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Portale Italia

Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern and Western Europe. It consists of a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land border, as well as nearly 800 islands, notably Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares land borders with France to the west; Switzerland and Austria to the north; Slovenia to the east; and the two enclaves of Vatican City and San Marino. It is the tenth-largest country in Europe by area, covering 301,340 km² (116,350 sq mi), and the third-most populous member state of the European Union, with nearly 60 million inhabitants. Italy's capital and largest city is Rome; other major urban areas include Milan, Naples, Turin, Palermo, Bologna, Florence, Genoa, and Venice.

The history of Italy goes back to numerous Italic peoples—notably including the ancient Romans, who conquered the Mediterranean world during the Roman Republic and ruled it for centuries during the Roman Empire. With the spread of Christianity, Rome became the seat of the Catholic Church and the Papacy. Barbarian invasions and other factors led to the decline and fall of the Western Roman Empire between late antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. By the 11th century, Italian city-states and maritime republics expanded, bringing renewed prosperity through commerce and laying the groundwork for modern capitalism. The Italian Renaissance flourished during the 15th and 16th centuries and spread to the rest of Europe. Italian explorers discovered new routes to the Far East and the New World, contributing significantly to the European Age of Discovery. (Full article...)

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The Destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum (c. 1821) by John Martin

Of the many eruptions of Mount Vesuvius, a major stratovolcano in Southern Italy, the best-known is its eruption in 79 AD, which was one of the deadliest in history.

Mount Vesuvius violently ejected a cloud of super-heated tephra and gases to a height of 33 km (21 mi), ejecting molten rock, pulverized pumice and hot ash at 1.5 million tons per second, ultimately releasing 100,000 times the thermal energy of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The event gives its name to the Vesuvian type of volcanic eruption, characterised by columns of hot gases and ash reaching the stratosphere, although the event also included pyroclastic flows associated with Peléan eruptions. (Full article...)

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Image 1Sellajoch, South Tyrol and Trentino (seen from Pordoi Pass), Langkofel on the left, Piz Ciavazes on the right
Image 2South face of the Tofana di Rozes in the Parco naturale regionale delle Dolomiti d'Ampezzo
Image 3Youth of Moses by Sandro Botticelli, 1481-82, Sistine Chapel
Image 4View of Piazzetta San Marco toward Grand Canal of Venice, at dawn, with Doges' Palace on the left and Biblioteca Marciana on the right.
Image 5A section of the Sistine Chapel ceiling, painted by Michelangelo
Image 6The Forma Urbis Romae is a massive marble map of ancient Rome, created under the emperor Septimius Severus between 203 and 211.
Image 7Porta Soprana is the best-known gate of the ancient walls of Genoa.
Image 8Dome of Florence Cathedral
Image 9Interior of the Santa Maria della Vittoria in Rome

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...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?

...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?

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Italian wine (Italian: vino italiano) is produced in every region of Italy. Italy is the country with the widest variety of indigenous grapevine in the world, with an area of 702,000 hectares (1.73 million acres) under vineyard cultivation, as well as the world's largest wine producer and the largest exporter as of 2024. Contributing 49.8 million hl of wine in 2022, Italy accounted for over 19.3% of global production, ahead of France (17.7%) and Spain (13.8%); the following year, production decreased by 11.5 million hl, and Italy was surpassed by France. Italian wine is also popular domestically among Italians, who consume a yearly average of 46.8 litres per capita, ranking third in world wine consumption.

The origins of vine-growing and winemaking in Italy has been illuminated by recent research, stretching back even before the Phoenician, Etruscans and Greek settlers, who produced wine in Italy before the Romans planted their own vineyards. The Romans greatly increased Italy's viticultural area using efficient viticultural and winemaking methods. (Full article...)

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Italian cuisine Pizza Ancient Roman cuisine Pasta Roman cuisine Parmigiano-Reggiano Sicilian cuisine Mozzarella Fettuccine Alfredo Acquacotta Carbonara Gelato Marron glacé Minestrone Pizza di Pasqua Chianti Food and dining in the Roman Empire Espresso Testaroli Prodotti agroalimentari tradizionali Latte

