Portal:Italy
Portal:Italy
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The Italy portal |
Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern and Western Europe. It is located on a peninsula that extends into the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land border, as well as islands, notably Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia and two enclaves: Vatican City and San Marino. It is the tenth-largest country in the Europe, covering an area of 301,340 km2 (116,350 sq mi), and third-most populous member state of the European Union, with a population of nearly 60 million. Its capital and largest city is Rome; other major urban areas include Milan, Naples, Turin, Florence, and Venice.
In antiquity, the Italian peninsula was home to numerous peoples; the Latin city of Rome, founded as a Kingdom, became a Republic that conquered the Mediterranean world and ruled it for centuries as an Empire. With the spread of Christianity, Rome became the seat of the Catholic Church and the Papacy. During the Early Middle Ages, Italy experienced the fall of the Western Roman Empire and inward migration from Germanic tribes. By the 11th century, Italian city-states and maritime republics expanded, bringing renewed prosperity through commerce and laying the groundwork for modern capitalism. The Italian Renaissance flourished during the 15th and 16th centuries and spread to the rest of Europe. Italian explorers discovered new routes to the Far East and the New World, leading the European Age of Discovery. However, centuries of rivalry and infighting between city-states left the peninsula divided. During the 17th and 18th centuries, Italian economic importance waned significantly. (Full article...)
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Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi (c. 1445 – May 17, 1510), better known as Sandro Botticelli (/ˌbɒtɪˈtʃɛli/ BOT-ih-CHEL-ee, Italian: [ˈsandro bottiˈtʃɛlli]) or simply Botticelli, was an Italian painter of the Early Renaissance. Botticelli's posthumous reputation suffered until the late 19th century, when he was rediscovered by the Pre-Raphaelites who stimulated a reappraisal of his work. Since then, his paintings have been seen to represent the linear grace of late Italian Gothic and some Early Renaissance painting, even though they date from the latter half of the Italian Renaissance period.
In addition to the mythological subjects for which he is best known today, Botticelli painted a wide range of religious subjects (including dozens of renditions of the Madonna and Child, many in the round tondo shape) and also some portraits. His best-known works are The Birth of Venus and Primavera, both in the Uffizi in Florence, which holds many of Botticelli's works. Botticelli lived all his life in the same neighbourhood of Florence; his only significant times elsewhere were the months he spent painting in Pisa in 1474 and the Sistine Chapel in Rome in 1481–82. (Full article...)Selected picture - show another
- Image 1Porta Soprana is the best-known gate of the ancient walls of Genoa.
- Image 4Dome of Florence Cathedral
- Image 5The Forma Urbis Romae is a massive marble map of ancient Rome, created under the emperor Septimius Severus between 203 and 211.
- Image 6Sellajoch, South Tyrol and Trentino (seen from Pordoi Pass), Langkofel on the left, Piz Ciavazes on the right
- Image 7South face of the Tofana di Rozes in the Parco naturale regionale delle Dolomiti d'Ampezzo
- Image 8Interior of the Santa Maria della Vittoria in Rome
- Image 9View of Piazzetta San Marco toward Grand Canal of Venice, at dawn, with Doges' Palace on the left and Biblioteca Marciana on the right.
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- ...that within a tomb in the town of Bergamo, Italy there is a statue dedicated to the life of Enrico Rastelli, the world's greatest juggler?
- ...that Italy's 1957 Eurovision entry, "Corde Della Mia Chitarra", was so long that it resulted in the introduction of length restrictions for competing songs?
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Food in ancient Rome reflects both the variety of food-stuffs available through the expanded trade networks of the Roman Empire and the traditions of conviviality from ancient Rome's earliest times, inherited in part from the Greeks and Etruscans. In contrast to the Greek symposium, which was primarily a drinking party, the equivalent social institution of the Roman convivium (dinner party) was focused on food. Banqueting played a major role in Rome's communal religion. Maintaining the food supply to the city of Rome had become a major political issue in the late Republic, and continued to be one of the main ways the emperor expressed his relationship to the Roman people and established his role as a benefactor. Roman food vendors and farmers' markets sold meats, fish, cheeses, produce, olive oil and spices; and pubs, bars, inns and food stalls sold prepared food.
