Italy

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Contents

LAND & PEOPLE

GEOGRAPHY

Bordered on the north and west by Switzerland and France, and to the northeast by Austria and Slovenia, Italy's landmass extends south into the Mediterranean, between the Ligurian and Tyrrhenian seas in the west and the Adriatic and Ionian seas in the east. Italy is first and foremost a Mediterranean country and the Italians share characteristics with other Latin nations — spontaneity, and a relationship-based and not particularly time-conscious society. Of the three main islands off its coast, Sicily and Sardinia are Italian, while Corsica — birthplace of Napoleon Bonaparte — is French. The capital, Rome, lies more or less in the center.

Italy is shaped like a boot, reaching down from central southern Europe with its toe, Sicily, in the Mediterranean and its heel, the town of Brindisi, in the Ionian Sea. From top to toe it is about 1,000 miles (1,600 km) by the national expressway (autostrada) network. The Brenner Pass in the north is on the same latitude as Berne in Switzerland, whereas the toe of southern Sicily is on the same latitude as Tripoli in Libya. Only a quarter of the country is arable lowland, watered by rivers such as the Po, Adige, Arno, and Tiber. The whole of the northern frontier region is fringed by the Alps, including the jagged peaks of the Dolomites, while the Apennine Mountains run like a backbone down the peninsula from the Gulf of Genoa to the Straits of Messina, with snow-covered peaks until early summer.

CLIMATE AND WEATHER

Italy's climate is Mediterranean, but northern Italy is on average four degrees cooler than the south because the country extends over ten degrees of latitude. The inhabitants of Milan, in the great northern plain of the River Po, endure winters as cold as Copenhagen in Denmark (40°F/5°C in January), whereas their summers are almost as hot as in Naples in the south (88°F/31°C in July) — but without the refreshing sea breezes. Turin, at the foot of the Alps, is even colder in winter (39°F/4°C in January) but has less torrid summers (75°F/24°C in July).

All the coastal areas are hot and dry in summer but subject also to violent thunderstorms, which can cause sudden flash floods. Inland cities such as Florence and Rome can be delightful early in the year (68°F/20°C in April), but unpleasantly heavy and sticky in July and August (88°F/31°C).

Spring and early summer and fall are the best times to visit, though in Easter week Italian town centers are full of tourists, and in April and May they are packed with crowds of Italian schoolchildren on excursions. September and early October, when hotel rates and plane fares are cheaper, are often especially beautiful with clear fresh sunny days at the time of the grape harvest. October and November, the months of the olive harvest, have the heaviest rainfall of the year, but the winter months can also be wet, so take a waterproof coat and a good comfortable pair of walking shoes. (Naples has a higher average annual rainfall than London!) This is the time for the operagoer, and the winter sports enthusiast, or to enjoy crowd-free shopping in Milan, Rome, or Venice. But before February is out, the pink almond is already blossoming in the South.

POPULATION

Italy's population is about 61 million, in spite of having one of Europe's lowest birth rates and the greatest gaps between births and deaths. The population has fallen 3.7 percent since 2009. The greatest decline, according to the Italian Statistics Office ISTAT is in the northeast and the islands.

Changes in the population are due to three factors; lower birth rates, greater emigration, and a longer-lived population. Italy now has one of the oldest populations in Europe, second only to Germany, and the level of population has been boosted by immigration. According to statistics, 4.9 million foreigners now have Italian citizenship.

One reason for this is smaller families as more and more women seek their own careers, even though women still make up only a relatively small percentage of the professional and technical workforce. While 88 percent of all Italian women have one child, over half decide not to have another. Interestingly, the life expectancy of Italian women has doubled in fifty years to an average age of eighty-two.

According to UN estimates, some 300,000 immigrant workers a year will be needed to maintain Italy's workforce. There has been a steady stream of migrants from North Africa and the Far East, but the majority now come from central and southeastern Europe. Although Italy has made some attempts to curb immigration, these foreign workers are also regarded as "useful invaders." For decades, Italy was a land of emigration (principally to the USA and Latin America, and later Australia). The presence of immigrants in Italy's cities is a relatively new phenomenon and many Italians are still coming to terms with it.

A noted issue in recent Italian politics has been the influx of refugees from southeastern Europe and the war-torn areas of Syria, Libya, and the Sahel, many via Istanbul.

Stories of refugees crossing the Mediterranean in ageing hulks of boats, trafficked by criminals, often abandoned and left to drift toward the Italian shores maybe to be rescued by Italian coastguards, was one of the recurring tragedies in international news in 2014–15 and one which the inadequately resourced EU Mediterranean fleet could not successfully resolve.

