196-621: The Ardeatine massacre , or Fosse Ardeatine massacre ( Italian : Eccidio delle Fosse Ardeatine ), was a mass killing of 335 civilians and political prisoners carried out in Rome on 24 March 1944 by German occupation troops during the Second World War as a reprisal for the Via Rasella attack in central Rome against the SS Police Regiment Bozen the previous day. Subsequently,
392-715: A long-lasting reign (with its capital in Pavia ) that gave the medieval name to the whole northern Italy and the current name to the Lombardy region. After the initial struggles, relationships between the Lombard people and the Latin-speaking people improved. In the end, the Lombard language and culture assimilated with the Latin culture, leaving evidence in many names, the legal code and laws, and other things. The end of Lombard rule came in 774, when
588-733: A big contributor to pollution. It delivers more than 40 per cent of Italy's milk production, for example, while over half of the Italian pig production is located in the Po Valley. According to a research, published in The Lancet Planetary Health in January 2021, which estimates the death rate associated with fine particulate matter (PM 2.5 ) and nitrogen dioxide (NO 2 ) pollution in 1,000 European cities, Brescia and Bergamo in Lombardy have
784-441: A building, the bomb had actually been hidden in a rubbish cart, pushed into position by a Partisan disguised as a street cleaner, while others acted as lookouts. The fuse was lit when the police were forty seconds from the bomb. The blast caused the immediate deaths of 28 German SS policemen and may have killed two civilian bystanders, one of whom, Piero Zuccheretti, was an eleven-year-old boy, although he might well have been killed by
980-598: A collective entity. In July 1943, the Allies landed on the island of Sicily, preparing to invade the mainland, and Rome was bombed for the first time. On 24 July 1943, the Fascist Grand Council , which the dictator Benito Mussolini had not convened since 1939, met and overwhelmingly voted no confidence in Mussolini. The following day, anxious to extricate his country from an unsustainable war, King Victor Emanuel III ,
1176-916: A column of German vehicles passing through Via Rasella was responsible for provoking the Italians who then hurled grenades from the building alongside Palazzo Tittoni; the counter-measures are not yet known: it is however foreseen that for every German killed 10 Italians will be executed. L'ing. Ferraro hopes to provide further details later. Katz elaborated on this in 2003 in The Battle for Rome: The Germans, The Allies, The Partisans, and The Pope, September 1943 – June 1944 , using evidence from recently released OSS and Vatican sources that certain German diplomats, notably Eugen Dollmann , Himmler's representative in Rome and German Consul Eitel Möllhausen had gone to Pope Pius' personal liaison to
1372-641: A column of the German 11th Company, 3rd Battalion, Police Regiment "South Tyrol" was attacked by an ambush of Partisans , while marching and singing on a prescribed route that led through the Piazza di Spagna into the narrow street of Via Rasella. Organised by the Nazis to intimidate and suppress the Resistance, the battalion had been raised in October 1943 from ethnic German speakers of the northern Italian province of South Tyrol ,
1568-500: A huge number of civil servants and soldiers recruited from all over the country introduced many more words and idioms from their home languages— ciao is derived from the Venetian word s-cia[v]o ("slave", that is "your servant"), panettone comes from the Lombard word panetton , etc. Only 2.5% of Italy's population could speak the Italian standardized language properly when
1764-464: A little over one million people in the United States speak Italian at home. Nevertheless, an Italian language media market does exist in the country. In Canada, Italian is the second most spoken non-official language when varieties of Chinese are not grouped together, with 375,645 claiming Italian as their mother tongue in 2016. Italian immigrants to South America have also brought a presence of
1960-657: A local vernacular. These dialects, as they are commonly referred to, evolved from Vulgar Latin over the course of centuries, unaffected by formal standards and teachings. They are not in any sense "dialects" of standard Italian, which itself started off as one of these local tongues, but sister languages of Italian. Mutual intelligibility with Italian varies widely, as it does with Romance languages in general. The Romance languages of Italy can differ greatly from Italian at all levels ( phonology , morphology , syntax , lexicon , pragmatics ) and are classified typologically as distinct languages. The standard Italian language has
2156-526: A major example is the Gran Paradiso National Park , between Aosta Valley and Piedmont , which is the oldest national park in Italy. The first two most visited regions of Italy are Veneto and Trentino-Alto Adige , while the fourth and fifth are Emilia-Romagna and Lombardy . Northern Italy has many major tourist attractions, many of which are protected by UNESCO. Northern Italy is the home of
