Siracusa
—  Comune  —
Comune di Siracusa
Archimedes Square
Siracusa Location of Siracusa in Italy
Coordinates: 37°05′N 15°17′E / 37.083°N 15.283°E / 37.083; 15.283
Country	Italy
Region	Sicily
Province	Syracuse (SR)
Government
• Mayor	Roberto Visentin
Area
• Total	204.1 km2 (78.8 sq mi)
Elevation[1]	17 m (56 ft)
Population (30 September 2011)
• Total	123,408
• Density	600/km2 (1,600/sq mi)
Demonym	Siracusani
Time zone	CET (UTC+1)
• Summer (DST)	CEST (UTC+2)
Postal code	96100
Dialing code	0931
Patron saint	Saint Lucy
Saint day	13 December
Website	comune.siracusa.it

Syracuse (Italian: Siracusa pronounced [siraˈkuːza] ( listen); Sicilian: Sarausa; Latin: Syracusæ; Ancient Greek: Συρακοῦσαι Syrakoúsai)^[2] is a historic city in Sicily, the capital of the province of Syracuse. The city is notable for its rich Greek history, culture, amphitheatres, architecture, and as the birthplace of the preeminent mathematician and engineer Archimedes. This 2,700-year-old city played a key role in ancient times, when it was one of the major powers of the Mediterranean world. Syracuse is located in the southeast corner of the island of Sicily, right by the Gulf of Syracuse next to the Ionian Sea.

The city was founded by Ancient Greek Corinthians and became a very powerful city-state. Syracuse was allied with Sparta and Corinth, exerting influence over the entire Magna Grecia area of which it was the most important city. Once described by Cicero as "the greatest Greek city and the most beautiful of them all", it later became part of the Roman Republic and Byzantine Empire. After this Palermo overtook it in importance, as the capital of the Kingdom of Sicily. Eventually the kingdom would be united with the Kingdom of Naples to form the Two Sicilies until the Italian unification of 1860.

In the modern day, the city is listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site along with the Necropolis of Pantalica. In the central area, the city itself has a population of around 125,000 people. The inhabitants are known as Siracusans, and the local language spoken by its inhabitants are the Italian language and Sicilian language. Syracuse is mentioned in the Bible in the Acts of the Apostles book at 28:12 as Paul stayed there.^[3] The patron saint of the city is Saint Lucy; she was born in Syracuse and her feast day, Saint Lucy's Day, is celebrated on 13 December.

History[link]

Greek period[link]

Syracuse and its surrounding area have been inhabited since ancient times, as shown by the findings in the villages of Stentinello, Ognina, Plemmirio, Matrensa, Cozzo Pantano and Thapsos, which already had a relationship with Mycenaean Greece.

Syracuse was founded in 734 or 733 BC by Greek settlers from Corinth and Tenea, led by the oecist (colonizer) Archias, who called it Sirako, referring to a nearby salt marsh. The nucleus of the ancient city was the small island of Ortygia. The settlers found the land fertile and the native tribes to be reasonably well-disposed to their presence. The city grew and prospered, and for some time stood as the most powerful Greek city anywhere in the Mediterranean. Colonies were founded at Akrai (664 BC), Kasmenai (643 BC), Akrillai (7th century BC), Helorus (7th century BC) and Kamarina (598 BC). The descendants of the first colonist, called Gamoroi, held power until they were expelled by the Killichiroi, the lower class of the city. The former, however, returned to power in 485 BC, thanks to the help of Gelo, ruler of Gela. Gelo himself became the despot of the city, and moved many inhabitants of Gela, Kamarina and Megera to Syracuse, building the new quarters of Tyche and Neapolis^{[disambiguation needed ]} outside the walls. His program of new constructions included a new theatre, designed by Damocopos, which gave the city a flourishing cultural life: this in turn attracted personalities as Aeschylus, Ario of Metimma, Eumelos of Corinth and Sappho, who had been exiled here from Mytilene. The enlarged power of Syracuse made unavoidable the clash against the Carthaginians, who ruled western Sicily. In the Battle of Himera, Gelo, who had allied with Theron of Agrigento, decisively defeated the African force led by Hamilcar. A temple dedicated to Athena (on the site of today's Cathedral), was erected in the city to commemorate the event

A Syracusan tetradrachm (c. 415–405 BC), sporting Arethusa and a quadriga.

Gelon was succeeded by his brother Hiero, who fought against the Etruscans at Cumae in 474 BC. His rule was eulogized by poets like Simonides of Ceos, Bacchylides and Pindar, who visited his court. A democratic regime was introduced by Thrasybulos (467 BC). The city continued to expand in Sicily, fighting against the rebellious Siculi, and on the Tyrrhenian Sea, making expeditions up to Corsica and Elba. In the late 5th century BC, Syracuse found itself at war with Athens, which sought more resources to fight the Peloponnesian War. The Syracusans enlisted the aid of a general from Sparta, Athens' foe in the war, to defeat the Athenians, destroy their ships, and leave them to starve on the island (see Sicilian Expedition). In 401 BC, Syracuse contributed a force of 3,000 hoplites and a general to Cyrus the Younger's Army of the Ten Thousand.

Then in the early 4th century BC, the tyrant Dionysius the Elder was again at war against Carthage and, although losing Gela and Camarina, kept that power from capturing the whole of Sicily. After the end of the conflict Dionysius built a massive fortress on the Ortygia island of the city and 22 km-long walls around all of Syracuse. Another period of expansion saw the destruction of Naxos, Catania and Lentini, then Syracuse entered again in war against Carthage (397 BC). After various changes of fortune, the Carthaginians managed to besiege Syracuse itself, but were eventually pushed back by a pestilence. A treaty in 392 BC allowed Syracuse to enlarge further its possessions, founding the cities of Adrano, Tindari and Tauromenos, and conquering Rhegion on the continent. In the Adriatic, to facilitate trade, Dionysius the Elder founded Ancona, Adria and Issa. Apart from his battle deeds, Dionysius was famous as a patron of art, and Plato himself visited Syracuse several times.

His successor was Dionysius the Younger, who was however expelled by Dion in 356 BC. But the latter's despotic rule led in turn to his expulsion, and Dionysius reclaimed his throne in 347 BC. A democratic government was installed by Timoleon in 345 BC. The long series of internal struggles had weakened Syracuse's power on the island, and Timoleon tried to remedy this, defeating the Carthaginians in 339 BC near the Krimisos river. But the struggle among the city's parties restarted after his death and ended with the rise of another tyrant, Agathocles, who seized power with a coup in 317 BC. He resumed the war against Carthage, with alternate fortunes. However he scored a moral success, bringing the war to the Carthaginians' native African soil, inflicting heavy losses to the enemy. The war ended with another treaty of peace which did not prevent the Carthaginians interfering in the politics of Syracuse after the death of Agathocles (289 BC). The citizens called Pyrrhus of Epirus for help. After a brief period under the rule of Epirus, Hiero II seized power in 275 BC.

Hiero inaugurated a period of 50 years of peace and prosperity, in which Syracause became one of the most renowned capitals of Antiquity. He issued the so-called Lex Hieronica, which was later adopted by the Romans for their administration of Sicily; he also had the theatre enlarged and a new immense altar, the "Hiero's Ara", built. Under his rule lived the most famous Syracusan, the mathematician and natural philosopher Archimedes. Among his many inventions were various military engines including the claw of Archimedes, later used to resist the Roman siege of 214 BC–212 BC. Literary figures included Theocritus and others.

