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Italy, country of south-central Europe, occupying a peninsula that juts deep into the Mediterranean Sea.
Italy comprises some of the most varied and scenic landscapes on Earth and is often described as a
country shaped like a boot. At its broad top stand the Alps, which are among the world’s most rugged
mountains. Italy’s highest points are along Monte Rosa, which peaks in Switzerland, and along Mont
Blanc, which peaks in France. The western Alps overlook a landscape of Alpine lakes and glacier-carved
valleys that stretch down to the Po River and the Piedmont. Tuscany, to the south of the cisalpine
region, is perhaps the country’s best-known region. From the central Alps, running down the length of
the country, radiates the tall Apennine Range, which widens near Rome to cover nearly the entire width
of the Italian peninsula. South of Rome the Apennines narrow and are flanked by two wide coastal
plains, one facing the Tyrrhenian Sea and the other the Adriatic Sea. Much of the lower Apennine chain
is near-wilderness, hosting a wide range of species rarely seen elsewhere in western Europe, such as
wild boars, wolves, asps, and bears. The southern Apennines are also tectonically unstable, with several
active volcanoes, including Vesuvius, which from time to time belches ash and steam into the air above
Naples and its island-strewn bay. At the bottom of the country, in the Mediterranean Sea, lie the islands
of Sicily and Sardinia.

Italy’s political geography has been conditioned by this rugged landscape. With few direct roads
between them, and with passage from one point to another traditionally difficult, Italy’s towns and cities
have a history of self-sufficiency, independence, and mutual mistrust. Visitors today remark on how
unlike one town is from the next, on the marked differences in cuisine and dialect, and on the many
subtle divergences that make Italy seem less a single nation than a collection of culturally related points
in an uncommonly pleasing setting.

The capital is Rome, one of the oldest of the world’s great cities and a favourite of visitors, who go there
to see its great monuments and works of art as well as to enjoy the city’s famed dolce vita, or "sweet
life." Other major cities include the industrial and fashion centre of Milan; Genoa, a handsome port on
the Ligurian Gulf; the sprawling southern metropolis of Naples; and Venice, one of the world’s oldest
tourist destinations. Surrounded by Rome is an independent state, Vatican City, which is the seat of the
Roman Catholic Church and the spiritual home of Italy’s overwhelmingly Catholic population. Each of
those cities, and countless smaller cities and towns, has retained its differences against the leveling
effect of the mass media and standardized education. Thus, many Italians, particularly older ones, are
inclined to think of themselves as belonging to families, then neighbourhoods, then towns or cities, then
regions, and then, last, as members of a nation.

Culture
Divided by politics and geography for centuries until its eventual unification in 1861, Italy's culture has
been shaped by a multitude of regional customs and local centres of power and patronage. Italy has had
a central role in Western culture for centuries and is still recognised for its cultural traditions and artists.
During the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, a number of magnificent courts competed for attracting
the best architects, artists and scholars, thus producing a great legacy of monuments, paintings, music
and literature. Despite the political and social isolation of these courts, Italy's contribution to the
cultural and historical heritage of Europe and the world remain immense.

Italy has more UNESCO World Heritage Sites than any other country in the world, and has rich
collections of art, culture and literature from many periods. The country has had a broad cultural
influence worldwide, also because numerous Italians emigrated to other places during the Italian
diaspora. Furthermore, Italy has, overall, an estimated 100,000 monuments of any sort (museums,
palaces, buildings, statues, churches, art galleries, villas, fountains, historic houses and archaeological
remains),and according to some estimates the nation is home to half the world's great art treasures.
Architecture
Italy is known for its considerable architectural achievements,such as the construction of arches, domes
and similar structures during ancient Rome, the founding of the Renaissance architectural movement in
the late-14th to 16th centuries, and being the homeland of Palladianism, a style of construction which
inspired movements such as that of Neoclassical architecture, and influenced the designs which
noblemen built their country houses all over the world, notably in the UK, Australia and the US during
the late 17th to early 20th centuries.

The Romanesque movement, which went from approximately 800 AD to 1100 AD, was one of the most
fruitful and creative periods in Italian architecture, when several masterpieces, such as the Leaning
Tower of Pisa in the Piazza dei Miracoli, and the Basilica of Sant'Ambrogio in Milan were built. It was
known for its usage of the Roman arches, stained glass windows, and also its curved columns which
commonly featured in cloisters. The main innovation of Italian Romanesque architecture was the vault,
which had never been seen before in the history of Western architecture.