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#17328545889772352-536: A man of God ... among them". The main concern of the SS had been the speedy fulfilment of the quota. Some were residents of Via Rasella who were home at the time of the Partisan attack; others had been arrested and tortured for suspected Resistance and other anti-Fascist activities, while still others had been casually picked up on the streets or arrested at their homes on the basis of tips from Fascist informants. The youngest of them
2548-530: A new Kingdom of Italy , made of all of northern Italy but Piedmont that was annexed to France , was established with Milan as capital and Napoleon as head of state. In the congress of Vienna , the Kingdom of Sardinia was restored, and furthermore enlarged by annexing the Republic of Genoa , contravening the principle of restoring the legitimate governments and monarchies of the old Republic. The rest of northern Italy
2744-699: A newspaper owned by Paolo Berlusconi , brother of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi , to re-label the World War II Partisans responsible for the attack on Via Rasella as "terrorists". In response, the Italian Supreme Court of Cassation officially ruled that the act in Via Rasella had been a legitimate act of war and not a terrorist attack and ordered the publisher to pay punitive damages of 45 thousand euro. Nevertheless, some historians, such as Richard Raiber and István Deák, continue to imply that
2940-645: A poetic and literary origin in the works of Tuscan writers of the 12th century, and, although the grammar and core lexicon are basically unchanged from those used in Florence in the 13th century, the modern standard of the language was largely shaped by relatively recent events. However, Romance vernacular as language spoken in the Italian Peninsula has a longer history. In fact, the earliest surviving texts that can definitely be called vernacular (as distinct from its predecessor Vulgar Latin) are legal formulae known as
3136-515: A population of 27.4 million as of 2022, the region covers roughly 40% of the Italian Republic and contains 46% of its population. Two of Italy's largest metropolitan areas, Milan and Turin , are located in the region. Northern Italy's GDP was estimated at € 1 trillion in 2021, accounting for 56.5% of the Italian economy. Northern Italy has a rich and distinct culture. Thirty-seven of the fifty-nine World Heritage Sites in Italy are found in
3332-527: A possible name for an independent state in northern Italy, giving the term has carried strong political connotation. For statistical purposes, the Italian National Institute of Statistics uses the terms northwest Italy and northeast Italy for two of Italy's five statistical regions in its reporting. These same subdivisions are used to demarcate first-level Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS) regions ("NUTS 1 regions") within
3528-417: A renewed interest in linguistics in the 16th century, sparked a debate that raged throughout Italy concerning the criteria that should govern the establishment of a modern Italian literary and spoken language. This discussion, known as questione della lingua (i.e., the problem of the language ), ran through the Italian culture until the end of the 19th century, often linked to the political debate on achieving
3724-558: A result. Starting in late medieval times in much of Europe and the Mediterranean, Latin was replaced as the primary commercial language by languages of Italy, especially Tuscan and Venetian. These varieties were consolidated during the Renaissance with the strength of Italy and the rise of humanism and the arts . Italy came to enjoy increasing artistic prestige within Europe. A mark of
3920-603: A school of cadets ) and civilians, the Germans occupied Rome. They announced the imposition of German military law with summary execution for violators. Three days later (on 12 September), Nazi commandos led by Waffen-SS officer Otto Skorzeny , tracked down and rescued Mussolini from his hidden prison in the Gran Sasso and set him up in the puppet regime of the so-called "Republic of Salò" in Northern Italy . In October 1943
4116-399: A seven-vowel system, consisting of /a, ɛ, e, i, ɔ, o, u/ , as well as 23 consonants. Compared with most other Romance languages, Italian phonology is conservative, preserving many words nearly unchanged from Vulgar Latin . Some examples: Northern Italy Northern Italy ( Italian : Italia settentrionale , Nord Italia , Alta Italia ) is a geographical and cultural region in
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#17328545889774312-474: A single language is that they have evolved so that they are no longer mutually intelligible ; this diagnostic is effective if mutual intelligibility is minimal or absent (e.g. in Romance, Romanian and Portuguese), but it fails in cases such as Spanish-Portuguese or Spanish-Italian, as educated native speakers of either pairing can understand each other well if they choose to do so; however, the level of intelligibility
4508-531: A strategy of cover-up and concealment—" Night and Fog "—designed to confuse, grieve, and intimidate surviving relatives, according to Robert Katz . Misconceptions about the Fosse Ardeatine Massacre abound. Foremost among these is the notion that the Partisans responsible for the Via Rasella attack were ordered to come forward and turn themselves over to the SS and wilfully declined to do so. Although it
