Encyclopedia
Italy, officially the
Italian Republic , is a
Southern European country. It comprises the
Po River valley, the
Italian Peninsula and the two largest islands in the
Mediterranean Sea,
Sicily and
Sardinia. It is shaped like a boot and for this reason Italians commonly call it "
lo stivale" .
The Italian Republic shares its northern
alpine boundary with
France,
Switzerland,
Austria and
Slovenia. The country also shares a sea border with
Croatia, Slovenia and France. The independent countries of
San Marino and the
Vatican City are
enclaves within Italian territory. Also belonging to the republic is the commune of
Campione d'Italia, an
enclave in the territory of the Italian
Switzerland. The Republic includes only the 92% of Italian physical region, delimited conventionally by the alpine watershed; besides the above-mentioned enclaves, the following territories do not belong to the country: the
Principality of Monaco,
Nice with Briga and
Tenda, some strips of the Alps near the French border , the Italian
Switzerland , the peninsula of
Istria and a piece of Venezia Giulia, the island of
Corsica and the archipelago of
Malta.
Italy was home to many well-known and influential
European civilizations, including the
Etruscans,
Greeks and the
Romans. For more than 3,000 years Italy experienced
migrations and
invasions from
Germanic,
Celtic,
Frankish, Lombard,
Byzantine Greek, Saracen,
Norman, and Angevin peoples, and was divided into many independent states until 1861 when Italy became a
nation-state.
Italy is called "il Belpaese" by its inhabitants, due to the beauty and variety of its landscapes and for having the world's largest artistic patrimony; the country is home to the greatest number of
UNESCO World Heritage Sites .
Today, Italy is a highly
developed country with the 7th highest
GDP in 2006, a member of the
G8 and a founding member of what is now the
European Union, having signed the
Treaty of Rome in 1957.
Inhabitants of Italy are referred to as
Italians .
History
The word Italy derives from the Homeric word ?ta??? , which means "
bull". Excavations throughout Italy have found proof of people in Italy dating back to the Palaeolithic period some 200,000 years ago. The first Greek settlers, who arrived in Italy from
Euboea island the 8th century BC, possibly named their new land "land of bulls".
Italy has influenced the cultural and social development of the whole
Mediterranean area, deeply influencing
European culture as well. As a result, it has also influenced other important
cultures. Such cultures and
civilisations have existed there since
prehistoric times. After
Magna Graecia, the
Etruscan civilisation and especially the
Roman Republic and
Empire that dominated this part of the world for many centuries, Italy was central to
European science and
art during the
Renaissance.
Center of the Roman civilisation for centuries, Italy lost its unity after the collapse of the Roman Empire and subsequent barbaric invasions. Briefly reunited under Byzantium , was occupied by the Longobards in 568, resulting in the peninsula becoming irreparably divided. For centuries the country was the prey of different populations, resulting in its ultimate decadence and misery. Most of the population fled from cities to take refuge in the countryside under the protection of powerful feudal lords. After the Longobards came the Franks . Italy became part of the Holy Roman Empire, later to become the Holy Roman Germanic Empire. Pippin the Short created the first nucleus of the State of the Vatican, which later became a strong countervailing force against any unification of the country.
Population and economy started slowly to pick up after 1000, with the resurgence of cities, trade, arts and literature. During the later Middle Ages the fragmentation of the peninsula, especially in the northern and central parts of the country, continued, while the southern part, with
Naples,
Apulia and
Sicily, remained under a single domination. Venice created a powerful commercial empire in the Eastern part of the
Mediterranean Sea and
Black Sea.
The Black Death inflicted a terrible blow to Italy, resulting in one third of the population killed by the disease. The recovery from the disaster led to a new resurgence of cities, trade and economy which greatly stimulated the successive phase of the Humanism and Renaissance when Italy again returned to be the center of Western civilisation, strongly influencing the other European countries.
After a century where the fragmented system of Italian states and principalities were able to maintain a relative independence and a balance of power in the peninsula, in 1494 the French king
Charles VIII opened the first of a series of invasions, lasting half of the 16th century, and a competition between France and Spain for the possession of the country. Ultimately Spain prevailed and for almost two centuries became the hegemon in Italy. The holy alliance between reactionary Catholic Spain and the Holy See resulted in the systematic persecution of any protestant movement, with the result that Italy remained a Catholic country with marginal protestant presence. The Spanish domination and the control of the Church resulted in intellectual stagnation and economic decadence, also attributable to the shifting of the main commercial routes from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic.
