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Italy

Italy Information

Italian Republic or Italy (Italian: Repubblica Italiana or Italia is a country in the south of Europe, consisting mainly of a boot-shaped peninsula together with two large islands in the Mediterranean Sea: Sicily and Sardinia. To the north, where it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia, the country is bounded by the Alps. The independent countries of San Marino and the Vatican City are enclaves within Italian territory.

Main article: History of Italy

Italy's history is the most important for the cultural and social development of the Mediterranean area as a whole. The country has been host to important human activities in prehistoric times, and therefore archaeological sites of note can be found in many regions: Latium and Tuscany, Umbria and Basilicata. After Magna Graecia, the Etruscan civilisation and especially the Roman Empire that came to dominate this part of the world for many centuries, came the medieval Humanism and the Renaissance that further helped to shape European philosophy science and art. The city of Rome contains some of the most important examples of the Baroque.

The Italy of modern times became a nation-state belatedly — on March 17, 1861, when most of the states of the peninsula and the Two Sicilies were united under king Victor Emmanuel II of the Savoy dynasty, hitherto king of Sardinia, a realm that included Piedmont. The architect of Italian unification was Count Camillo Benso di Cavour, the Chief Minister of Victor Emmanuel. Rome itself remained for a decade under the Papacy, and became part of the Kingdom of Italy only on September 20, 1870, the final date of Italian unification. The Vatican is now an independent enclave surrounded by Italy, as is San Marino.

The Fascist dictatorship of Benito Mussolini that took over in 1922 led to the alliance with Germany and ultimately Italy's defeat in World War II. On June 2, 1946, a referendum on the monarchy resulted in the establishment of the Italian republic, which led to the adoption of a new constitution on January 1, 1948. Male members of the royal family were sent into exile because of their association with the fascist regime, and were only allowed to return to their country in 2002.

Italy was a charter member of NATO and the European Union, and hence joined the growing political and economic unification of Western Europe, including the introduction of the Euro in 1999.

Italy is unique in that it has always preserved its name, even under all the changes and revolutions to which it has been subjected. Every other country in Europe is now known to its inhabitants by other names than were given to it by their ancestors in the time of the Romans; but Italy continues to be the name of the country at the present day, and we have no authentic records by which we can ascertain that it ever bore any other[1].

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