4704-400: A television interview by ABC television reporter Sam Donaldson , brought back to Italy for trial, and sentenced to house arrest in the home of his lawyer, Paolo Giachini. He died on 11 October 2013 from natural causes at age 100. His last request to have his remains returned to Argentina to be buried alongside his wife was denied by Argentina. The Vatican issued an "unprecedented ban" on holding
4900-729: A territory that Adolf Hitler had annexed to the German Reich after the September "betrayal" by the Italian government. Many of its citizens had since opted for German citizenship. The soldiers of the battalion were veterans of the Royal Italian Army who had seen action on the Eastern Front and had chosen service in the SS rather than face another tour in the East with the Wehrmacht . The attack
5096-504: A united Italian state. Renaissance scholars divided into three main factions: A fourth faction claimed that the best Italian was the one that the papal court adopted, which was a mixture of the Tuscan and Roman dialects. Eventually, Bembo's ideas prevailed, and the foundation of the Accademia della Crusca in Florence (1582–1583), the official legislative body of the Italian language, led to
5292-453: A year at 2,000 m (6,600 feet); on the highest peaks of the Alps , snow may fall even during mid-summer, and glaciers are present. Because of high industrialization and the lack of wind due to being closed between mountain ranges air pollution remains a severe problem in northern Italy. Even if smog levels have decreased dramatically since the 1970s and 1980s, in 2005 a team of researchers at
5488-427: Is 89% with French, 87% with Catalan , 85% with Sardinian , 82% with Spanish, 80% with Portuguese , 78% with Ladin , 77% with Romanian . Estimates may differ according to sources. One study, analyzing the degree of differentiation of Romance languages in comparison to Latin (comparing phonology , inflection , discourse , syntax , vocabulary , and intonation ), estimated that distance between Italian and Latin
5684-668: Is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire . Italian is the least divergent language from Latin , together with Sardinian (meaning that Italian and Sardinian are the most conservative Romance languages). Spoken by about 85 million people, including 67 million native speakers (2024), Italian is an official language in Italy , San Marino , Switzerland ( Ticino and
5880-729: Is also spoken by a minority in Monaco and France, especially in the southeastern part of the country. Italian was the official language in Savoy and in Nice until 1860, when they were both annexed by France under the Treaty of Turin , a development that triggered the " Niçard exodus ", or the emigration of a quarter of the Niçard Italians to Italy, and the Niçard Vespers . Giuseppe Garibaldi complained about
6076-872: Is for humans to live in polluted environments, Chicago Energy Policy Institute has recently developed the Air Quality Life Index (AQLI), a system capable of analyzing air pollution worldwide. According to AQLI findings, Po Valley air pollution affects inhabitants so hard that it cuts off about half a year of their life expectancy. The main reasons why there's a big stain of air pollution over the Po Valley are strictly connected to livestock and factories. The so-called "NPK fertilizers", made of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, along with manure emissions from intensive breeding and high levels of nitrogen dioxide released by diesel and petrol engines are all accountable for this disastrous air condition in northern Italy. The region of Lombardy produces also vast amounts of animal waste,
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6272-528: Is higher than that between Sardinian and Latin. In particular, its vowels are the second-closest to Latin after Sardinian . As in most Romance languages, stress is distinctive. Italian is the official language of Italy and San Marino and is spoken fluently by the majority of the countries' populations. Italian is the third most spoken language in Switzerland (after German and French; see Swiss Italian ), although its use there has moderately declined since
6468-402: Is increasingly hard to draw the line between freedom fighting and terrorism. In his opinion, Hague Conventions regulating irregular warfare has been "more a failure than success". "What is needed," Deák stresses, "is a recognition of reality, namely that future wars will increasingly consist of civilians shooting at soldiers from hiding and frightened soldiers killing innocent civilians. And what
6664-455: Is markedly lower between Italian-Spanish, and considerably higher between the Iberian sister languages of Portuguese-Spanish. Speakers of this latter pair can communicate with one another with remarkable ease, each speaking to the other in his own native language without slang/jargon. Nevertheless, on the basis of accumulated differences in morphology, syntax, phonology, and to some extent lexicon, it
6860-408: Is needed, in the aftermath of such a sobering recognition, is an attempt to create a new international law for the more efficient regulation of this type of horrible warfare." Robert Katz's book, The Battle for Rome , Deák concludes, "provides fine arguments for this necessary debate". Immediately after the war Roman Partisan leaders, including Rosario Bentivegna, the medical student who had set off