Austria succeeded Spain as hegemon in Italy after the Peace of Utrecht , having acquired the State of Milan and the Kingdom of Naples. The Austrian domination, thanks also to the Illuminism embraced by Absburgic emperors, was a considerable improvement upon the Spanish one. The northern part of Italy, under the direct control of Vienna, again recovered economic dynamism and intellectual fervor, improved its situation.
The
French Revolution and the
Napoleonic War introduced the modern ideas of equality, democracy, law and nation. The peninsula was not a main battle field as in the past but Napoleon changed completely its political map, destroying in 1799 the
Republic of Venice, which never recovered its independence. The states founded by Napoleon with the support of minority groups of Italian patriots were short-lived and did not survive the defeat of the French Emperor in 1815.
The Restoration had all the pre-Revolution states restored with the exception of the Republic of Venice and the Republic of Genoa . Napoleon had nevertheless the merit to give birth to the first national movement for unity and independence. Albeit formed by small groups with almost no contact with the masses, the Italian patriots and liberals staged several uprisings in the decades up to 1860.
Mazzini and
Garibaldi were the mosteconomic reform for the impoverished masses. From 1848 onwards the Italian patriots were openly supported by
Vittorio Emanuele II, the
king of Sardinia, who put his arms in the Italian tricolor dedicating the
House of Savoy to the Italian unity.
The unification of Italy was obtained on March 17 1861, after a successful war against Austria with the support of France, and after
Giuseppe Garibaldi organized an invasion of the Kingdom of Two Sicilies in 1860.
Vittorio Emanuele II became the first king of the united Italy.
The national territory was enlarged to Veneto and Venice in 1866 after the third War of Independence, fought by allied Italy and
Prussia against Austria.
Rome itself remained for a little less than a decade under the
Papacy thanks to French protection, and became part of the Kingdom of Italy on September 20 1870, after Italian troops stormed the city.
The first unified state was plagued by a gruesome rebellion of the Southern populations opposed to the new domination, by economic stagnation, misery, illiteracy and a weak national consciousness. Italian was spoken by a small part of the population while the rest spoke local dialects.
In 1878
Umberto I succeeded his father Vittorio Emanuele II as King of Italy. He was killed by an anarchist in 1900 and succeeded by his son
Vittorio Emanuele III.
Industrialisation and modernisation, at least in the northern part of the country, started in the last part of the 19th century under a protectionist regime. The south, in the meanwhile, stagnated under overpopulation and underdevelopment, so forcing millions of people to search for employment and better conditions of life abroad. This lasted until 1970. It is calculated that more than 26 million Italians migrated to France, Germany, Switzerland, United States, Argentina, Brazil and Australia.
Democracy moved its first steps at the beginning of the 20th century. The 1848 Constitution provided for basic freedoms but the electoral laws excluded the disposed and the uneducated from voting. Only in 1913 the male universal suffrage was allowed. The Socialist Party resulted the main political party, outclassing the traditional liberal and conservative organizations. The path to a modern liberal democracy was interrupted by the tragedy of the
First World War , which Italy fought along with France and Great Britain. Italy was able to beat the
Austrian-Hungarian Empire in November 1918. It obtained
Trento and
Trieste and few territories on the
Dalmatian coast and was considered a great power, but the population had to pay a heavy human and social price. The war produced more than 600,000 dead, inflation and unemployment, economic and political instability, which in the end favoured the fascist movement to reach power in 1922 with the tacit support of King Vittorio Emanuele III who feared civil war and revolution.
