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ITALY  Bell’Italia! Italy has Europe’s richest, craziest culture. After all, this nation is the cradle of European civilization — established by the Roman Empire and carried on by the Roman Catholic Church. As you explore Italy, you’ll stand face-to-face with some of the world’s most iconic images from this 2,000-year history: the Colosseum of Ancient Rome, the medieval Leaning Tower of Pisa, Michelangelo’s David and Botticelli’s Venus, the playful Baroque exuberance of the Trevi Fountain…and the elegant decay that surrounds the canals of Venice. Beyond these famous sights, though, Italy offers Europe’s richest culture. Traditions still live within a country that is vibrant and fully modern. Go with an eye open to both the Italy of the past and of the present.

• 1 Rome (Italian: Roma) — The Eternal City has shrugged off sacks and fascists, urban planning disasters and traffic snarls and is as impressive to the visitor now as two thousand years ago
• 2 Bologna — one of the world’s great university cities that is filled with history, culture, technology and food
• 3 Florence (Italian: Firenze) — the Renaissance city known for its architecture and art that had a major impact throughout the world
• 4 Genoa (Italian: Genova) — an important medieval maritime republic; its port brings in tourism and trade, along with art and architecture
• 5 Milan (Italian: Milano) — one of the main fashion cities of the world, but also Italy’s most important centre of trade and business
• 6 Naples (Italian: Napoli) — one of the oldest cities of the Western world, with a historic city centre that is a UNESCO World Heritage Site
• 7 Pisa — one the medieval maritime republics, it is home to the unmistakable image of the Leaning Tower of Pisa
• 8 Turin (Italian: Torino) — a well-known industrial city, home of FIAT, other automobiles and the aerospace industry. Le Corbusier defined Turin as “the city with the most beautiful natural location in the world”
• 9 Venice (Italian: Venezia) — one of the most beautiful cities in Italy, known for its history, art, and of course its world-famous canals

Understand[edit]

Italy is largely a peninsula situated on the Mediterranean Sea, bordering France, Switzerland, Austria, and Slovenia in the north. The country, which is boot-shaped, is surrounded by the Ligurian Sea, the Sardinian Sea, and the Tyrrhenian Sea in the west, the Sicilian and Ionian Sea in the South, and Adriatic Sea in the East. Italian is the official language spoken by the majority of the population, but as you travel throughout the country, you will find there are distinct Italian dialects corresponding to the region you are in. Italy has a very diverse landscape, but can be primarily described as mountainous including the Alps and the Apennines mountain ranges that run through the vast majority of it. Italy has two major islands as part of its country: Sardinia, which is an island off the west coast of Italy, and Sicily, which is at the southern tip (the “toe”) of the boot. Italy has a population of around 60 million. The capital is Rome.

Prehistory[edit]

There have been humans on the Italian peninsula for at least 200,000 years. Prior to the Romans, the Etruscan Civilization lasted from prehistory to the founding of Rome. The Etruscans flourished in the centre and north of what is now Italy, particularly in areas now represented by northern Lazio, Umbria and Tuscany. Rome was dominated by the Etruscans until the Romans sacked the nearby Etruscan city of Veii in 396 BC. In the 8th and 7th centuries BC, Greek colonies were established in Sicily and the southern part of the Italy and the Etruscan culture rapidly became influenced by that of Greece. This is well illustrated at some excellent Etruscan museums; Etruscan burial sites are also well worth visiting.

Italian Republic[edit]

In 1946, King Umberto II was forced to abdicate and Italy became a republic after a referendum. In the 1950s, Italy became a member of NATO and allied itself with the United States. The Marshall Plan helped revive the Italian economy which, until the 1960s, enjoyed a period of sustained economic growth. Cities such as Rome returned to being popular tourist destinations, expressed in both American and Italian films such as Roman Holiday or La Dolce Vita. In 1957, Italy became a founding member of the European Economic Community. Beginning with the Wirtschaftswunder (German for “economic miracle”) of the 1950s many Germans invested their new-found wealth in vacations in Italy and Northern Italy has been particularly popular with Germans ever since. Even to the point that the spread of pizza (a specialty from the South) to Northern Italy is said to have originated with German tourists demanding, what they thought to be “Italian food”.

From the late 1960s till the late 1980s, however, the country experienced an economic crisis. There was a constant fear, inside and outside Italy (particularly in the USA), that the Communist Party, which regularly polled over 20% of the vote, would one day form a government. All sorts of dirty tricks were concocted to prevent this. Italy suffered terrorism from the right and the left, and the death of Prime Minister Aldo Moro, who shortly before had made a “historic compromise” with the Communists, probably the most shocking event. Some attacks that had been thought to have been the work of leftist groups are now known to have originated with right wing groups trying to discredit the Communist Party or with the Mafia. An involvement by the NATO “stay behind” organisation, Gladio, that included many right wing extremists has been alleged in several cases.

• Food is definitely one of the best souvenirs you can get in Italy. There are thousands of different shapes of pasta (not only spaghetti or macaroni). Then, every Italian region has its typical food like cheese, wine, ham, salami, oil, and vinegar. Don’t forget to buy Nutella.
• Milan is Italy’s fashion and design capital. In the city one can find virtually every major brand in the world, not only Italian, but also French, English, American, Swedish and Spanish. Your main place for the creme de la creme shopping is the Via Montenapoleone, but the Via della Spiga, Via Manzoni, Via Sant’ Andrea and the Corso Vittorio Emanuele are equally luxurious, if not slightly less prominent, high-class shopping streets. The Corso Buenos Aires is the place to go for mass-scale or outlet shopping. And, the beautiful Galleria Vittorio Emanuele in the centre and Via Dante boast some designer boutiques, too. Virtually every street in central Milan does boast at least some clothing stores of some kind.

Italian food inside of Italy is different than what they call “Italian food” in America. It is truly one of the most diverse in the world, and in any region, or even city and village you go, there are different specialities. For instance, it could be only misleading to say that Northern Italian cuisine is based on hearty, potato and rice-rich meals, Central Italian cuisine is mainly on pastas, roasts and meat, and Southern Italian cuisine on vegetables, pizza, pasta and seafood: there are so many cross-influences that you’d only get confused trying to categorize. And in any case, Italian cuisine, contrary to popular belief, is not just based on pasta and tomato sauce – that’s only a tiny snippet of the nation’s food; rice, potatoes, lentils, soups and similar meals are very common in some parts of the country. Italian food is based upon so many ingredients and Italians often have very discriminating tastes that may seem strange to Americans and other visitors.

For instance, a sandwich stand might sell 4 different types of ham sandwiches that in each case contain ham, mayonnaise, and cheese. The only thing that may be different between the sandwiches is the type of ham or cheese used in them. Rustichella and panzerotti are two examples of sandwiches well-liked by Italians and tourists alike. Also, Italian sandwiches are quite different from the traditional Italian-American “hero”, “submarine”, or “hoagie” sandwich (which by the way mean nothing to any Italian). Rather than large sandwiches with a piling of meat, vegetables, and cheese, sandwiches in Italy are often quite small, very flat (made even more so when they are quickly heated and pressed on a panini grill), and contain a few simple ingredients with rarely, if ever, lettuce or mayonnaise.