of TAV construction is to aid travel along Italy's most saturated rail lines and to add tracks to these lines, namely the Milan-Naples and Turin-Milan-Venice corridors. One of the focuses of the project is to turn the rail network of Italy into a modern and high-tech passenger rail system in accordance with updated European rail standards. A secondary purpose is to introduce high-speed rail to the country and its high-priority corridors. When demand on regular lines is lessened with the opening of dedicated high-speed lines, those regular lines will be used primarily for low-speed regional rail service and freight trains. With these ideas realised, the Italian train network can be integrated with other European rail networks, particularly the French TGV, German ICE, and Spanish AVE systems[citation needed].
There are approximately 654,676 kilometres (406,000 mi) of serviceable roadway in Italy, including 6,957 km (4,300 mi) of expressways [27].
There are approximately 133 airports in Italy, including the two hubs of Malpensa International (near Milan) and Leonardo Da Vinci International (near Rome).
There are 27 major ports in Italy, the largest is in Genoa, which is also the second largest in the Mediterranean Sea, after Marseille. 2,400 kilometres (1,500 mi) of waterways traverse Italy.
[edit] Culture
- Further information: List of Italian painters
Italy, as a state, did not exist until the unification of the country in 1861. Due to this comparatively late unification, and the historical autonomy of the many regions that comprise the Italian Peninsula, many traditions and customs that we now recognise as distinctly Italian can be identified by their regions of origin. Despite the political and social isolation of these regions, Italy's contributions to the cultural and historical heritage of Europe remain immense. In fact, Italy is home to the greatest number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites (41) to date.
[edit] Visual Art
Italy has seen many artistic and intellectual movements that spread throughout Europe and beyond, including the Renaissance and Baroque. Perhaps Italy's greatest cultural achievements lie in its artistic heritage, including the achievements of Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Donatello, Botticelli, Fra Angelico, Tintoretto, Caravaggio, Bernini, Titian and Raphael.
[edit] Literature
With the basis of the modern Italian language established through the Florentine poet, Dante Alighieri, whose greatest work, the Divina Commedia, is often considered the foremost literary statement produced in Europe during the Middle Ages and one of the greatest works of world literature ever, there is no shortage of celebrated literary figures; the writers and poets Boccaccio, Giacomo Leopardi, Alessandro Manzoni, Tasso, Ludovico Ariosto, and Petrarch, whose best known vehicle of expression, the sonnet, was invented in Italy. Prominent philosophers include Bruno, Ficino, Machiavelli, and Vico. Modern literary figures and Nobel laureates are nationalist poet Giosuè Carducci in 1906, realist writer Grazia Deledda in 1926, modern theatre author Luigi Pirandello in 1936, poets Salvatore Quasimodo in 1959 and Eugenio Montale in 1975, satiryst and theatre author Dario Fo in 1997[19].
[edit] Science
In science, Galileo Galilei made advancements toward the scientific revolution, and Leonardo da Vinci was the quintessential Renaissance Man. Italy has been the home of scientists and inventors: the physicist Enrico Fermi, one of the fathers of quantum theory and head of the Manhattan Project; the astronomer Giovanni Domenico Cassini; the physicist Alessandro Volta, inventor of the electric battery; the mathematicians Lagrange and Fibonacci; Nobel Prize in Physics laureate Guglielmo Marconi, inventor of the radio; and Antonio Meucci, inventor of the telephone.
[edit] Music
From folk music to classical, music has always played an important role in Italian culture. Having given birth to opera, Italy provides many of the foundations of the classical music tradition. Instruments associated with classical music, including the piano and violin, were invented in Italy, and many of the existing classical music forms can trace their roots back to innovations of sixteenth and seventeenth century Italian music (such as the symphony, concerto, and sonata). Some of Italy's most famous composers include the Renaissance composers Palestrina and Monteverdi, the Baroque composers Corelli and Vivaldi, the Classical composers Paganini and Rossini, and the Romantic composers Verdi and Puccini. Modern Italian composers such as Berio and Nono proved significant in the development of experimental and electronic music.
