The origins of the Italian history can be traced back to the 9th century BC, when earliest accounts date the presence of Italic tribes in present-day central Italy. Linguistically, they were divided into Oscans, Umbrians and Latins. Later the Latin culture became dominant, as Rome emerged as a powerful city-state around 350 BC. Other pre-Roman civilizations include Magna Graecia in Southern Italy and the Etruscan civilization, which flourished between 900 and 150 BC in the central section of the peninsula.

The Roman Empire later dominated Western Europe and the Mediterranean for many centuries, giving the human kind immeasurable contributions. Some of these led to the development of Western philosophy, science and art, that remained central during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. After the fall of Rome in AD 476, Italy remained fragmented in noumerous city-states for much of the following millennium, finally falling under different foreign dominations. Parts of Italy were annexed to the Spanish, the Austrian and Napoleon I's empire, while the Vatican maintained control over Rome, before the Italian Peninsula was eventually liberated and unified in the late 19th century.

Italy ⁱ/ˈɪtəli/ (Italian: Italia [iˈtaːlja]), officially the Italian Republic or the Republic of Italy (Italian: Repubblica italiana), 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, an immensely fruitful intellectual movement that would prove to be integral in shaping the subsequent course of European thought.