research: Italy

Belongs to series about research: mind, Padova, Veneto, Italy. Here's what I found out through some serious researching about...


Italy


capital city - Rome
currency - euro
time zone - GMT +1
president - Giorgio Napolitano

Italy is a republic on the peninsula and its several islands in the Mediterranean sea. It has 301 000 km² (Finland: 338 000 km²) of land and about 59 million people (Finland: 5 million). The neighbour countries are France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia. The country includes two very small independent states, San Marino and The Vatican City.

The capital Rome lies in the middle of the country with another important city Naples, while the rest of the most important ones are in the North: Milan, Turin, Florence and Venice. Milan is probably the most important city of the country if viewed on the point of business. The official language is italian, though near the border there is other languages used too, mainly french and german. The language is also highly affected by dialects of different regions. Some people say that in the area of Florence people speak the most pure italian.

Italy's biggest religious group is catholics (87,8% of population, Finland: 0,08%).

(Wikipedia: Italy, Dino, Walter and Mario)


HISTORY

It became a republic in the year 1946 after being a kingdom for almost a century. The some of the most markable historical events of the country are:

962 - Otto the Great was crowned emperor, marking the beginning of the Holy Roman Empire
1796 - Napoleon Bonaparte conquered most of the northern Italy and established Italian republics.
1861, The Kingdom of Italy was formed, encompassing the entire peninsula except for Rome, Venice and San Marino.
1871, Rome becomes the capital of Italy.
1922, as Italy had entered World War I allied with Germany and Austria-Hungary, Mussolini became prime minister and rapidly assumed dictatorical powers.
1940-43, Italy entered World War II having previously formed an alliance with Germany in the end having to surrender.
1946, Italy became a republic by vote.
1952, Italy became a founding member of the European Coal and Steel Community, which would eventually become the European Union.
1984, Reflecting the diminished influence of the church in Italian life, Roman Catholicism was de-institutionalized as Italy's state religion.

just to mention a few. (Chronology of Italy's history)


POLITICS

I'm not too interested on this part, so I'll keep it short. The republic is represent by a president, who is currently Giorgio Napolitano (elected 2006). The prime minister is Romano Prodi who won the place from Silvio Berlusconi, which if you ask me isn't such a bad thing.. after all he mocked finnish food ;)

Italy is one of the founders of EU and NATO. (Wikipedia - Politics of Italy)


CULTURE

Italy is world famous for its cultural and natural heritage, which can also be noticed at the number of UNESCO World Heritage sites it has. More than any other nation in the world. Aside from that Italy is known from its cars, beautiful women, eating culture and cuisine, wine, pasta, cheese, pepperoni, though some say that italian cuisine is just a mix of several others.

Visual arts

One of the reasons why I wanted to this particular country is the cultural heritage. In visual arts, the country has impressive list of artists and their achievements. Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Donatello, Botticelli... The country has lead Europe to many artistic and intellectual movements like Renaissance and Baroque.

Literature

Poet Dante Alighieri with his greatest work, the Divina Commedia, is ofter considered the foremost literary statement in Europe from the Middle Ages and also on of the greatest works in the world literature. Other very famous and appreciated writers and poets are Boccaccio, Giacomo Leopardi, Alessandro Manzoni... and from the philosophic side a famous name: Machiavelli.

Science

In science, Italy has again an impressive list of names who made advancements towards scientific revolutions. Galileo Galilei and Leonardo da Vinci as leading men, Italy has been home for many scientists and inventors: the physicist Enrico Fermi, one of the fathers of quantum theory; 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.

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. Italy's most famous composers in the world are Vivaldi, Puccini and Verdi.

Sports

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. 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.

(Culture of Italy, Italian literature, Music of Italy, Sport in Italy, and Cinema of Italy, List of Italian painters)

GEOGRAPHY and TOPOGRAPHY

The country is divided administratively to 20 regions (regione), which divide to 110 provinces (provincia) and these to 8 101 communes (comune). The provinces are often named after the administrative cities. The regions: Abruzzo, Valle d'Aosta, Puglia, Basilicata, Calabria, Campania, Emilia-Romagna, Friulia-Venezia Giulia, Lazio, Liguria, Lombardia, Marche, Molise, Piemonte, Sardegna, Sicilia, Toscana, Trentino-Alto Adige, Umbria, Veneto.

Because of country's shape, it's also called the boot country. The Apennine Mountains form the peninsula's backbone; the Alps form its northern boundary. The largest of its many northern lakes is Garda; the Po, its principal river, flows from the Alps on Italy's western border and crosses the Lombard plain to the Adriatic Sea.

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 coastal regions, where most of the large towns are located, have a typical Mediterranean climate with mild winters and hot and generally dry summers. 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. (Geography of Italy)