Portal:Italy

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Portale Italia

Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern and Western Europe. It consists of a peninsula, which 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 59 million inhabitants. Rome is the capital of Italy; other major cities include Milan, Naples, Turin, Palermo, Bologna, Florence, Genoa, Bari, 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 Age of Discovery. (Full article...)

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Italian Renaissance painting is the painting of the period beginning in the late 13th century and flourishing from the early 15th to late 16th centuries, occurring in the Italian Peninsula, which was at that time divided into many political states, some independent but others controlled by external powers. The painters of Renaissance Italy, although often attached to particular courts and with loyalties to particular towns, nonetheless wandered the length and breadth of Italy, often occupying a diplomatic status and disseminating artistic and philosophical ideas.

The city of Florence in Tuscany is renowned as the birthplace of the Renaissance, and in particular of Renaissance painting, although later in the era Rome and Venice assumed increasing importance in painting. A detailed background is given in the companion articles Renaissance art and Renaissance architecture. Italian Renaissance painting is most often divided into four periods: the Proto-Renaissance (1300–1425), the Early Renaissance (1425–1495), the High Renaissance (1495–1527), and Mannerism (1527–1600). The dates for these periods represent the overall trend in Italian painting and do not cover all painters as the lives of individual artists and their personal styles overlapped these periods. (Full article...)

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

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...that the Italian winery Vini Lunardelli produced a controversial "historical line" of wine bottles featuring images of Che Guevara, Adolf Hitler, Winston Churchill and Josef Stalin on their labels?

...that Vittorio Ambrosio was an Italian general who served an instrumental role in the fall of Mussolini and the eventual Italian renunciation of its alliance with Germany?

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Espresso (/ɛˈsprɛsoʊ/ ^ⓘ, Italian: [eˈsprɛsso]) is a concentrated form of coffee produced by forcing hot water under high pressure through finely ground coffee beans. Originating in Italy, espresso has become one of the most popular coffee-brewing methods worldwide. It is characterized by its small serving size, typically 25–30 ml, and its distinctive layers: a dark body topped with a lighter-colored foam called "crema".

Espresso machines use pressure to extract a highly concentrated coffee with a complex flavor profile in a short time, usually 25–30 seconds. The result is a beverage with a higher concentration of suspended and dissolved solids than regular drip coffee, giving espresso its characteristic body and intensity. While espresso contains more caffeine per unit volume than most coffee beverages, its typical serving size results in less caffeine per serving compared to larger drinks such as drip coffee. (Full article...)

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

Image 1Scrovegni 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 2Linguistic 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 3A wooden puppet depicting the Befana (from Culture of Italy)
Image 4The 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 5Columbus Breaking the Egg by William Hogarth, 1752 (from Culture of Italy)
Image 6The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci, possibly one of the most famous and iconic examples of Italian art (from Culture of Italy)
Image 7The Forum of Pompeii with Vesuvius in the distance (from Culture of Italy)
Image 8Cover of Corriere dei Piccoli, 11 July 1911, with a strip in the Italian style (no speech bubbles). (from Culture of Italy)
Image 9The Sagra dell'uva in Marino, Lazio, celebrating grapes (from Culture of Italy)
Image 10David, by Michelangelo (Accademia di Belle Arti, Florence, Italy), is a masterpiece of Renaissance and world art. (from Culture of Italy)
Image 11Antonio Vivaldi, in 1723. His best-known work is a series of violin concertos known as The Four Seasons. (from Culture of Italy)
Image 12The Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C. reflects the president's admiration for classical Roman aesthetics. (from Culture of Italy)
Image 13Dante Alighieri, whose works helped establish modern Italian language, is considered one of the greatest poets of the Middle Ages. His epic poem Divine Comedy ranks among the finest works of world literature. (from Culture of Italy)
Image 14Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (from Culture of Italy)
Image 15Luciano Pavarotti, considered one of the finest tenors of the 20th century and the "King of the High Cs" (from Culture of Italy)
Image 16Tagliatelle with ragù (from Culture of Italy)
Image 17Dario 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 18The 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 19Ferragosto fireworks display in Padua on 15 August 2010 (from Culture of Italy)
Image 20The 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 21Prada shop at Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II in Milan (from Culture of Italy)
Image 22Pietà, by Michelangelo, is a key work of Italian Renaissance sculpture. (from Culture of Italy)
Image 23The statue of Italia turrita in Naples. Italia turrita is the national personification of Italy. (from Culture of Italy)
Image 24Carnival of Venice (from Culture of Italy)
Image 25Bologna University, established in AD 1088, is the world's oldest university in continuous operation. (from Culture of Italy)
Image 26The Azzurri in 2012. Football is the most popular sport in Italy. (from Culture of Italy)
Image 27Teatro di San Carlo, Naples. It is the oldest continuously active venue for opera in the world. (from Culture of Italy)
Image 28Holographic copy of 1847 of "Il Canto degli Italiani", the Italian national anthem since 1946 (from Culture of Italy)
Image 29Clockwise 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 30Pisa Cathedral and the Leaning Tower of Pisa (from Culture of Italy)
Image 31The Trevi Fountain in Rome (from Culture of Italy)
Image 32Entrance to Cinecittà in Rome, the largest film studio in Europe (from Culture of Italy)
Image 33Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa is an Italian art masterpiece famous worldwide. (from Culture of Italy)
Image 34Celebration of the 2777th Natale di Roma at the Circus Maximus (from Culture of Italy)
Image 35The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (from Culture of Italy)
Image 36Andrea Palladio is often described as the most influential architect in the Western world. (from Culture of Italy)
Image 37Pinocchio Disney film is based on the 1883 novel The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi. (from Culture of Italy)
Image 38Enrico Fermi, creator of the world's first nuclear reactor (from Culture of Italy)
Image 39Rai Radio 1 (from Culture of Italy)
Image 40Folkloristic 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 41The 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 42The Antica trattoria Bagutto in Milan, the oldest restaurant in Italy and the second in Europe. (from Culture of Italy)
Image 43John Florio is recognised as the most important Renaissance humanist in England. (from Culture of Italy)
Image 44Federico Fellini, considered one of the most influential and widely revered filmmakers in the history of cinema (from Culture of Italy)
Image 45Gelato is Italian ice cream. (from Culture of Italy)
Image 46Leonardo 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 47The historic seat of the Corriere della Sera in via Solferino in Milan (from Culture of Italy)
Image 48Romulus 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 49The Sistine Chapel ceiling, with frescos done by Michelangelo (from Culture of Italy)
Image 50Milan Cathedral is the fourth-largest church in the world. (from Culture of Italy)