The Baroque period produced several outstanding Italian architects in the 17th century, especially
known for their churches. The most original work of all late Baroque and Rococo architecture is the
Palazzina di caccia di Stupinigi, dating back to the 18th century. Luigi Vanvitelli began in 1752 the
construction of the Royal Palace of Caserta. In this large complex, the grandiose Baroque style interiors
and gardens are opposed to a more sober building envelope.In the late 18th and early 19th centuries
Italy was affected by the Neoclassical architectural movement. Everything from villas, palaces, gardens,
interiors and art began to be based on Roman and Greek themes.
Visual art
The history of Italian visual arts is significant to the history of Western painting. Roman art was
influenced by Greece and can in part be taken as a descendant of ancient Greek painting. Roman
painting does have its own unique characteristics. The only surviving Roman paintings are wall paintings,
many from villas in The Italian Renaissance is said by many to be the golden age of painting; roughly
spanning the 14th through the mid-17th centuries with a significant influence also out of the borders of
modern Italy. In Italy artists like Paolo Uccello, Fra Angelico, Masaccio, Piero della Francesca, Andrea
Mantegna, Filippo Lippi, Giorgione, Tintoretto, Sandro Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo
Buonarroti, Raphael, Giovanni Bellini, and Titian took painting to a higher level through the use of
perspective, the study of human anatomy and proportion, and through their development of an
unprecedented refinement in drawing and painting techniques. Michelangelo was an active sculptor
from about 1500 to 1520, and his great masterpieces including his David, Pietà, Moses. Other prominent
Renaissance sculptors include Lorenzo Ghiberti, Luca Della Robbia, Donatello, Filippo Brunelleschi and
Andrea del Verrocchio. Campania, in Southern Italy.

In the 15th and 16th centuries, the High Renaissance gave rise to a stylised art known as Mannerism. In
place of the balanced compositions and rational approach to perspective that characterised art at the
dawn of the 16th century, the Mannerists sought instability, artifice, and doubt. The unperturbed faces
and gestures of Piero della Francesca and the calm Virgins of Raphael are replaced by the troubled
expressions of Pontormo and the emotional intensity of El Greco.
The Birth of Venus (1484–1486), Sandro Botticelli, Uffizi Gallery, FlorenceIn the 17th century, among the
greatest painters of Italian Baroque are Caravaggio, Annibale Carracci, Artemisia Gentileschi, Mattia
Preti, Carlo Saraceni and Bartolomeo Manfredi. Subsequently, in the 18th century, Italian Rococo was
mainly inspired by French Rococo, since France was the founding nation of that particular style, with
artists such as Giovanni Battista Tiepolo and Canaletto. Italian Neoclassical sculpture focused, with
Antonio Canova's nudes, on the idealist aspect of the movement.

In the 19th century, major Italian Romantic painters were Francesco Hayez, Giuseppe Bezzuoli and
Francesco Podesti. Impressionism was brought from France to Italy by the Macchiaioli, led by Giovanni
Fattori, and Giovanni Boldini; Realism by Gioacchino Toma and Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo. In the 20th
century, with Futurism, primarily through the works of Umberto Boccioni and Giacomo Balla, Italy rose
again as a seminal country for artistic evolution in painting and sculpture. Futurism was succeeded by
the metaphysical paintings of Giorgio de Chirico, who exerted a strong influence on the Surrealists and
generations of artists to follow like Bruno Caruso and Renato Guttuso.

Cuisine
The Italian cuisine has developed through centuries of social and political changes, with roots as far back
as the 4th century BC. Italian cuisine in itself takes heavy influences, including Etruscan, ancient Greek,
ancient Roman, Byzantine, and Jewish. Significant changes occurred with the discovery of the New
World with the introduction of items such as potatoes, tomatoes, bell peppers and maize, now central
to the cuisine but not introduced in quantity until the 18th century. Italian cuisine is noted for its
regional diversity ,abundance of difference in taste, and is known to be one of the most popular in the
world, wielding strong influence abroad.

A key factor in the success of Italian cuisine is its heavy reliance on traditional products; Italy has the
most traditional specialities protected under EU law. Cheese, cold cuts and wine are a major part of
Italian cuisine, with many regional declinations and Protected Designation of Origin or Protected
Geographical Indication labels, and along with coffee (especially espresso) make up a very important
part of the Italian gastronomic culture. Desserts have a long tradition of merging local flavours such as
citrus fruits, pistachio and almonds with sweet cheeses like mascarpone and ricotta or exotic tastes as
cocoa, vanilla and cinnamon. Gelato, tiramisu and cassata are among the most famous examples of
Italian desserts, cakes and patisserie.

Theatre
Italian theatre can be traced back to the Roman tradition. The theatre of ancient Rome was a thriving
and diverse art form, ranging from festival performances of street theatre, nude dancing, and
acrobatics, to the staging of Plautus's broadly appealing situation comedies, to the high-style, verbally
elaborate tragedies of Seneca. Although Rome had a native tradition of performance, the Hellenization
of Roman culture in the 3rd century BCE had a profound and energising effect on Roman theatre and
encouraged the development of Latin literature of the highest quality for the stage. As with many other
literary genres, Roman dramatists was heavily influenced or tended to adapt from the Greek. For
example, Seneca's Phaedra was based on that of Euripides, and many of the comedies of Plautus were
direct translations of works by Menander.

The Teatro di San Carlo in Naples is the oldest continuously active venue for public opera in the world,
opening in 1737, decades before both the Milan's La Scala and Venice's La Fenice theatres.