The Italian navy said it could no longer resource the rescue operations at the level needed, and at the end of 2014 EU backers were also announcing cutbacks in their support.

REGIONS AND CITIES

Italy contains two mini-states, the Republic of San Marino and the Vatican. San Marino covers just 24 square miles (61 sq. km), and is the world's oldest (and second smallest) republic, dating from the fourth century CE. The Vatican City, a tiny enclave in the heart of Rome, is the seat of the Pope, head of the Roman Catholic Church.

The Vatican City (Stato della Città del Vaticano)

Measuring 109 acres (0.4 sq. km), less than a third of the size of Monaco, the Vatican is a sovereign state on the west bank of the Tiber. This tiny area is what remains of the Papal States, which were created by Pope Innocent II (1198–1216) by playing off rival candidates for the title of Holy Roman Emperor. Before their conquest by the Piedmontese in the 1860s, the Papal States stretched from the Tyrrhenian Sea in the west to the Adriatic in the east, and had a population of three million souls. Today the Vatican is the world's smallest state, with an army of Swiss Guards (actually mainly Italians on temporary posting), and a population of about a thousand. Most of the workers in the Vatican City live outside and commute in every working day. As a state, it has all it needs: a post office, a railway station, a helipad, a TV and radio station broadcasting in forty-five languages, a bank, a hospital, refectories, drugstores, and gas stations.

The authority of the Vatican was established in 380 CE when the primacy of the Holy See — the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome — was officially recognized by the Western Church. As a result Rome is the "Eternal City" to 1.2 billion Roman Catholics worldwide. Paradoxically, in 1985 a Concordat was signed under which Catholicism ceased to be Italy's state religion.

The glories of the Vatican City are its museum, which houses the Sistine Chapel and countless works of art, and St. Peter's Basilica. This can seat a 60,000-member congregation and is 611 feet (186 meters) long, 462 feet (140 meters) wide, and 393 feet (120 meters) high. Built between 1506 and 1615, its magnificent dome and the square Greek-cross plan were designed by Michelangelo, who worked on it "for the love of God and piety" — in other words, without pay! St. Peter's houses Michelangelo's Pietà (the statue of the seated Virgin holding the limp body of the dead Christ), and Bernini's bronze canopy (baldacchino) over the high altar.

At the head of the Vatican administration is the Pope, aided by his state secretariat under the Secretary of State. There are ten congregations, or departments, dealing with clerical matters, each headed by a cardinal. The most important is the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, formerly the Inquisition. All Catholic bishops are enjoined to go to Rome at least once every five years to see the Pope "at the threshold of the Apostles."

The leading sacred establishment in the Vatican is the Curia, or College of Cardinals, which comprises 226 members, of which 124 are entitled to elect the new Pope. After the death of a Pope the electors meet in conclave and are locked into the Sistine Chapel until a new Pope is elected. After each vote, the ballots are burned and black smoke drifts up from the Sistine Chapel chimney. When a new Pope has been elected, a chemical is added to the ballot papers to turn the smoke white, and the new Pope in his papal regalia appears to the public in the piazza. He is crowned the following day in St. Peters.

Rome

Rome is Italy's capital and the seat of government and has a population of 3.5 million. Though situated in the center of Italy, Rome is regarded as a "Southern" city in its style and general outlook.

Milan

With a population of 2.9 million and situated in the northern region of Lombardy, Milan is Italy's "New York." Sometimes described by its citizens as the real capital, Milan is the industrial center of Italy and home to two of its most famous football teams, Inter Milan and AC Milan. It is also the seat of Italy's Borsa, or Stock Exchange.

Naples

One of the busiest ports in Italy and the "capital" of the South, Naples has a population of over two million. It is the jumping off point for visits to the towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum, preserved by the lava that buried them after the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE, and for visits to the islands of Capri and Ischia.

Turin

The capital of Piedmont, Turin (pop. 1.6 million) is the gateway to the Italian Alps and a major industrial center and transportation junction.

Palermo

Founded by the Phoenicians in the eighth century BC, Palermo (pop. 872,000) is the capital and chief seaport of Sicily.

Bologna

This industrial city and ancient university town (pop. 384,000) is the capital of Emilia-Romagna. It is famous for the quality of its food and is also a transportation center and agricultural market.

Genoa

Genoa (pop. 607,000), the capital of Liguria in the northwest, is Italy's largest port and a leading industrial and commercial center.

Florence

The capital of Tuscany, Florence (pop. 374,000) is famous for its architectural and artistic treasures, dating from its heyday as the leading architectural city of the Italian Renaissance under the Medici. Today it is also a fashion center and a major commercial, transportation, and industrial hub.