The fascist dictatorship of
Benito Mussolini lasted from 1922 to 1943 but in the first years Mussolini maintained the appearance of a liberal democracy. After rigged elections in 1924 gave to Fascism and its conservative allies an absolute majority in the Parliament, Mussolini cancelled all democratic liberties on 3 January 1925. He then proceeded to establish a totalitarian state, imposing the control of the state upon all single social and political activity. Political parties were banned, independent trade unions were closed. The only permitted party was the
National Fascist Party. A secret police and a system of quasi-legal repression ensured the total control of the regime upon Italians who, in their majority, either resigned or welcomed the dictatorship, many considering it a last resort to stop the spread of communism. While relatively benign in comparison with Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia, several thousands people were incarcerated or exiled for their opposition and several dozens were killed by fascist thugs or died in prison . Mussolini tried to spread his authoritarian ideology to other European countries and dictators such as
Salazar in Portugal,
Franco in Spain and Hitler in Germany were heavily influenced by the Italian examples. Conservative but democratic leaders in Great Britain and United States were at the beginning favourable to Mussolini. Mussolini tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to spread fascism amongst the millions on Italians living abroad.
In 1929 Mussolini realised a pact with the
Holy See, resulting in the rebirth of an independent state of the
Vatican for the Catholic Church in the heart of Rome. In 1935 he declared war on
Ethiopia on a pretext. Ethiopia was subjugated in few months. This resulted in the alienation of Italy from its traditional allies, France and Great Britain, and its nearing to Nazi Germany. A first pact with Germany was concluded in 1936 and then in 1938 . Italy supported Franco's revolution in Spanish civil war and Hitler's pretensions in central Europe, accepting the annexation of Austria to Germany in 1938, although the disappearance of a buffer state between mighty Germany and Italy was unfavourable for the country. In October 1938 Mussolini managed to avoid the eruption of another war in Europe, bringing together Great Britain, France and Germany at the expense of Czechoslovakia's integrity.
In April 1939 Italy occupied
Albania, a
de-facto protectorate for decades, but in September 1939, after the invasion of Poland, Mussolini wisely decided not to intervene on Germany's side, due to the poor preparation of the armed forces. Italy entered in war in June 1940 when France was almost defeated. Mussolini hoped for a quick victory but Italy showed from the very beginning the poor nature of its army and the scarce ability of its generals. Italy invaded Greece in October 1940 via Albania but after a few days was forced to withdraw. After conquering British Somalia in 1940, a counter-attack by the Allies led to the loss of the whole Italian empire in the Horn of Africa. Italy was also defeated in Northern Africa and saved only by the German armed forces led by Rommel.
After several defeats, Italy was invaded in May 1943. In July 1943 King Vittorio Emanuele III staged a coup d'etat against Mussolini, having him arrested. In September 1943 Italy surrendered. It was immediately invaded by Germany and for nearly two years the country was divided and became a battlefield. The Nazi-occupied part of the country, where a puppet fascist state under Mussolini was reconstituted, was the theatre of a savage civil war between freedom fighters and Nazi and fascist troops. The country was liberated by a national uprising on 25 April, 1945 .
Particularly in the north agitation against the king ran high, leftwing and communist armed partisans wanting to depose him as being responsible for the fascist regime. Vittorio Emanuele gave up the throne to his son
Umberto II who again faced the possibility of civil war.
Italy became a Republic after the result of a popular referendum held on 2 June, 1946, a day since then celebrated as Republic Day. The republic won with a 9% margin; the north of Italy voted prevalently for a republic, the south for the monarchy. The Republican Constitution was approved and entered into force on 1 January, 1948, including a provisional measure banning all male members of the house of Savoy from Italy. This stipulation was redressed in 2002.
Since then Italy has experienced a strong economic growth, particularly in the 50s and 60s, while lifted the country among the most industrialized nations in the world, with a perennial political instability. The Christian Democratic Party and its liberal and social democratic allies ruled Italy without interruptions from 1948 until 1994, marginalising the main opposition party, the
Italian Communist Party, until the end of the cold war.
In 1992-94 a series of scandals and the ensuing
Mani pulite investigation destroyed the post-war political system. New parties and coalition emerged: on the right,
Forza Italia of the media-mogul
Silvio Berlusconi is the main successor of the Christian Democrat party. On the left the
Democratici di Sinistra are the moderate successor of the Communist Party, while the most liberal and progressive Catholic politicians belong to
La Margherita . In 1994 Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia and its allies won the elections but the government collapsed after only a few months because the Northern League split out. A technical government cabinet led by
Lamberto Dini, supported by the left-wing parties and the Northern League, lasted until Romano Prodi's new center-left coalition won the 1996 general election. In 2001 the center-right took the government and Berlusconi was able to remain in power for a complete five year mandate. The
last elections in 2006 returned Prodi in the government with a slim majority.