The siege of Syracuse in a 17th-century engraving.

Hiero's successor, the young Hieronymus (ruled from 215 BC), broke the alliance with the Romans after their defeat at the Battle of Cannae and accepted Carthage's support. The Romans, led by consul Marcus Claudius Marcellus, besieged the city in 214 BC. The city held out for three years, but fell in 212 BC. It is believed to have fallen due to a peace party opening a small door in the wall to negotiate a peace, but the Romans charged through the door and took the city, killing Archimedes in the process.

From Roman domination to the Middle Ages[link]

Though declining slowly by the years, Syracuse maintained the status of capital of the Roman government of Sicily and seat of the praetor. It remained an important port for trade between the Eastern and the Western parts of the Empire. Christianity spread in the city through the efforts of Paul of Tarsus and Saint Marziano, the first bishop of the city, who made it one of the main centres of proselytism in the West. In the age of persecutions massive catacombs were carved, whose size is second only to those of Rome.

After a period of Vandal rule, Syracuse and the island was recovered by Belisarius for the Byzantine Empire (31 December 535). From 663 to 668 Syracuse was the seat of Emperor Constans II, as well as metropolis of the whole Sicilian Church.

The city was besieged by the Aghlabids for almost a year in 827–828, but Byzantine reinforcements prevented its fall. It remained the center of Byzantine resistance to the gradual Muslim conquest of Sicily until it fell to the Aghlabids after another siege on 20/21 May 878. During the two centuries of Muslim rule, the capital of the Emirate of Sicily was moved from Syracuse to Palermo. The Cathedral was converted into a mosque and the quarter on the Ortygia island was gradually rebuilt along Islamic styles. The city, nevertheless, maintained important trade relationships, and housed a relatively flourishing cultural and artistic life: several Arab poets, including Ibn Hamdis, the most important Sicilian poet of the 12th century, flourished in the city.

In 1038, the Byzantine general George Maniakes reconquered the city, sending the relics of St. Lucy to Constantinople. The eponymous castle on the cape of Ortygia bears his name, although it was built under the Hohenstaufen rule. In 1085 the Normans entered Syracuse, one of the last Arab strongholds, after a summer-long siege by Roger I of Sicily and his son Jordan of Hauteville, who was given the city as count. New quarters were built, and the cathedral was restored, as well as other churches.

The Cathedral of Syracuse.

In 1194 Henry VI of Swabia occupied Syracuse. After a short period of Genoese rule (1205–1220), which favoured a rise of trades, Syracuse was conquered back by emperor Frederick II. He began the construction of the Castello Maniace, the Bishops' Palace and the Bellomo Palace. Frederick's death brought a period of unrest and feudal anarchy. In the struggle between the Anjou and Catalan-Aragonese monarchies, Syracuse sided with the Catalan-Aragonese and defeated the Anjou in 1298, receiving from the Spanish sovereigns great privileges in reward. The pre-eminence of baronal families is also shown by the construction of the palaces of Abela, Chiaramonte, Nava, Montalto.

Modern history[link]

The city was struck by two ruinous earthquakes in 1542 and 1693, and a plague in 1729. The 17th century destruction changed forever the appearance of Syracuse, as well as the entire Val di Noto, whose cities were rebuilt along the typical lines of Sicilian Baroque, considered one of the most typical expressions of art of Southern Italy. The spread of cholera in 1837 led to a revolt against the Bourbon government. The punishment was the move of the province capital seat to Noto, but the unrest had not been totally choked, as the Siracusani took part in the Sicilian revolution of independence of 1848.

After the Unification of Italy of 1865, Syracuse regained its status of provincial capital. In 1870 the walls were demolished and a bridge connecting the mainland to Ortygia island was built. In the following year a railway link was constructed.

Heavy destruction was caused by the Allied and the German bombings in 1943. Operation Husky, the allied invasion of Sicily was launched on the night of 9/10 July 1943 with British forces attacking the west of the island. General Montgomery's Eighth Army captured Syracuse on the first day of the invasion almost unopposed. The port was then used as a base for the Royal Navy.^[4] To the west of the city is a Commonwealth War Graves cemetery where about 1,000 men are buried. After the end of World War II the northern quarters of Syracuse experienced a heavy, often chaotic, expansion, favoured by the quick process of industrialization.

Syracuse today has about 125,000 inhabitants and numerous attractions for the visitor interested in historical sites (such as the Ear of Dionysius). A process of recovering and restoring the historical centre has been ongoing since the 1990s. Nearby places of note include Catania, Noto, Modica and Ragusa.

The Roman amphitheatre.

Piazza Duomo.

The Maniace Castle.

Detail of Palazzo Beneventano Del Bosco.

Detail of the Fountain of Diana.

Main sights[link]

Ancient buildings[link]

• The Temple of Apollo, adapted to a church in Byzantine times and to a mosque under Arab rule.
• The Fountain of Arethusa, in the Ortygia island. According to a legend, the nymph Arethusa, hunted by Alpheus, took shelter here.
• The Greek theatre, whose cavea is one of the largest ever built by the ancient Greeks: it has 67 rows, divided into nine sections with eight aisles. Only traces of the scene and the orchestra remain. The edifice (still used today) was modified by the Romans, who adapted it to their different style of spectacles, including also circus games. Near the theatre are the latomìe, stone quarries, also used as prisons in ancient times. The most famous latomìa is the Orecchio di Dionisio ("Ear of Dionysius").
• The Roman amphitheatre, of Roman Imperial age. It was partly carved out from the rock. In the centre of the area is a rectangular space which was used for the scenic machinery.
• The so-called Tomb of Archimede, in the Grotticelli Nechropolis. Decorated with two Doric columns, it was a Roman tomb.
• The Temple of Olympian Zeus, about 3 km outside the city, built around 6th century BC.

Churches[link]

• The Cathedral was built by bishop Zosimo in the 7th century over the great Temple of Athena (5th century BC), on the Ortygia island. This was a Doric edifice with six columns on the short sides and 14 on the long ones: these can still be seen incorporated in the walls of the current church. The base of the Greek edifice had three steps. The interior of the church has a nave and two aisles. The roof of the nave is from Norman times, as well as the mosaics in the apses. The façade was rebuilt by Andrea Palma in 1725–1753, with a double order of Corinthian columns, and statues by Ignazio Marabitti. The most interesting pieces of the interior are a font with marble basin (12th–13th century), a silver statue of St. Lucy by Pietro Rizzo (1599), a ciborium by Luigi Vanvitelli, and a statue of the Madonna della Neve ("Madonna of the Snow", 1512) by Antonello Gagini.
• Basilica of Santa Lucia extra Moenia, a Byzantine church built, according to tradition, in the same place of the martyrdom of the saint in 303 AD. The current appearance is from the 15th-16th centuries. The most ancient parts still preserved include the portal, the three half-circular apses and the first two orders of the belfry. Under the church are the Catacombs of St. Lucy. For this church Caravaggio painted the Burial of St. Lucy, now housed in the Church of Santa Lucìa alla Badìa.
• Church of San Paolo (18th century).
• Church of San Cristoforo (14th century, rebuilt in the 18th century).
• Church of Santa Lucìa alla Badìa, a Baroque edifice built after the 1693 earthquake. It houses the Burial of St. Lucy by Caravaggio
• Church of Santa Maria dei Miracoli (13th century).
• Church of the Spirito Santo (18th century).
• Church of the Jesuite College, a majestic, Baroque building.
• Church of St. Benedict (16th century, restored after 1693). It houses a painting of the Death of Saint Benedict by the Caravaggisti Mario Minniti.
• Chiesa della Concezione (14th century, rebuilt in the 18th century), with the annexed Benedictine convent.
• Church of San Francesco all'Immacolata, with a convex façade intermingled by columns and pilaster strips. It housed and ancient celebration, the Svelata ("Revelation"), in which an image of the Madonna was unveiled at dawn of 29 November.
• Basilica of St. John the Evangelist, built by the Normans and destroyed in 1693. Only partially restored, it was erected over an ancient crypt of the martyr San Marciano, later destroyed by the Arabs. The main altar is Byzantine. It includes the Catacombs of San Giovanni, featuring a maze of tunnels and passages, with thousands of tombs and several frescoes.