Venice

Capital of the Veneto region, Venice (pop. 270,000, including the mainland) is the other great Renaissance center. The old city is built on piles on islands in a saltwater lagoon, and is famous for its canals and bridges. It is both a leading cultural and architectural attraction and a major port.

A BRIEF HISTORY

Italy is renowned for its magnificent art treasures and breathtaking scenery. Two of its greatest admirers were the nineteenth-century Romantic poets Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron, both of whom lived there. Shelley, who was drowned in a storm in a small boat off the coast, near La Spezia, described Italy as "Thou paradise of exiles" (Julian and Maddolo, 1819), and Byron in a letter to Annabella Milbanke on April 28, 1814, wrote "Italy is my magnet." Almost a century later, Henry James wrote to Edith Wharton, "How incomparably the old coquine of an Italy is the most beautiful country in the world — of a beauty (and an interest and complexity of beauty) so far beyond any other that none other is worth talking about."

Interestingly, Italians, from the late medieval poets Boccaccio and Dante onward, describe their country very differently. Over the centuries Italy has been depicted as a whore, a fallen woman, or even a brothel. Many of Italy's contemporary problems derive from its history as a land of separate, warring city-states, later ruled by other European powers. Italy was not unified until 1861 and in a sense still has the feeling of a "young" country, despite its antiquity.

Prehistory

In the Bronze Age, from about 2000 BCE, Italy was settled by Indo-European Italic tribes from the Danube basin. The first indigenous sophisticated civilization was that of the Etruscans, which developed in the city-states of Tuscany. In 650 BCE Etruscan civilization expanded into central and northern Italy, setting an early example of urban living. The Etruscans controlled the seas on either side of the peninsula, and for a while provided the ruling dynasties in neighboring Latium, the lowlands in the central part of Italy's western coast. Etruscan ambitions were eventually checked by the Greeks at Cumae near Naples in 524 BCE, and the Etruscan navy was defeated by the Greeks in a sea battle off Cumae in 474 BCE.

At about this time, Greek colonies in Southern Italy were introducing the olive, the vine, and the written alphabet. Greek civilization would, of course, have a major influence on the future Roman Empire.

The Rise of Rome

During the fourth and third centuries BCE Rome, the leading city-state of Latium, rose to prominence and united the Italian peninsula under its rule. Legend has it that Rome was founded by Romulus and Remus, twin sons of the god Mars and the King of Alba Longa's daughter. Left to die near the River Tiber, the abandoned babes were suckled by a she-wolf until they were discovered by a shepherd, who brought them up. Eventually Romulus founded Rome in 753 BCE on the Palatine Hill above the banks of the Tiber where the wolf had rescued them. He was to become the first in a line of seven kings.

Following the expulsion of its last Etruscan king, Rome became a republic in 510 BCE. Its political dominance was underpinned by its remarkably stable constitutional development, and eventually all of Italy gained full Roman citizenship. The defeat of foreign enemies and rivals led first to the establishment of protectorates and then the outright annexation of territories beyond Italy.

The Roman Empire

The Republic's victorious march across the known world continued despite political upheavals and civil war, culminating in the murder of Julius Caesar in 44 BCE and the establishment of the Roman Empire under Augustus and his successors. Thereafter Rome flourished. Augustus famously "found Rome in brick and left it in marble." The city was burned down in 64 CE during the reign of the Emperor Nero, who, to deflect the blame, initiated a period of persecutions of Christians. It is around this time that Saints Peter and Paul were executed. Peter was crucified upside down, whereas Paul — a Roman citizen by birth — was beheaded.

The Roman Empire lasted until the fifth century CE, and at its peak extended from Britain in the west to Mesopotamia and the Caspian Sea in the east. The Mediterranean effectively became an inland lake — mare nostrum, "our sea." The civilization of ancient Rome and Italy took root and had a profound influence on the development of the whole of Western Europe through the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and beyond — in art and architecture, literature, law, and engineering, and through the international use of its language, Latin, by scholars and at the great courts of Europe.

The Fall of the Empire and the Rise of the Church

In 330 CE Constantine, the first Christian emperor, moved his capital to Byzantium (renamed Constantinople — modern-day Istanbul), and Rome declined in importance. In 395 the Empire was divided into eastern and western parts, each ruled by its own emperor. There was continuous pressure along the borders as barbarian tribes probed the overstretched imperial defenses. In 410 Rome was sacked by Visigoths from Thrace, led by Alaric. Further incursions into Italy were made by the Huns under Attila in 452, and the Vandals who sacked Rome in 455. In 476 the last western Emperor, Romulus Augustus, was deposed, and in 568 Italy was invaded by the Lombards, who occupied Lombardy and central Italy.