Italy is a founding member of the
European Community,
European Union and
NATO.
Politics
The 1948
Constitution of Italy established a
bicameral parliament , consisting of a
Chamber of Deputies and a
Senate , a separate judiciary, and an executive branch composed of a Council of Ministers , headed by the
prime minister .
The
President of the Republic is elected for seven years by the parliament sitting jointly with a small number of regional delegates. The president nominates the prime minister, who proposes the other ministers . The Council of Ministers must retain the support of both houses.
The houses of
parliament are popularly and directly elected through a complex electoral system which combines proportional representation with a majority prize for the largest coalition . The electoral system in the Senate is based upon regional representation. In fact in 2006 elections the two competing coalitions were separated by few thousand votes, and in the Chamber the Center-left coalition got 345 Deputies against 277 for the Center-right one , while in the Senate l'Ulivo got only two Senators more than absolute majority.
The Chamber of Deputies has 630 members, the Senate 315 elected senators; in addition, the Senate includes former presidents and other persons appointed senators for life by the President of the Republic according to special constitutional provisions. As of 15 May 2006, there are seven life senators . Both houses are elected for a maximum of five years, but both may be dissolved by the President of the Republic before the expiration of their normal term if the Parliament is unable to elect a stable government.
In the post war history, that happened in 1972, 1976, 1979, 1983, 1994 and 1996. A peculiarity of the Italian Parliament is the representation given to Italians permanently living abroad . Among the 630 Deputies and the 315 Senators there are respectively 12 and 6 elected in four distinct foreign constituencies. Those members of Parliament were elected for the first time in April 2006 and they enjoy the same rights as members elected in Italy. Legislative bills may originate in either house and must be passed by a majority in both. The Italian judicial system is based on Roman law modified by the Napoleonic code and later statutes. A constitutional court, the
Corte Costituzionale, passes on the constitutionality of laws, and is a post-World War II innovation.
All Italian citizens older than 18 can vote. However, to vote for the senate, the voter must be at least 25 or older.
See also: Foreign relations of Italy, List of Foreign Ministers of Italy, List of Prime Ministers of Italy
Administrative divisions
Italy is subdivided into 20 regions . Five of these regions enjoy a special autonomous status that enables them to enact legislation on some of their specific local matters, and are marked by an *:
- Abruzzo
- Basilicata
- Calabria
- Campania
- Emilia-Romagna
- Friuli-Venezia Giulia*
- Latium, Lazio
- Liguria
- Lombardy, Lombardia
- Marches, Marche
- Molise
- Piedmont, Piemonte
- Apulia, Puglia
- Sardinia*, Sardegna
- Aosta Valley*, Valle d'Aosta / Vallée d'Aoste
- Tuscany, Toscana
- Trentino-South Tyrol*, Trentino-Alto Adige / Trentino-Südtirol
- Umbria
- Sicily*, Sicilia
- Veneto
All regions except the Aosta Valley are further subdivided into two or more
provinces.
Geography
Italy consists predominantly of a large
peninsula with a distinctive boot shape that extends into the
Mediterranean Sea, where together with its two main islands
Sicily and
Sardinia it creates distinct bodies of water, such as the
Adriatic Sea to the north-east, the
Ionian Sea to the south-east, the
Tyrrhenian Sea to the south-west and finally the
Ligurian Sea to the north-west.
The
Apennine mountains form the backbone of this peninsula, leading north-west to where they join the
Alps, the mountain range that then forms an arc enclosing Italy from the north.
Here is also found a large alluvial plain, the Po-Venetian plain, drained by the
Po River — which is Italy's biggest river with 652 km — and its many tributaries flowing down from the
Alps , 194 km, and Apennines .
Other well-known or importants rivers include the
Tiber ,
Adige ,
Arno , Piave , Reno , Volturno , Tagliamento , Liri-Garigliano ,
Isonzo .
Its highest point is
Mont Blanc at 4,810
metres . Italy is more typically associated with two famous
volcano 