Other edifices and sights[link]

• The Castello Maniace, constructed between 1232 and 1240, is an example of the military architecture of Frederick II's reign. It is a square structure with circular towers at each of the four corners. The most striking feature is the pointed portal, decorated with polychrome marbles.
• The important Archaeological Museum, with collections including findings from the mid-Bronze Age to 5th century BC.
• Palazzo Lanza Buccheri (16th century).
• Palazzo Mergulese-Montalto (14th century), which conserves the old façade from the 14th century, with a pointed portal.
• The Archbishop's Palace (17th century, modified in the following century). It houses the Alagonian Library, founded in the late 18th century.
• The Palazzo Vermexio, the current Town Hall, which includes fragments of an Ionic temple of the 5th century BC.
• Palazzo Francica Nava, with parts of the original 16th century building surviving.
• Palazzo Beneventano del Bosco, originally built in the Middle Ages but extensively modified between 1779 and 1788. It has a pleasant internal court.
• Palazzo Migliaccio (15th century), with notable lava inlay decorations.
• The Senate Palace, housing in the court an 18th-century coach.
• The Castle of Euryalos, built nine kilometres outside the city by Dionysius the Elder and which was one of the most powerful fortresses of ancient times. It had three moats with a series of underground galleries which allowed the defenders to remove the materials the attackers could use to fill them.
• Palazzo Bellomo, whose museum houses Antonello da Messina's Annunciation (1474).

Demographics[link]

In 2007, there were 122,972 people residing in Syracuse, located in the province of Syracuse, Sicily, of whom 48.7% were male and 51.3% were female. Minors (children ages 18 and younger) totalled 18.87 percent of the population compared to pensioners who number 16.87 percent. This compares with the Italian average of 18.06 percent (minors) and 19.94 percent (pensioners). The average age of Syracuse resident is 40 compared to the Italian average of 42. In the five years between 2002 and 2007, the population of Syracuse declined by 0.49 percent, while Italy as a whole grew by 3.56 percent. The reason for decline is a population flight to the suburbs, and northern Italy.^[5][6] The current birth rate of Syracuse is 9.75 births per 1,000 inhabitants compared to the Italian average of 9.45 births.

As of 2006, 97.9% of the population was of Sicilian/Italian descent. The largest immigrant group came from other European nations (particularly those from Poland, and the United Kingdom): 0.61%, North Africa (mostly Tunisian): 0.51%, and South Asia: 0.37%.

Climate[link]

Syracuse experiences a hot-summer Mediterranean climate (Köppen climate classification Csa) with mild, wet winters and warm to hot, dry summers.

Twin towns[link]

Syracuse & the Rocky Necropolis of Pantalica *
UNESCO World Heritage Site
Country	Italy
Type	Cultural
Criteria	ii, iii, iv, vi
Reference	1200
Region **	Europe
Inscription history
Inscription	2005 (29th Session)
* Name as inscribed on World Heritage List ** Region as classified by UNESCO

• Corinth (Greece)

Heritage site[link]

Since 2005, the entire city of Syracuse, along with the Necropolis of Pantalica which falls within the province of Syracuse, has been listed as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, a programme which aims to catalogue, name, and conserve sites of outstanding cultural or natural importance to the common heritage of humanity. The deciding committee who evaluate potential candidates described their reasons for choosing Syracuse because "monuments and archeological sites situated in Syracuse are the finest example of outstanding architectural creation spanning several cultural aspects; Greek, Roman and Baroque", following on that Ancient Syracuse was "directly linked to events, ideas and literary works of outstanding universal significance".^[8]

See also[link]

• House of Siracusa
• Siracusa railway station
• Cassibile
• Istituto Superiore Internazionale di Scienze Criminali
• Peloponnesian League
• Sicilian Expedition
• Sicilian Wars

References[link]

External links[link]

Media related to Siracusa at Wikimedia Commons

• Coins from ancient Syracuse and Sicily
• Livius.org: History of Syracuse

v t e World Heritage Sites in Italy North West Crespi d'Adda Genoa Mantua and Sabbioneta Portovenere Cinque Terre (Monterosso al Mare Vernazza Corniglia Manarola Riomaggiore), Palmaria Tino and Tinetto Residences of the Royal House of Savoy Rhaetian Railway in the Albula / Bernina Landscapes1 Rock Drawings in Valcamonica Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan Monte San Giorgio North East Aquileia Botanical Garden, Padua Cathedral Torre Civica and Piazza Grande, Modena The Dolomites Ferrara Ravenna Venice Verona Vicenza and Palladian Villas of the Veneto Centre Assisi Cerveteri and Tarquinia Florence Hadrian's Villa Piazza del Duomo, Pisa Pienza Rome2 San Gimignano Siena Urbino Val d'Orcia Villa d'Este South Alberobello Amalfi Coast Castel del Monte Cilento and Vallo di Diano National Park Paestum and Velia Certosa di Padula Naples Palace of Caserta Aqueduct of Vanvitelli and San Leucio Complex Pompeii Herculaneum and Torre Annunziata Sassi of Matera Islands Aeolian Islands Archaeological Area of Agrigento Barumini nuraghes Syracuse and Necropolis of Pantalica Val di Noto (Caltagirone Militello in Val di Catania Catania Modica Noto Palazzolo Acreide Ragusa Scicli) Villa Romana del Casale Nationwide Longobards in Italy, Places of Power (568-774 A.D.) Prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps3 1 Shared with Switzerland 2 Shared with the Holy See 3 Shared with Austria, France, Germany, Slovenia, and Switzerland