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The following are images from various Italy-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Castel del Monte, Apulia (from Culture of Italy)
Image 2Villa Capra "La Rotonda" near Vicenza, one of Palladio's most influential designs (from Culture of Italy)
Image 3The president of Italy Sergio Mattarella during his entry into the Sala del Tricolore on the occasion of the Tricolour Day on 7 January 2017 (from Culture of Italy)
Image 4The Roman Empire provided an inspiration for the medieval European. Although the Holy Roman Empire rarely acquired a serious geopolitical reality, it possessed great symbolic significance. (from Culture of Italy)
Image 5Giorgio Moroder, pioneer of Italo disco and electronic dance music, is known as the "Father of disco". (from Culture of Italy)
Image 6The Creation of Adam is one of the scenes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel of the Vatican, painted by Michelangelo sometime between 1508 and 1512. (from Culture of Italy)
Image 7Romulus and Remus, the Lupercal, Father Tiber, and the Palatine on a relief from a pedestal dating to the reign of Trajan (AD 98–117) (from Culture of Italy)
Image 8The Forum of Pompeii with Vesuvius in the distance (from Culture of Italy)
Image 9Teatro di San Carlo, Naples. It is the oldest continuously active venue for opera in the world. (from Culture of Italy)
Image 10Carnival of Venice (from Culture of Italy)
Image 11The Azzurri in 2012. Football is the most popular sport in Italy. (from Culture of Italy)
Image 12The Piazza dei Miracoli, with Pisa Cathedral, the Pisa Baptistery, and the Leaning Tower of Pisa, in Pisan Romanesque style (from Culture of Italy)
Image 13Espresso is a coffee brewed by forcing a small amount of nearly boiling water under pressure through finely ground coffee beans. The term espresso comes from the Italian esprimere, which means 'to express', and refers to the process by which hot water is forced under pressure through ground coffee. (from Culture of Italy)
Image 14Pietà, by Michelangelo, is a key work of Italian Renaissance sculpture. (from Culture of Italy)
Image 15Celebration of the 2777th Natale di Roma at the Circus Maximus (from Culture of Italy)
Image 16The Sagra dell'uva in Marino, Lazio, celebrating grapes (from Culture of Italy)
Image 17Florence Cathedral, which has the biggest brick dome in the world (from Culture of Italy)
Image 18John Florio is recognised as the most important Renaissance humanist in England. (from Culture of Italy)
Image 19William Shakespeare is an example of an Italophile of the 16th century. (from Culture of Italy)
Image 20Italian folk dance in Molise (from Culture of Italy)
Image 21Valle dei Templi (from Culture of Italy)
Image 22Enrico Fermi, creator of the world's first nuclear reactor. He is considered the "architect of the nuclear age" and the "architect of the atomic bomb". (from Culture of Italy)
Image 23The cover of the Corriere dei Piccoli on 11 July 1911 carries a cartoon strip in the Italian style, without speech bubbles. (from Culture of Italy)
Image 24Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa is an Italian art masterpiece worldwide famous. (from Culture of Italy)
Image 25The Venice Film Festival is the oldest film festival in the world. (from Culture of Italy)
Image 26Antonio Vivaldi, in 1723. His best-known work is a series of violin concertos known as The Four Seasons. (from Culture of Italy)
Image 27Antonio Meucci, inventor of the first telephone (from Culture of Italy)
Image 28The Uffizi in Florence (from Culture of Italy)
Image 29The statue of Italia turrita in Naples. Italia turrita is the national personification of Italy. (from Culture of Italy)
Image 30Entrance to Cinecittà in Rome, the largest film studio in Europe (from Culture of Italy)
Image 31Festival of Saint Agatha (from Culture of Italy)
Image 32Prada shop at Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II in Milan (from Culture of Italy)
Image 33Columbus Breaking the Egg by William Hogarth (from Culture of Italy)
Image 34Gelato is Italian ice cream. (from Culture of Italy)
Image 35The Calling of St Matthew by Caravaggio (from Culture of Italy)
Image 36The historic seat of the Corriere della Sera in via Solferino in Milan (from Culture of Italy)
Image 37Palazzo Senatorio, seat of the municipality of Rome. It has been a town hall since AD 1144, making it the oldest town hall in the world. (from Culture of Italy)
Image 38Linguistic map of the Italian language throughout the world
  Official language