Bread was an important part of the Roman diet, with more well-to-do people eating wheat bread and poorer people eating that made from barley. Fresh produce such as vegetables and legumes were important to Romans, as farming was a valued activity. A variety of olives and nuts were eaten. While there were prominent Romans who discouraged meat eating, a variety of meat products were prepared, including blood puddings, sausages, cured ham and bacon. The milk of goats or sheep was thought superior to that of cows; milk was used to make many types of cheese, as this was a way of storing and trading milk products. While olive oil was fundamental to Roman cooking, butter was viewed as an undesirable Gallic foodstuff. Sweet foods such as pastries typically used honey and wine-must syrup as a sweetener. A variety of dried fruits (figs, dates and plums) and fresh berries were also eaten. (Full article...)Categories
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- Image 1The Roman Empire provided an inspiration for the medieval European. Although the Holy Roman Empire rarely acquired a serious geopolitical reality, it possessed great symbolic significance. (from Culture of Italy)
- Image 2Luciano Pavarotti, considered one of the finest tenors of the 20th century and the "King of the High Cs" (from Culture of Italy)
- Image 3The Altare della Patria in Rome, a national symbol of Italy celebrating the first king of the unified country, and resting place of the Italian Unknown Soldier since the end of World War I. It was inaugurated in 1911, on the occasion of the 50th Anniversary of the Unification of Italy. (from Culture of Italy)
- Image 4Teatro di San Carlo, Naples. It is the oldest continuously active venue for opera in the world. (from Culture of Italy)
- Image 5William Shakespeare is an example of an Italophile of the 16th century. (from Culture of Italy)
- Image 6Folkloristic reconstruction of the Company of Death led by Alberto da Giussano who is preparing to carry out the charge during the battle of Legnano at the Palio di Legnano 2014 (from Culture of Italy)
- Image 9Clockwise from top left: Thomas Aquinas, proponent of natural theology and the Father of Thomism; Giordano Bruno, one of the major scientific figures of the Western world; Cesare Beccaria, considered the Father of criminal justice and modern criminal law; and Maria Montessori, credited with the creation of the Montessori education (from Culture of Italy)
- Image 11The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci, possibly one of the most famous and iconic examples of Italian art (from Culture of Italy)
- Image 12Statues of Pantalone and Harlequin, two stock characters from the Commedia dell'arte, in the Museo Teatrale alla Scala (from Culture of Italy)
- Image 17Antonio Vivaldi, in 1723. His best-known work is a series of violin concertos known as The Four Seasons. (from Culture of Italy)
- Image 19Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa is an Italian art masterpiece worldwide famous. (from Culture of Italy)
- Image 21Scrovegni Chapel. The chapel contains a fresco cycle by Giotto, completed about 1305 and considered to be an important masterpiece of Western art. (from Culture of Italy)
- Image 23Romulus and Remus, the Lupercal, Father Tiber, and the Palatine on a relief from a pedestal dating to the reign of Trajan (AD 98–117) (from Culture of Italy)
- Image 24Traditional pizza Margherita, whose ingredients, tomato (red), mozzarella (white) and basil (green), are inspired by the colours of the national flag of Italy. (from Culture of Italy)
- Image 25Pinocchio Disney film is based on The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi. (from Culture of Italy)
- Image 27Alessandro Manzoni is famous for the novel The Betrothed (1827), generally ranked among the masterpieces of world literature. (from Culture of Italy)
- Image 29The espresso comes from the Italian esprimere, which means "to express," and refers to the process by which hot water is forced under pressure through ground coffee. (from Culture of Italy)
- Image 31Federico Fellini, considered one of the most influential and widely revered filmmakers in the history of cinema (from Culture of Italy)
- Image 32The Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C., reflects the president's admiration for classical Roman aesthetics (from Culture of Italy)
- Image 35The historic seat of the Corriere della Sera in via Solferino in Milan (from Culture of Italy)
- Image 36John Florio is recognised as the most important Renaissance humanist in England (from Culture of Italy)
- Image 38The Colosseum, originally known as the Flavian Amphitheatre, is an elliptical amphitheatre in the centre of the city of Rome, the largest ever built in the Roman Empire. (from Culture of Italy)
- Image 39David, by Michelangelo (Accademia di Belle Arti, Florence, Italy) is a masterpiece of Renaissance and world art. (from Culture of Italy)
- Image 44Dario Fo, one of the most widely performed playwrights in modern theatre, received international acclaim for his highly improvisational style. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1997. (from Culture of Italy)
- Image 47Palazzo Senatorio, seat of the municipality of Rome. It has been a town hall since AD 1144, making it the oldest town hall in the world. (from Culture of Italy)
- Image 48The Creation of Adam is one of the scenes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel of the Vatican, painted by Michelangelo sometime between 1508 and 1512. (from Culture of Italy)
- Image 49Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana in Rome is a perfect example of modern Italian architecture. (from Culture of Italy)
- Image 50Roman mosaic of Virgil, the most important Latin poet of the Augustan period (from Culture of Italy)
- Image 51The cover of the Corriere dei Piccoli on 11 July 1911 carries a cartoon strip in the Italian style without speech bubbles. (from Culture of Italy)
- Image 53Giorgio Moroder, pioneer of Italo disco and electronic dance music, is known as the "Father of disco". (from Culture of Italy)
- Image 55Pietà, by Michelangelo is a key work of Italian Renaissance sculpture. (from Culture of Italy)
- Image 57Sandro Botticelli, The Birth of Venus (c. 1486). Tempera on canvas. 172.5 cm × 278.9 cm (67.9 in × 109.6 in). Uffizi, Florence. (from Culture of Italy)
- Image 59Dante Alighieri, one of the greatest poets of the Middle Ages. His epic poem The Divine Comedy ranks among the finest works of world literature. (from Culture of Italy)
- Image 60The statue of Italia turrita in Reggio Calabria. Italia turrita is the national personification of Italy. (from Culture of Italy)
- Image 62The Piazza dei Miracoli, with Pisa Cathedral, the Pisa Baptistery, and the Leaning Tower of Pisa, in Pisan Romanesque style (from Culture of Italy)
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