Italian Republic Repubblica italiana
Flag Emblem
Anthem: Il Canto degli Italiani   The Song of the Italians
Location of  Italy  (dark green) – in Europe  (green & dark grey) – in the European Union  (green)  —  [Legend]
Capital (and largest city)		Rome 41°54′N 12°29′E / 41.9°N 12.483°E / 41.9; 12.483
Official language(s)		Italian[1]
Demonym		Italian
Government		Unitary parliamentary constitutional republic
-	President	Giorgio Napolitano
-	Prime Minister	Mario Monti
Legislature		Parliament
-	Upper house	Senate of the Republic
-	Lower house	Chamber of Deputies
Formation
-	Unification	17 March 1861
-	Republic	2 June 1946
Area
-	Total	301,338 km2 (71st) 116,346 sq mi
-	Water (%)	2.4
Population
-	2011 estimate	60,681,514[2] (23rd)
-	2011 (preliminary results) census	59,464,644
-	Density	201.2/km2 (61st) 521.2/sq mi
GDP (PPP)		2011 estimate
-	Total	$1.847 trillion[3] (10th)
-	Per capita	$30,464[3] (30th)
GDP (nominal)		2011 estimate
-	Total	$2.198 trillion[3] (8th)
-	Per capita	$36,267[3] (24th)
Gini (2006)		32[4]
HDI (2011)		0.874[5] (very high) (24th)
Currency		Euro (€)2 (EUR)
Time zone		CET (UTC+1)
-	Summer (DST)	CEST (UTC+2)
Drives on the		right
ISO 3166 code		IT
Internet TLD		.it3
Calling code		394
1	French is co-official in the Aosta Valley; Slovene is co-official in the province of Trieste and the province of Gorizia; German and Ladin are co-official in the province of South Tyrol.
2	Before 2002, the Italian Lira. The euro is accepted in Campione d'Italia, but the official currency there is the Swiss Franc.[6]
3	The .eu domain is also used, as it is shared with other European Union member states.
4	To call Campione d'Italia, it is necessary to use the Swiss code +41.

Italy ⁱ/ˈɪtəli/ (Italian: Italia [iˈtaːlja]), officially the Italian Republic^[7] or the Republic of Italy^[8] (Italian: Repubblica italiana^{[note 1]}), is a unitary parliamentary republic in south-central Europe. To the north, it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia along the Alps. To the south, it consists of the entirety of the Italian Peninsula, Sicily, Sardinia–the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea–and many other smaller islands. The independent states of San Marino and the Vatican City are enclaves within Italy, while Campione d'Italia is an Italian exclave in Switzerland. The territory of Italy covers some 301,338 km² (116,347 sq mi) and is influenced by a temperate seasonal climate. With 60.6 million inhabitants, it is the fifth most populous country in Europe, and the 23rd most populous in the world.

Rome, the capital of Italy, was for centuries a political and religious centre of Western civilisation as the capital of the Roman Empire and site of the Holy See. After the decline of the Roman Empire, Italy endured numerous invasions by foreign peoples, from Germanic tribes such as the Lombards and Ostrogoths, to the Byzantines and later, the Normans, among others. Centuries later, Italy became the birthplace of Maritime republics and the Renaissance,^[9] an immensely fruitful intellectual movement that would prove to be integral in shaping the subsequent course of European thought.

Through much of its post-Roman history, Italy was fragmented into numerous city and regional states (such as the Republic of Venice and the Church State), but was unified in 1861,^[10] following a tumultuous period in history known as "Il Risorgimento" ("The Resurgence"). In the late 19th century, through World War I, and to World War II, Italy possessed a colonial empire, which extended its rule to Libya, Eritrea, Somalia, Ethiopia, Albania, the Dodecanese and a concession in Tianjin, China.^[11]

Modern Italy is a democratic republic. It has been ranked as the world's 24th most-developed country^[5] and its Quality-of-life index has been ranked in the world's top ten in 2005.^[12] Italy enjoys a very high standard of living, and has a high GDP per capita.^[13][14] It is a founding member of what is now the European Union and part of the Eurozone. Italy is also a member of the G8, G20 and NATO. It has the world's third-largest gold reserves, eighth-largest nominal GDP, tenth highest GDP (PPP)^[15] and the sixth highest government budget in the world.^[16] It is also a member state of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, the Council of Europe, the Western European Union and the United Nations. Italy has the world's ninth-largest defence budget and shares NATO's nuclear weapons.

Italy plays a prominent role in European and global military, cultural and diplomatic affairs. The country's European political, social and economic influence make it a major regional power.^[17][18] The country has a high public education level and is a highly globalised nation.^[19]

Etymology[link]

The assumptions on the etymology of the name "Italia" are very numerous and the corpus of the solutions proposed by historians and linguists is very wide.^[20] According to one of the more common explanations, the term Italia, from Latin: Italia,^[21] was borrowed through Greek from the Oscan Víteliú, meaning "land of young cattle" (cf. Lat vitulus "calf", Umb vitlo "calf").^[22] The bull was a symbol of the southern Italian tribes and was often depicted goring the Roman wolf as a defiant symbol of free Italy during the Social War. Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus states this account together with the legend that Italy was named after Italus,^[23] mentioned also by Aristotle^[24] and Thucydides.^[25]

The name Italia originally applied only to a part of what is now Southern Italy–according to Antiochus of Syracuse, the southern portion of the Bruttium peninsula (modern Calabria: province of Reggio, and part of the provinces of Catanzaro and Vibo Valentia). But by his time Oenotria and Italy had become synonymous, and the name also applied to most of Lucania as well. The Greeks gradually came to apply the name "Italia" to a larger region, but it was during the reign of Emperor Augustus (end of the first century BC) that the term was expanded to cover the entire peninsula until the Alps.^[26]

History[link]

Prehistory and antiquity[link]

The Colosseum in Rome, built ca. 70 – 80 AD, is considered one of the greatest works of Roman architecture and engineering.

Excavations throughout Italy reveal a Neanderthal presence dating back to the Paleolithic period, some 200,000 years ago,^[27] modern Humans arrived about 40,000 years ago. The Ancient peoples of pre-Roman Italy – such as the Umbrians, the Latins (from which the Romans emerged), Volsci, Samnites, the Celts and the Ligures which inhabited northern Italy, and many others – were Indo-European peoples; the main historic peoples of non-Indo-European heritage include the Etruscans, the Elymians and Sicani in Sicily and the prehistoric Sardinians.

Between the 17th and the 11th century BC Mycenaean Greeks established contacts with Italy^{[28][29][30][31][32][33][34]} and in the 8th and 7th centuries BC Greek colonies were established all along the coast of Sicily and the southern part of the Italian Peninsula became known as Magna Graecia. Also the Phoenicians established colonies on the coasts of Sardinia and Sicily.

Ancient Rome was at first a small agricultural community founded c. the 8th century BC, that grew over the course of the centuries into a colossal empire encompassing the whole Mediterranean Sea, in which Ancient Greek and Roman cultures merged into one civilization. This civilization was so influential that parts of it survive in modern law, administration, philosophy and arts, forming the ground that Western civilization is based upon. In a slow decline since the late 2th century AD, the empire finally broke into two parts in 395 AD: the Western Roman Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire. The western part – under the pressure of the Franks, the Vandals, the Huns, the Goths and other populations from Eastern Europe – finally dissolved in 476 AD, when the last western Emperor was deposed by the Barbarian chief Odoacer.

Middle Ages[link]

Italy's Naval Jack, featuring the coats of arms of the four major Maritime Republics. Clockwise from upper left: Venice, Genoa, Pisa, Amalfi.

After the fall of Rome, Italy was conquered by the Germanic Tribe of the Ostrogoths, but in the 6th century the East Roman Emperor Justinian reconquered it. The invasion of another Germanic tribe (the Lombards) late in the same century reduced the Byzantine presence to a strip of land between Ravenna and Rome plus other lands in southern Italy, breaking the unity of the peninsula until 1870.