  Secondary, widely spoken or understood

  Understood by some due to former colonisation
(from Culture of Italy)
Image 39Palio di Siena (from Culture of Italy)
Image 40The Trevi Fountain in Rome (from Culture of Italy)
Image 41Scrovegni Chapel. The chapel contains a fresco cycle by Giotto, completed about 1305 and considered to be an important masterpiece of Western art. (from Culture of Italy)
Image 42The Arch of Constantine in Rome (from Culture of Italy)
Image 43Dario Fo, one of the most widely performed playwrights in modern theatre, received international acclaim for his highly improvisational style. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1997. (from Culture of Italy)
Image 44Italian wine and salumi (from Culture of Italy)
Image 45Gucci and Dolce & Gabbana Store on the Las Vegas Strip in Las Vegas (from Culture of Italy)
Image 46The Antica trattoria Bagutto in Milan, the oldest restaurant in Italy and the second in Europe. (from Culture of Italy)
Image 47Alessandro Manzoni is famous for the novel The Betrothed (1827), generally ranked among the masterpieces of world literature. (from Culture of Italy)
Image 48A Ferrari SF21 by Scuderia Ferrari, the most successful Formula One team (from Culture of Italy)
Image 49A wooden puppet depicting the Befana (from Culture of Italy)
Image 50The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (from Culture of Italy)
Image 51Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana in Rome is a perfect example of modern Italian architecture. (from Culture of Italy)
Image 52St. Peter's Basilica, a representation of Renaissance and Baroque architecture (from Culture of Italy)
Image 53The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci, possibly one of the most famous and iconic examples of Italian art (from Culture of Italy)
Image 54Milan Cathedral is the fourth-largest church in the world. (from Culture of Italy)
Image 55The Trevi Fountain in Rome (from Culture of Italy)
Image 56Rai Radio 1 (from Culture of Italy)
Image 57Clockwise from top left: Thomas Aquinas, proponent of natural theology and the Father of Thomism; Giordano Bruno, one of the major scientific figures of the Western world; Cesare Beccaria, considered the Father of criminal justice and modern criminal law; and Maria Montessori, credited with the creation of the Montessori education (from Culture of Italy)
Image 58Folkloristic reconstruction of the Company of Death led by Alberto da Giussano who is preparing to carry out the charge during the battle of Legnano at the Palio di Legnano 2014 (from Culture of Italy)
Image 59Guglielmo Marconi was the inventor of radio. (from Culture of Italy)
Image 60Roman mosaic of Virgil, the most important Latin poet of the Augustan period (from Culture of Italy)
Image 61Holographic copy of 1847 of "Il Canto degli Italiani", the Italian national anthem since 1946 (from Culture of Italy)
Image 62David, by Michelangelo (Accademia di Belle Arti, Florence, Italy), is a masterpiece of Renaissance and world art. (from Culture of Italy)
Image 63Vineyard Landscape of Piedmont: Langhe-Roero and Monferrato (from Culture of Italy)
Image 64Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (from Culture of Italy)
Image 65Anti-fascist demonstration at Porta San Paolo in Rome on the occasion of the Liberation Day on 25 April 2013 (from Culture of Italy)
Image 66The Frecce Tricolori, with the smoke trail representing the national colours of Italy, above the Victor Emmanuel II Monument in Rome during the celebrations of the Festa della Repubblica on 2 June 2022 (from Culture of Italy)
Image 67Starting in 1909, the Giro d'Italia is the Grands Tours' second oldest. (from Culture of Italy)
Image 68The Altare della Patria in Rome, a national symbol of Italy celebrating the first king of the unified country, and resting place of the Italian Unknown Soldier since the end of World War I. It was inaugurated in 1911, on the occasion of the 50th Anniversary of the Unification of Italy. (from Culture of Italy)
Image 69Luciano Pavarotti, considered one of the finest tenors of the 20th century and the "King of the High Cs" (from Culture of Italy)
Image 70Federico Fellini, considered one of the most influential and widely revered filmmakers in the history of cinema (from Culture of Italy)
Image 71Dante Alighieri, one of the greatest poets of the Middle Ages. His epic poem The Divine Comedy ranks among the finest works of world literature. (from Culture of Italy)
Image 72Bologna University, established in AD 1088, is the world's oldest university in continuous operation. (from Culture of Italy)
Image 73Andrea Palladio is often described as the most influential architect in the Western world. (from Culture of Italy)
Image 74Commedia dell'arte troupe I Gelosi performing, by Hieronymus Francken I, c. 1590 (from Culture of Italy)
Image 75The Sistine Chapel ceiling, with frescos done by Michelangelo (from Culture of Italy)
Image 76Regional seat of RAI in Cosenza (from Culture of Italy)
Image 77Leonardo da Vinci, a polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect (from Culture of Italy)
Image 78Palazzo della Carovana, the current seat of the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa (from Culture of Italy)
Image 79Established in 1224 by Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, University of Naples Federico II, in Italy, is the world's oldest state-funded university in continuous operation. (from Culture of Italy)
Image 80The Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C. reflects the president's admiration for classical Roman aesthetics. (from Culture of Italy)
Image 81Ferragosto fireworks display in Padua on 15 August 2010 (from Culture of Italy)
Image 82Tagliatelle with ragù (from Culture of Italy)
Image 83The ingredients of traditional pizza Margherita—tomatoes (red), mozzarella (white), and basil (green)—are held by popular legend to be inspired by the colours of the national flag of Italy. (from Culture of Italy)
Image 84Pinocchio Disney film is based on The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi. (from Culture of Italy)