Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern and Western Europe. It is located on a peninsula that extends into the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land border, as well as islands, notably Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia and two enclaves: Vatican City and San Marino. It is the tenth-largest country in Europe, covering an area of 301,340 km2 (116,350 sq mi), and third-most populous member state of the European Union, with a population of nearly 60 million. Its capital and largest city is Rome; other major urban areas include Milan, Naples, Turin, Florence, and Venice.
In antiquity, the Italian peninsula was home to numerous peoples; the Latin city of Rome, founded as a Kingdom, became a Republic that conquered the Mediterranean world and ruled it for centuries as an Empire. With the spread of Christianity, Rome became the seat of the Catholic Church and the Papacy. During the Early Middle Ages, Italy experienced the fall of the Western Roman Empire and inward migration from Germanic tribes. 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, leading the European Age of Discovery. However, centuries of rivalry and infighting between city-states left the peninsula divided. During the 17th and 18th centuries, Italian economic importance waned significantly. (Full article...)
The Mortara case (Italian: caso Mortara) was an Italian cause célèbre that captured the attention of much of Europe and North America in the 1850s and 1860s. It concerned the Papal States' seizure of a six-year-old boy named Edgardo Mortara from his Jewish family in Bologna, on the basis of a former servant's testimony that she had administered an emergency baptism to the boy when he fell ill as an infant. Mortara grew up as a Catholic under the protection of Pope Pius IX, who refused his parents' desperate pleas for his return. Mortara eventually became a priest. The domestic and international outrage against the Pontifical State's actions contributed to its downfall amid the unification of Italy.
In late 1857, Bologna's inquisitor, Father Pier Feletti, heard that Anna Morisi, who had worked in the Mortara house for six years, had secretly baptised Edgardo when she had thought he was about to die as a baby. The Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition held the view that the action irrevocably made the child a Catholic and, because the law of the Papal States forbade the raising of Christians by members of other faiths, it ordered that he be taken from his family and brought up by the Church. Police went to the Mortara home late on 23 June 1858, and took custody of Edgardo the following evening. (Full article...)
...that Umarell[uma'rɛːlː], is an Italianslang term for sidewalk superintendent, popular in Bologna and increasingly used in other part of the country?
A cup of espresso from the comune (municipality) of Ventimiglia, Italy
Espresso (/ɛˈsprɛsoʊ/ⓘ, Italian:[eˈsprɛsso]) is a coffee-brewing method in which a small amount of nearly boiling water is forced under pressure through finely ground coffee beans.
Espresso can be made with a wide variety of coffee beans and roast degrees, and numerous espresso-based drinks exist, often blending in milk. It is one of the world's most popular coffee-brewing methods. (Full article...)
The following are images from various Italy-related articles on Wikipedia.
Image 1The 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 10The Colosseum, originally known as the Flavian Amphitheatre, is an elliptical amphitheatre in the centre of the city of Rome, the largest ever built in the Roman Empire. (from Culture of Italy)
Image 12The 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 49The 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 50John Florio is recognised as the most important Renaissance humanist in England (from Culture of Italy)