The Lombard reign of northern and central Italy was absorbed into the Frankish Empire by Charlemagne in the late 8th century. The Frankish kings also helped the formation of the Papal States in central Italy, extending from Rome to Ravenna, although for most of the Middle Ages the Papacy effectively controlled only Latium. The existence of this theocratic state hindered for centuries the unification of the peninsula. Until the 13th century, Italian politics were dominated by the relationship between the German Holy Roman Emperors and the popes, with most of the Italian cities siding for the former (Ghibellini) or for the latter (Guelfi) depending from momentary convenience.

It was during this vacuum of authority that the Italy saw the rise of a peculiar institution, the medieval commune. In the anarchic conditions that often prevailed in medieval Italian city-states, people organised themselves to restore order and disarm the feuding elites. In the 12th century, a league of comuni, the Lombard League, defeated the German emperor Frederick Barbarossa, leading to a process granting effective independence to most of northern and central Italian cities. Despite the devastation of the numerous wars, Italy maintained, especially in the north and center, a relatively developed urban civilization.

During the same period, Italy saw the rise of numerous Maritime Republics, the most notable being Venice, Genoa, Pisa and Amalfi. Heavily involved in the Crusades, they took advantage of political and trading opportunities. Venice and Genoa soon became Europe's main gateways to trade with the East, establishing colonies as far as the Black Sea and often controlling most of the trade with the Byzantine Empire and the Islamic Mediterranean world. The county of Savoy expanded its territory into the peninsula in the late Middle Ages, while Florence developed into a highly organized commercial and financial city-state, becoming for many centuries the European capital of silk, wool, banking and jewelry.

In the south, Byzantine Sicily had become an Islamic emirate in the 9th century, thriving until the Italo-Normans conquered it in the late 11th century together with most of the Lombard and Byzantine states of southern Italy. Through a complex series of events, southern Italy developed as a unified kingdom, first under the House of Hohenstaufen, then under the Capetian House of Anjou and, from the 15th century, the house of Aragon (although Sicily was a separate Aragonese kingdom from the late 13th to the 15th century). In Sardinia, the former Byzantine provinces became independent states known as giudicati, although most of the island was under Genoese or Pisan control until the Aragonese conquered it in the 15th century.

Early Modern[link]

The Vitruvian man by Leonardo da Vinci, representing the ideal human proportions as described by Roman architect Vitruvius, is a quintessential masterpiece of the Renaissance.

The Black Death pandemic in 1348 left its mark on Italy by killing one third of the population.^[35][36] However, the recovery from the disaster of the Black Death led to a resurgence of cities, trade and economy which greatly stimulated the successive phases of Humanism and Renaissance, cultural movements both born in the peninsula, and later spread in Europe.

In the 14th and 15th centuries, Northern and upper Central Italy were divided into a number of warring city-states, the rest of the peninsula being occupied by the larger Papal States and Naples. The strongest among these city-states annexed the surrounding territories giving birth to the Signorie, regional states led by merchant families which founded local dynasties. Dominated by merchant oligarchies, they enjoyed a relative freedom and nurtured academic and artistic advancement. Warfare between the states was common, invasion from outside Italy confined to intermittent sorties of Holy Roman Emperors. These wars were primarily fought by armies of mercenaries known as condottieri, bands of soldiers drawn from around Europe, but especially Germany and Switzerland, led largely by Italian captains.^[37]

Decades of fighting eventually saw Florence, Milan and Venice emerge as the dominant players that agreed to the Peace of Lodi in 1454, which saw relative calm brought to the region for the first time in centuries. This peace would hold for the next forty years, and Venice's unquestioned hegemony over the sea also led to unprecedented peace for much of the rest of the 15th century. The Italian Renaissance peaked in the mid-16th century as foreign invasions plunged the region into the turmoil of the Italian Wars. However, the ideas and ideals of the Renaissance endured and even spread into the rest of Europe, setting off the Northern Renaissance, and the English Renaissance.

In the meantime, the discovery of the Americas, the new routes to Asia discovered by the Portuguese and the rise of the Ottoman Empire—all factors which eroded the traditional Italian dominance in trade with the East – started the economic decline of the peninsula.

The triumph of Napoleon at the Battle of Marengo placed Italy under French control and paved him the way to become Emperor.

Following the Italian Wars (1494 to 1559), Italy saw a long period of relative peace, first under Habsburg Spain (1559 to 1713) and then under Habsburg Austria (1713 to 1796). The plague repeatedly returned to haunt Italy throughout the 14th to 17th centuries. In the first half of the 17th century, a plague claimed some 1.7 million victims, or about 14% of Italy’s population.^[38] As Spain declined in the 17th century, so did its Italian possessions in Naples, Sicily, Sardinia, and Milan. Southern Italy was impoverished, stagnant, and cut off from the mainstream of events in Europe.^[39] Despite that, Italy kept making its contribution to the European culture, giving birth to the Baroque Style.

In the 18th century, as a result of the War of Spanish Succession, Austria replaced Spain as the dominant foreign power, while the House of Savoy emerged as a major regional power expanding to Piedmont and Sardinia. In this century, the ideas of the Enlightenment influenced the Italian rulers, paving the way to reforms which started an economic recovery in northern Italy and Tuscany.

During the Napoleonic Wars, the northern and central parts of the country were invaded and later partly annexed to the Empire and partly reorganized as a new Kingdom of Italy—essentially a client state of the French Empire —^[40] while the southern half of the peninsula was administered by Joachim Murat, Napoleon's brother-in-law, who was crowned as King of Naples. The 1814 Congress of Vienna restored the situation of the late 18th century, but the ideals of the French Revolution could not be eradicated.

Italian unification and Liberal Italy[link]

The legendary "handshake of Teano" between Giuseppe Garibaldi and Victor Emmanuel II: on 26 October 1860, General Garibaldi sacrificed republican hopes for the sake of Italian unity under a monarchy.

The creation of the Kingdom of Italy was the result of efforts by Italian nationalists and monarchists loyal to the House of Savoy to establish a united state encompassing the entire Italian Peninsula. In the context of the 1848 liberal revolutions that swept through Europe, an unsuccessful war was declared on Austria. The Kingdom of Sardinia again attacked the Austrian Empire in the Second Italian War of Independence of 1859, with the aid of France, resulting in liberating Lombardy.

In 1860–61, Giuseppe Garibaldi led the drive for unification in Naples and Sicily,^[41] allowing the Sardinian government led by the Count of Cavour to declare a united Italian kingdom on 17 March 1861. In 1866, Victor Emmanuel II allied with Prussia during the Austro-Prussian War, waging the Third Italian War of Independence which allowed Italy to annex Venetia. Finally, as France during the disastrous Franco-Prussian War of 1870 abandoned its garrisons in Rome, the Savoy rushed to fill the power gap by taking over the Papal States.

Italian infantrymen in 1916. More than 650,000 Italian soldiers lost their lives on the battlefields of World War I.

The Sardinian Albertine Statute of 1848, extended to the whole Kingdom of Italy in 1861, provided for basic freedoms, but electoral laws excluded the non-propertied and uneducated classes from voting. The government of the new kingdom took place in a framework of parliamentary constitutional monarchy dominated by liberal forces. In 1913, male universal suffrage was adopted. As Northern Italy quickly industrialized, the South and rural areas of North remained underdeveloped and overpopulated, forcing millions of people to migrate abroad, while the Italian Socialist Party constantly increased in strength, challenging the traditional liberal and conservative establishment.