[edit] Sport
Italians are renowned for their love of sports, from the Gladiatorial games of Ancient Rome, to the Stadio Olimpico of contemporary Rome, where football clubs compete. Winter sports are popular, with many Italians from that region competing in international games and Olympic venues. The incorporation of sports in many Italian festivities like Palio (see also Palio di Siena), and the Gondola race (regatta) that takes place in Venice on the first Sunday of September, affirms the role sports play in everyday Italian life. Popular sports include football, basketball (2nd national team sport since the '50s), volleyball, waterpolo, fencing, rugby, cycling, ice hockey (mainly in Milan, Trentino-Alto Adige and Veneto), roller hockey and F1 motor racing.
[edit] Languages
The official language of Italy is Standard Italian, a descendant of Tuscan dialect and a direct descendant of Latin. Some 75 percent of Italian words are of Latin origin.
When Italy was unified in 1861 Italian existed mainly as a literary language. Many Romance regional languages were spoken throughout the Italian peninsula (Italian dialects), with many local variants.
Following Italian unification Massimo Taparelli, marquis d'Azeglio, one of Cavour's ministers, is said to have stated that having created Italy, all that remained was to create Italians (a national identity). The Tuscan dialect (or Florentine dialect) spoken in Tuscany was promoted as the standard dialect in large part due to its literary heritage (Dante's Divine Comedy is often credited with the emergence of the Tuscan dialect as standard). Pietro Bembo, influenced by Petrarch, also promoted Tuscan as the standard literary language (volgare illustre). The spread of the printing press and literary movements (such as petrarchism and bembismo) also furthered Italian standardization.
The establishment of a national education system led to a decrease in variation in the languages spoken across the country. Standardization was also hastened in the 1960s because of economic growth leading to the popularization of television (the state broadcaster RAI set an Italian standard).
Today, despite regional variations in the form of accents and vowel emphasis, Italian dialects are almost always mutually intelligible. Nevertheless variety remains, and is often used in idioms and folk songs.
Some languages spoken in Italy are not considered Italian dialects but are different languages entirely, such as Venetian, Neapolitan, Sicilian and other Gallo-Italian languages of the north.
In addition to the various regional linguistic varieties and dialects of standard Italian, a number of languages enjoying some form of official recognition are spoken:
- In Sardinia there is the largest group of non-Italian speakers, some 1.3 million people, they speak Sardinian, a Romance language which retains many pre-Latin words.
- In the north, the province of Bolzano-Bozen has a majority German-speaking population (Upper German). This area was taken from Austro-Hungary and given to Italy under the terms of the 1919 Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye after the World War I. Some German-speaking communities also exist in other parts of north Italy. Cimbrian is a German language related to Austro-Bavarian spoken in some parts of Veneto (Asiago, Luserna) and the Walsers in Val'Aosta (Gressoney). In total some 300,000 or so Italians speak German as their first language. Some identify themselves as ethnic Austrians.
- Some 120,000 people live in the Aosta Valley region, where a dialect of Franco-Provençal is spoken that is similar to dialects spoken in France. About 1,400 people living in two isolated towns in Foggia speak another dialect of Franco-Provençal.
- About 80,000 Slovene-speakers live in the north-eastern region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia near the border with Slovenia.
- In the Dolomite mountains of Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol and Veneto there are some 40,000 speakers of the Rhaeto-Romance language Ladin.
- A community of 700,000 in Friuli speak Friulian, also a Rhaeto-Romance language.
- In the Molise region of central-south Italy some 4,000 people speak Molise Croatian. These are the Molise Croats, descendants of a group of people who migrated from the Balkans in the Middle Ages.
- Scattered across southern Italy (Salento and Calabria) are some 30,000 Greek-speakers—considered to be the last surviving traces of the region's Magna Graecia heritage. They speak a Greek dialect, Griko.
- Some 15,000 Catalan speakers reside around the area of Alghero in the north-west corner of Sardinia—believed to be the result of a migration of a large group of Catalans from Barcelona.
- The Arbëreshë, of whom there are around 100,000 in southern Italy and in central Sicily, the result of past migrations, are speakers of the Arbëresh dialect of Albanian.