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 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, Italy 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...)
Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/24 – AD 79), called Pliny the Elder (/ˈplɪni/), was a Roman author, naturalist, natural philosopher, naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the emperorVespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic Naturalis Historia (Natural History), which became an editorial model for encyclopedias. He spent most of his spare time studying, writing, and investigating natural and geographic phenomena in the field.
Among Pliny's greatest works was the twenty-volume Bella Germaniae ("The History of the German Wars"), which is no longer extant. Bella Germaniae, which began where Aufidius Bassus' Libri Belli Germanici ("The War with the Germans") left off, was used as a source by other prominent Roman historians, including Plutarch, Tacitus, and Suetonius. Tacitus may have used Bella Germaniae as the primary source for his work, De origine et situ Germanorum ("On the Origin and Situation of the Germans"). (Full article...)
A cup of espresso from the comune (municipality) of Ventimiglia, Italy
Espresso (/ɛˈsprɛsoʊ/ⓘ, Italian:[eˈsprɛsso]) is a coffee-brewing method in which a small amount of nearly boiling water is forced under pressure through finely ground coffee beans.
Espresso can be made with a wide variety of coffee beans and roast degrees, and numerous espresso-based drinks exist, often blending in milk. It is one of the world's most popular coffee-brewing methods. (Full article...)
Image 11The 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 17The 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 18The 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 59The 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)