Starting from the last two decades of the 19th century, Italy developed into a colonial power by forcing Somalia, Eritrea and later Libya and the Dodecanese under its rule.^[42] During World War I, Italy at first stayed neutral, but in 1915 signed the Treaty of London, entering the Entente on the promise of receiving Trento, Trieste, Gorizia and Gradisca, Istria and northern Dalmatia from the Austro-Hungarian Empire—as well as parts of the Ottoman Empire. During the war, more than 650,000 Italian soldiers died,^[43] and the economy collapsed. Under the Peace Treaties of Saint-Germain, Rapallo and Rome, Italy obtained most of the promised territories, including the Hungarian harbour of Fiume, but not Dalmatia (except Zara), allowing nationalists to define the victory as "mutilated".

Fascist regime[link]

The turbulence that followed the devastation of World War I, inspired by the Russian Revolution, led to turmoil and anarchy. The liberal establishment, fearing a socialist revolution, started to endorse the small National Fascist Party, led by Benito Mussolini. In October 1922 the fascists attempted a coup (the "March on Rome"), supported by king Victor Emmanuel III. Over the next few years, Mussolini banned all political parties and curtailed personal liberties, thus forming a dictatorship.

In 1935, Mussolini invaded Ethiopia, resulting in an international alienation and leading to Italy's withdrawal from the League of Nations. Consequently, Italy allied with Nazi Germany and Empire of Japan and strongly supported Franco in the Spanish civil war.

In 1939, Italy occupied Albania, a de facto protectorate for decades, and entered World War II in June 1940 on the side of the Axis powers. Mussolini, wanting a quick victory like Hitler's Blitzkriegs in Poland and France, invaded Greece in October 1940, but was forced to accept a humiliating stalemate after a few months. At the same time, Italy, after initially conquering British Somalia and parts of Egypt, saw an allied counter-attack lead to the loss of all possessions in the Horn of Africa and in North Africa.

Italy was then invaded by the Allies in July 1943, leading to the collapse of the Fascist regime and the fall of Mussolini. In September 1943, Italy surrendered. The country remained a battlefield for the rest of the war, as the allies were moving up from the south as the north was the base for loyalist Italian fascist and German Nazi forces, fought also by the Italian resistance movement. The hostilities ended on 2 May 1945. Nearly half a million Italians (including civilians) died in the conflict,^[44] and the Italian economy had been all but destroyed; per capita income in 1944 was at its lowest point since the beginning of the 20th century.^[45]

Italian Republic[link]

The Constitution of Italy, come into force in 1948.

Italy became a republic after a referendum^[46] held on 2 June 1946, a day celebrated since as Republic Day. This was also the first time that Italian women were entitled to vote.^[47] Victor Emmanuel III's son, Umberto II, was forced to abdicate and exiled. The Republican Constitution was approved on 1 January 1948. Under the Paris Peace Treaties of 1947, the eastern border area was lost to Yugoslavia, and, later, the Free Territory of Trieste was divided between the two states.

Fears in the Italian electorate of a possible Communist takeover proved crucial for the first universal suffrage electoral outcome on 18 April 1948, when the Christian Democrats, under the leadership of Alcide De Gasperi, obtained a landslide victory. Consequently, in 1949 Italy became a member of NATO. The Marshall Plan helped to revive the Italian economy which, until the late 1960s, enjoyed a period of sustained economic growth commonly called the "Economic Miracle". In 1957, Italy was a founding member of the European Economic Community (EEC), which became the European Union (EU) in 1993.

The 1957 Treaties of Rome signing ceremony. Italy is a founding member of the European Union.

From the late 1960s until the early 1980s, the country experienced the Years of Lead, a period characterized by economic crisis (especially after the 1973 oil crisis), widespread social conflicts and terrorist massacres carried out by opposing extremist groups, with the alleged involvement of US intelligence.^[48][49][50] The Years of Lead culminated in the assassination of the Christian Democrat leader Aldo Moro in 1978, an event that deeply affected the whole country.

In the 1980s, for the first time since 1945, two governments were led by non-Christian-Democrat premiers: one liberal (Giovanni Spadolini) and one socialist (Bettino Craxi); the Christian Democrats remained, however, the main government party. During Craxi's government, the economy recovered and Italy became the world's fifth largest industrial nation, gaining entry into the G7 Group. However, as a result of his spending policies, the Italian national debt skyrocketed during the Craxi era, soon passing 100% of the GDP.

In the early 1990s, Italy faced significant challenges, as voters – disenchanted with political paralysis, massive public debt and the extensive corruption system (known as Tangentopoli) uncovered by the 'Clean Hands' investigation – demanded radical reforms. The scandals involved all major parties, but especially those in the government coalition: the Christian Democrats, who ruled for almost 50 years, underwent a severe crisis and eventually disbanded, splitting up into several factions. The Communists reorganized as a social-democratic force. During the 1990s and the 2000s (decade), centre-right (dominated by media magnate Silvio Berlusconi) and centre-left coalitions alternatively governed the country, which entered a prolonged period of economic stagnation.

Geography[link]

Topographic map of Italy.

Italy is located in Southern Europe and comprises the boot-shaped Italian Peninsula and a number of islands including the two largest, Sicily and Sardinia. It lies between latitudes 35° and 47° N, and longitudes 6° and 19° E.

The country's total area is 301,230 km², of which 294,020 km² is land and 7,210 km² is water. Including the islands, Italy has a coastline and border of 7,600 km on the Adriatic, Ionian, Tyrrhenian seas (740 km), and borders shared with France (488 km), Austria (430 km), Slovenia (232 km) and Switzerland; San Marino (39 km) and Vatican City (3.2 km), both enclaves, account for the remainder.

Mont Blanc is the highest point in Italy and the European Union.

The Apennine Mountains form the peninsula's backbone and the Alps form its northern boundary, where Italy's highest point is located on Mont Blanc (4,810 m/15,782 ft).^{[note 2]} The Po, Italy's longest river (652 km/405 mi), flows from the Alps on the western border with France and crosses the Padan plain on its way to the Adriatic Sea. The five largest lakes are, in order of diminishing size:^[51] Garda (367.94 km²/142 sq mi), Maggiore (212.51 km²/82 sq mi, shared with Switzerland), Como (145.9 km²/56 sq mi), Trasimeno (124.29 km²/48 sq mi) and Bolsena (113.55 km²/44 sq mi).

The country is situated at the meeting point of the Eurasian Plate and the African Plate, leading to considerable seismic and volcanic activity. There are 14 volcanoes in Italy, three of which are active: Etna (the traditional site of Vulcan’s smithy), Stromboli and Vesuvius. Vesuvius is the only active volcano in mainland Europe and is most famous for the destruction of Pompeii and Herculanum. Several islands and hills have been created by volcanic activity, and there is still a large active caldera, the Campi Flegrei north-west of Naples.

Although the country comprises the Italian peninsula and most of the southern Alpine basin, some of Italy's territory extends beyond the Alpine basin and some islands are located outside the Eurasian continental shelf. These territories are the comuni of: Livigno, Sexten, Innichen, Toblach (in part), Chiusaforte, Tarvisio, Graun im Vinschgau (in part), which are all part of the Danube's drainage basin, while the Val di Lei constitutes part of the Rhine's basin and the islands of Lampedusa and Lampione are on the African continental shelf.

