Padua

Padua (/ˈpædju.ə/ or US /ˈpædʒu.ə/, Italian: Padova [ˈpaːdova]) is a city and comune in Veneto, northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Padua and the economic and communications hub of the area. Padua's population is 214,000 (as of 2011). The city is sometimes included, with Venice (Italian Venezia) and Treviso, in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area, having a population of c. 1,600,000.

Padua stands on the Bacchiglione River, 40 kilometres (25 miles) west of Venice and 29 km (18 miles) southeast of Vicenza. The Brenta River, which once ran through the city, still touches the northern districts. Its agricultural setting is the Venetian Plain (Pianura Veneta). To the city's south west lies the Euganaean Hills, praised by Lucan and Martial, Petrarch, Ugo Foscolo, and Shelley.

It hosts the renowned University of Padua, almost 800 years old, and famous, among other things, for having had Galileo Galilei among its lecturers.

The city is picturesque, with a dense network of arcaded streets opening into large communal piazze, and many bridges crossing the various branches of the Bacchiglione, which once surrounded the ancient walls like a moat.

Venice

Venice (English /ˈvɛnɪs/ VEN-iss; Italian: Venezia [veˈnɛttsja]) is a city in northeastern Italy sited on a group of 118 small islands separated by canals and linked by bridges. It is located in the marshy Venetian Lagoon which stretches along the shoreline, between the mouths of the Po and the Piave Rivers. Venice is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture, and its artwork. The city in its entirety is listed as a World Heritage Site, along with its lagoon.

Venice is the capital of the Veneto region. In 2009, there were 270,098 people residing in Venice's comune (the population estimate of 272,000 inhabitants includes the population of the whole Comune of Venezia; of whom around 60,000 live in the historic city of Venice (Centro storico); 176,000 in Terraferma (the mainland), mostly in the large frazioni (roughly equivalent to "parishes" or "wards" in other countries) of Mestre and Marghera; and 31,000 on other islands in the lagoon). Together with Padua and Treviso, the city is included in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area (PATREVE), with a total population of 2,600,000. PATREVE is only a statistical metropolitan area without any degree of autonomy.

Venice: The Series

Venice: The Series is a soap opera web series co-produced by and starring American actress Crystal Chappell, and is inspired in part by the "Otalia" storyline on the daytime drama Guiding Light. The series has been streamed on VenicetheSeries.com since December 4, 2009, and is currently in its fourth season.

Venice is described by Chappell as "a show about families, and life, and all the simplicity of it, and the turmoil of it. We're going to be following a character named Gina who is a designer, and she is a gay woman."

Creation

Crystal Chappell played Olivia Spencer on the long-running CBS daytime drama, Guiding Light, from 1999 until the September 18, 2009 network ending. She won a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Daytime Drama for her work as Olivia in 2002 and was nominated again in the same category in 2005 and 2006. In 2007, she earned her first nomination in the Outstanding Lead Actress category and her second in 2010.

In 2009, after Guiding Light was cancelled, Chappell, with help from her writing partner and co-producer Kim Turrisi, decided to create Venice: The Series, based around the popular romance between her character, Olivia Spencer, and co-star Jessica Leccia's character, Natalia Rivera Aitoro, also known by the portmanteau "Otalia". However, for copyright reasons, the names of the two actresses' characters are changed, and there is no official connection to Guiding Light.

Venice, Louisiana

Venice is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, United States. As of the 2010 census, its population was 202. It is 77 miles south of New Orleans on the west bank of the Mississippi River at 29°16′37″N 89°21′17″W / 29.27694°N 89.35472°W / 29.27694; -89.35472. It is the last community down the Mississippi accessible by automobile, and it is the southern terminus of the Great River Road. This has earned the town the nickname "The end of the world." The postal ZIP code for Venice, Louisiana, is 70091.

In 2001 the combined population for Venice and the neighboring communities of Orchard (often considered a part of Venice) and Boothville, Louisiana, was about 2740 people, with about 975 families. About 460 of those people lived in Venice.

Venice has a diverse variety of fish. It is known as the starting point for many doing offshore fishing, who then head to Port Eads. Its main offshore rival is nearby Grand Isle, Louisiana.

Italy

Coordinates: 43°N 12°E / 43°N 12°E / 43; 12

Italy (ⁱ/ˈɪtəli/; Italian: Italia [iˈtaːlja]), officially the Italian Republic (Italian: Repubblica Italiana), is a unitary parliamentary republic in Europe. Italy covers an area of 301,338 km² (116,347 sq mi) and has a largely Mediterranean and temperate climate; due to its shape, it is often referred to in Italy as lo Stivale (the Boot). With 61 million inhabitants, it is the 4th most populous EU member state. Located in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea, Italy shares open land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, San Marino and Vatican City.

Since ancient times, Greeks, Etruscans and Celts have inhabited the south, centre and north of the Italian Peninsula respectively. Rome ultimately emerged as the dominant power, conquering much of the ancient world and becoming the leading cultural, political, and religious centre of Western civilisation. The legacy of the Roman Empire is widespread and can be observed in the global distribution of civilian law, Republican governments, Christianity and the latin script.

Roman Italy

Roman Italy was created officially by the Roman Emperor Augustus with the Latin name Italia. It was the first time in history that the Italian peninsula (from the Alps to the Ionian Sea) was united under the same name. In the year 292, the three islands of Corsica, Sardinia and Sicily were added to Roman Italy by Emperor Diocletianus.

Characteristics

Italy (Italia in Latin and Italian) was the name of the administrative division of the Italian peninsula during the Roman era. It was not a province, but became the territory of the city of Rome, thus having a special status. Following the end of the Social War (91–88 BC), Rome had allowed its Italian allies (socii) full rights in Roman society and granted the Roman citizenship to all the Italic peoples.

After having been for centuries the heart of the Empire, from the 3rd century the government and the cultural center began to move eastward: first the Edict of Caracalla in 212 AD extended Roman citizenship to all free men within the imperial boundaries, then during Constantine's reign (306–337) the seat of the Empire was moved to Constantinople in 330 AD.

Italy (Everybody Loves Raymond)

"Italy" is the two-part season five premiere of the American television sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond. Constituting the 100th and 101st overall episodes of the series, they were written by the creator Philip Rosenthal and directed by Gary Halvorson. In this episode of the show, which revolves around the life of Italian-American Newsday sportswriter Raymond Barone and his oddball family, his parents, Marie and Frank, announce that they're all going to Italy to visit the former's cousin Colletta, and everyone is excited to go except Raymond. Meanwhile, during the trip, Ray's brother Robert is attracted to a woman named Stefania, and tries to get past her father Signore to meet her. With part one originally airing on October 2, 2000 and the concluding half on October 9, both on CBS, the episode has earned positive reviews from critics and received a Writers Guild of America Award.

Plot

Frank (Peter Boyle) and Marie (Doris Roberts) announce to their family that they're all going to Italy for two weeks. The latter reasons that with her birthday coming up, she is using the money she had kept aside for 45 years to pay for the family to meet her cousin Colletta (Silvana De Santis), who lives in a small village outside of Rome. Everyone is excited to go, except Raymond (Ray Romano). Ray informs Debra (Patricia Heaton) that he doesn't want to go on the trip because he has no interest in other cultures. Debra replies that she doesn't want his "dumbness" to ruin the vacation.