Environment[link]

Map of national parks in Italy.

After its quick industrial growth, Italy took a long time to confront its environmental problems. After several improvements, it now ranks 84th in the world for ecological sustainability.^[52] National parks cover about five percent of the country.^[53] In the last decade, Italy has become one of the world's leading producers of renewable energy, ranking as the world’s fourth largest holder of installed solar energy capacity^[54][55] and the sixth largest holder of wind power capacity in 2010.^[56] Renewable energies now make up about 12% of the total primary and final energy consumption in Italy, with a future target share set at 17% for the year 2020.^[57]

Asinara island with the Aragonese Torre della Pelosa (16th century), Sardinia.

However, air pollution remains a severe problem, especially in the industrialised north, reaching the tenth highest level worldwide of industrial carbon dioxide emissions in the 1990s.^[58] Italy is the twelfth largest carbon dioxide producer.^[59][60] Extensive traffic and congestion in the largest metropolitan areas continue to cause severe environmental and health issues, even if smog levels have decreased dramatically since the 1970s and 1980s, and the presence of smog is becoming an increasingly rarer phenomenon and levels of sulphur dioxide are decreasing.^[61]

Many watercourses and coastal stretches have also been contaminated by industrial and agricultural activity, while due to rising water levels, Venice has been regularly flooded throughout recent years. Waste from industrial activity is not always disposed of by legal means and has led to permanent health effects on inhabitants of affected areas, as in the case of the Seveso disaster. The country has also operated several nuclear reactors between 1963 and 1990 but, after the Chernobyl disaster and a referendum on the issue the nuclear program was terminated, a decision that was overturned by the government in 2008, planning up to four French nuclear power plants. This was in turn struck down by a referendum following the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster.^[62] Deforestation, illegal building developments and poor land-management policies have led to significant erosion all over Italy's mountainous regions, leading to major ecological disasters like the 1963 Vajont Dam flood, the 1998 Sarno^[63] and 2009 Messina mudslides.

Climate[link]

The coastal areas of Liguria have a Mediterranean climate.

The climate of Italy is highly diverse and can be quite different from the stereotypical Mediterranean climate. Most of the inland northern regions of Italy, for example Piedmont, Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna, have a climate variously described as humid continental or temperate. The climate of the "Po valley region [is] continental ... with harsh winters and hot summers".^[64][65] The coastal areas of Liguria and most of the peninsula south of Florence generally fit the Mediterranean stereotype (Köppen climate classification Csa). Conditions on peninsular coastal areas can be very different from the interior's higher ground and valleys, particularly during the winter months when the higher altitudes tend to be cold, wet, and often snowy. The coastal regions have mild winters and warm and generally dry summers, although lowland valleys can be quite hot in summer.

Governance[link]

Giorgio Napolitano, 11th President of the Italian Republic.

Italy has been a unitary parliamentary republic since 2 June 1946, when the monarchy was abolished by a constitutional referendum. The President of the Italian Republic (Presidente della Repubblica), currently Giorgio Napolitano since 2006, is Italy's head of state. The President is elected for a single seven years mandate by the Parliament in joint session. Italy has a written democratic constitution, resulting from the work of a Constituent Assembly formed by the representatives of all the anti-fascist forces that contributed to the defeat of Nazi and Fascist forces during the Civil War.^[66]

Government[link]

Italy has a parliamentary government based on a proportional voting system. The Parliament of Italy is perfectly bicameral: the two houses, the Chamber of Deputies (that meets in Palazzo Montecitorio) and the Senate of the Republic (that meets in Palazzo Madama), have the same powers. The Prime Minister, officially President of the Council of Ministers (Presidente del Consiglio dei Ministri), is Italy's head of government. The Prime Minister and the cabinet are appointed by the President of the Republic, but must pass a vote of confidence in Parliament to become in office.

While the office is similar to those in most other parliamentary systems, the Italian prime minister has less authority than some of his counterparts. The prime minister is not authorized to request the dissolution of Parliament or dismiss ministers (that are exclusive prerogatives of the President of the Republic) and must receive a vote of approval from the Council of Ministers—which holds effective executive power—to execute most political activities.

Palazzo Montecitorio, seat of the Italian Chamber of Deputies.

Silvio Berlusconi, from 8 May 2008 to his resignation on 12 November 2011, was Prime Minister, leading a center-right coalition. The Italy's four major political parties are the People of Freedom, the Democratic Party, the Northern League and the Italy of Values. During the 2008 general elections these four parties won 590 out of 630 seats available in the Chamber of Deputies and 308 out of 315 seats available in the Senate of the Republic.

Most of the remaining seats were won by minor parties that only contest election in one part of Italy, like the South Tyrolean People's Party and the Movement for Autonomies. However, during the last 3 years, a so called "Third Pole" emerged, merging the Christian Democrats of UDC with some dissident MPs coming from Mr. Berlusconi's cabinet.

A peculiarity of the Italian Parliament is the representation given to Italian citizens permanently living abroad (about 3.6 million people): 12 Deputies and 6 Senators elected in four distinct overseas constituencies. In addition, the Italian Senate is characterized also by a small number of senators for life, appointed by the President "for outstanding patriotic merits in the social, scientific, artistic or literary field". Former Presidents of the Republic are ex officio life senators.

Law and criminal justice[link]

The Supreme Court of Cassation.

The Italian judicial system is based on Roman law modified by the Napoleonic code and later statutes. The Supreme Court of Cassation is the highest court in Italy for both criminal and civil appeal cases. The Constitutional Court of Italy (Corte Costituzionale) rules on the conformity of laws with the Constitution and is a post–World War II innovation. Since their appearance in the middle of the 19th century, Italian organized crime and criminal organizations have infiltrated the social and economic life of many regions in Southern Italy, the most notorious of which being the Sicilian Mafia, which would later expand into some foreign countries including the United States. The Mafia receipts may reach 9%^[67][68] of Italy's GDP.^[69]

A 2009 report identified 610 comuni which have a strong Mafia presence, where 13 million Italians live and 14.6% of the Italian GDP is produced.^[70][71] The Calabrian 'Ndrangheta, nowadays probably the most powerful crime syndicate of Italy, accounts alone for 3% of the country's GDP.^[72] However, at 0.013 per 1,000 people, Italy has only the 47th highest murder rate^[73] (in a group of 62 countries) and the 43rd highest number of rapes per 1,000 people in the world (in a group of 65 countries), relatively low figures among developed countries.

Foreign relations[link]

US President Barack Obama and Giorgio Napolitano in Rome.

Italy is a founding member of the European Community, now the European Union (EU), and of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Italy was admitted to the United Nations in 1955, and it is a member and strong supporter of a wide number of international organizations, such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade/World Trade Organization (GATT/WTO), the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the Council of Europe, and the Central European Initiative. Its recent turns in the rotating presidency of international organisations include the Conference for Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE), the forerunner of the OSCE, in 1994; G8; and the EU in 2009 and from July to December 2003.

Italy strongly supports multilateral international politics, endorsing the United Nations and its international security activities. Italy deployed troops in support of UN peacekeeping missions in Somalia, Mozambique, and East Timor and provides support for NATO and UN operations in Bosnia, Kosovo and Albania. Italy deployed over 2,000 troops in Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) from February 2003. Italy still supports international efforts to reconstruct and stabilize Iraq, but it has withdrawn its military contingent of some 3,200 troops as of November 2006, maintaining only humanitarian operators and other civilian personnel. In August 2006 Italy deployed about 2,450 troops in Lebanon for the United Nations' peacekeeping mission UNIFIL.^[74]

Military[link]

The new Italian aircraft carrier Cavour (550) (MM Cavour).

The Italian Army, Navy, Air Force and Gendarmerie collectively form the Italian armed forces, under the command of the Supreme Defence Council, presided over by the President of the Italian Republic. From 1999, military service is voluntary.^[75] In 2010, the Italian military had 293,202 personnel on active duty,^[76] of which 114,778 in the national gendarmerie.^[77] Total Italian military spending in 2010 ranked tenth in the world, standing at $35.8 billion, equal to 1.7% of national GDP. As part of NATO's nuclear sharing strategy Italy also hosts 90 United States nuclear bombs, located in the Ghedi and Aviano air bases.^[78]

The Italian Army is the national ground defense force, numbering 109,703 in 2008. Its best-known combat vehicles are the Dardo infantry fighting vehicle, the Centauro tank destroyer and the Ariete tank, and among its aircraft the Mangusta attack helicopter, recently deployed in UN missions. It also has at its disposal a large number of Leopard 1 and M113 armored vehicles.

A Eurofighter Typhoon operated by the Italian Air Force.

The Italian Navy in 2008 had 35,200 active personnel with 85 commissioned ships and 123 aircraft.^[79] It is now equipping itself with a bigger aircraft carrier, (the Cavour), new destroyers, submarines and multipurpose frigates. In modern times the Italian Navy, being a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), has taken part in many coalition peacekeeping operations around the world.

The Italian Air Force in 2008 had a strength of 43,882 and operated 585 aircraft, including 219 combat jets and 114 helicopters. As a stopgap and as replacement for leased Tornado ADV interceptors, the AMI has leased 30 F-16A Block 15 ADF and four F-16B Block 10 Fighting Falcons, with an option for more. The coming years also will see the introduction of 121 EF2000 Eurofighter Typhoons, replacing the leased F-16 Fighting Falcons. Further updates are foreseen in the Tornado IDS/IDT and AMX fleets. A transport capability is guaranteed by a fleet of 22 C-130Js and Aeritalia G.222s of which 12 are being replaced with the newly developed G.222 variant called the C-27J Spartan.

An autonomous corps of the military, the Carabinieri are the gendarmerie and military police of Italy, policing the military and civilian population alongside Italy's other police forces. While the different branches of the Carabinieri report to separate ministries for each of their individual functions, the corps reports to the Ministry of Internal Affairs when maintaining public order and security.^[80]

Administrative divisions[link]

Italy is subdivided into 20 regions (regioni, singular regione), five of these regions having a special autonomous status that enables them to enact legislation on some of their local matters. The country is further divided into 110 provinces (province) and 8,100 municipalities (comuni). There are also 15 metropolitan cities (città metropolitane), established in 2009, but this administrative division is not yet operational.

Apulia

Basilicata

Calabria

Sicily

Molise

Campania

Abruzzo

Lazio

Umbria

Marche

Tuscany

Sardinia

Emilia-Romagna

Liguria

Piedmont

Friuli
Venezia Giulia

Aosta
Valley

Trentino
Alto Adige
Südtirol

Veneto

Lombardy

Adriatic Sea

Ionian Sea

Mediterranean Sea

Tyrrhenian Sea

Ligurian Sea

Economy[link]

The new Ferrari F12berlinetta. Italy is the world's 7th largest exporter of goods.

Italy has a free market economy characterized by high per capita GDP and low unemployment rates. In 2010, it was the eighth-largest economy in the world and the fourth-largest in Europe in terms of nominal GDP,^[81] and the tenth-largest economy in the world and fifth-largest in Europe in terms of PPP.^[82] It is a founding member of the G8, the Eurozone and the OECD.

After World War II, Italy was rapidly transformed from an agriculture based economy into one of the world's most industrialized nations^[83] and a leading country in world trade and exports. It is a developed country, with the world's 8th highest quality of life in 2005^[12] and the 24th Human Development Index. In spite of the recent global economic crisis, Italian per capita GDP at purchasing power parity remains approximately equal to the EU average,^[84] while the unemployment rate (8.5%) stands as one of the EU's lowest.^[85] The country is well known for its influential and innovative business economic sector,^[86] an industrious and competitive agricultural sector^[86] (Italy is the world's largest wine producer),^[87] and for its creative and high-quality automobile, industrial, appliance and fashion design.^[86]

Italy is part of a monetary union, the Eurozone (dark blue), and of the EU single market.

Italy has a smaller number of global multinational corporations than other economies of comparable size, but there is a large number of small and medium-sized enterprises, notoriously clustered in several industrial districts, which are the backbone of the Italian industry. This has produced a manufacturing sector often focused on the export of niche market and luxury products, that if on one side is less capable to compete on the quantity, on the other side is more capable of facing the competition from China and other emerging Asian economies based on lower labour costs, with higher quality products.^[88]

The country was the world's 7th largest exporter in 2009.^[89] Italy's closest trade ties are with the other countries of the European Union, with whom it conducts about 59% of its total trade. Its largest EU trade partners, in order of market share, are Germany (12.9%), France (11.4%), and Spain (7.4%).^[90] Finally, tourism is one of the fastest growing and profitable sectors of the national economy: with 43.6 million international tourist arrivals and total receipts estimated at $38.8 billion in 2010, Italy is both the fifth most visited country and highest tourism earner in the world.^[91]

Vineyards in the hilly area of Langhe, Piedmont. Italy is the world's top wine producer.

Despite these important achievements, the Italian economy today suffers from many and relevant problems. After a strong GDP growth of 5–6% per year from the 1950s to the early 1970s,^[92] and a progressive slowdown in the 1980s and 1990s, the last decade's average annual growth rates poorly performed at 1.23% in comparison to an average EU annual growth rate of 2.28%.^[93] The stagnation in economic growth, and the political efforts to revive it with massive government spending from the 1980s onwards, eventually produced a severe rise in public debt. According to the EU's statistics body Eurostat, Italian public debt stood at 116% of GDP in 2010, ranking as the second biggest debt ratio after Greece (with 126.8%).^[94]

However, the biggest chunk of Italian public debt is owned by national subjects, a major difference between Italy and Greece.^[95] In addition, Italian living standards have a considerable north-south divide. The average GDP per capita in the north exceeds by far the EU average, whilst many regions of Southern Italy are dramatically below.^[96] Italy has often been referred the sick man of Europe,^[97][98] characterised by economic stagnation, political instability and problems in pursuing reform programs.

More specifically, Italy suffers from structural weaknesses due to its geographical conformation and the lack of raw materials and energy resources: in 2006 the country imported more than 86% of its total energy consumption (99.7% of the solid fuels, 92.5% of oil, 91.2% of natural gas and 15% of electricity).^[99][100] The Italian economy is weakened by the lack of infrastructure development, market reforms and research investment, and also high public deficit.^[86] In the Index of Economic Freedom 2008, the country ranked 64th in the world and 29th in Europe, the lowest rating in the Eurozone. Italy still receives development assistance from the European Union every year. Between 2000 and 2006, Italy received €27.4 billion from the EU.^[101]