7056-498: Is neither a co-official nor a protected language in these countries. Some speakers of Italian are native bilinguals of both Italian (either in its standard form or regional varieties ) and a local language of Italy , most frequently the language spoken at home in their place of origin. Italian is a major language in Europe, being one of the official languages of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe and one of
7252-410: Is not difficult to identify that for the Romance varieties of Italy, the first extant written evidence of languages that can no longer be considered Latin comes from the ninth and tenth centuries C.E. These written sources demonstrate certain vernacular characteristics and sometimes explicitly mention the use of the vernacular in Italy. Full literary manifestations of the vernacular began to surface around
7448-463: Is now northern Italy became a Roman province with the name of Gallia Cisalpina ("Gaul on the inner side (with respect to Rome) of the Alps"). In 49 BC, with the Lex Roscia , Julius Caesar granted to the populations of the province full Roman citizenship. The Rubicon River marked its southern boundary with Italia proper. By crossing this river in 49 BC with his loyal XIII Legion , returning from
7644-519: Is sometimes claimed that the reprisal victims were predominantly Jewish, only 75 of the 335 victims selected for death in the caves were Jewish, this having been a criterion for selection (because Jews were known to be marked for death anyway). In fact, the victims comprised, in Robert Katz 's words, "rich, and poor, doctors and lawyers, workers and shopkeepers, artists and artisans, teachers and students, men and teenage boys from every walk of life, and even
7840-626: Is the main working language of the Holy See , serving as the lingua franca (common language) in the Roman Catholic hierarchy as well as the official language of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta . Italian has a significant use in musical terminology and opera with numerous Italian words referring to music that have become international terms taken into various languages worldwide. Almost all native Italian words end with vowels , and
8036-538: Is used, and the town of Chipilo near Puebla, Mexico; each continues to use a derived form of Venetian dating back to the 19th century. Other examples are Cocoliche , an Italian–Spanish pidgin once spoken in Argentina and especially in Buenos Aires , and Lunfardo . The Rioplatense Spanish dialect of Argentina and Uruguay today has thus been heavily influenced by both standard Italian and Italian regional languages as
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8232-456: Is written in both Latin and Hebrew: "Clamavi ad Te, Domine";"שיר המעלות, ממעמקים קראתיך י-ה". For a number of reasons, including (but not limited to): the large number of victims; the fact that many of them were innocent civilians casually taken only to make up the number of those to be killed; the cruel methods implemented (even by Nazi standards) to carry out the massacre; the fact that the reprisal order had come directly from Adolf Hitler , and
8428-964: The Alpine regions of Italy, consisting of all of north Italy except for Emilia-Romagna . The regions of northern Italy were exposed to different historical influences, which were due to the peoples and dominations that settled there, such as the Ligures , the Veneti , the Celts , the Etruscans , the Romans , the Byzantines , the Lombards , the Spanish and the Austrians . Some of its woodlands and mountains are preserved in several National Parks ;
8624-501: The Il Globo (Australia) and the La gazzetta del Sud Africa (South Africa). Italian is widely taught in many schools around the world, but rarely as the first foreign language. In the 21st century, technology also allows for the continual spread of the Italian language, as people have new ways to learn how to speak, read, and write languages at their own pace and at any given time. For example,
8820-936: The La Voce del Popolo ( Croatia ), the Corriere d'Italia (Germany), the L'italoeuropeo (United Kingdom), the Passaparola ( Luxembourg ), the America Oggi (United States), the Corriere Canadese and the Corriere Italiano (Canada), the Il punto d'incontro (Mexico), the L'Italia del Popolo ( Argentina ), the Fanfulla (Brazil), the Gente d'Italia ( Uruguay ), the La Voce d'Italia ( Venezuela ),
9016-448: The Osservatore Romano , deploring the violence of "the guilty parties who escaped arrest" (presumably the Partisans, however Stephen Walker in his book Hide and Seek writes that "the wording is worthy of examination" and speculates that this is a reference to "the Nazis who rounded up over 300 people and then butchered them.") and urging Roman citizens to continue to exercise restraint to prevent further sacrifices of innocent people. "In
9212-444: The Committee of National Liberation (CLN). On 3 September 1943, the Badoglio government signed an unconditional surrender, which U.S. General Eisenhower made public on the eve of the Fifth Army 's amphibious landing at Salerno (8 September). At the same time, Badoglio issued the Badoglio Proclamation , directing Italian troops to end hostilities against the Allies but to oppose attacks "from any other quarter". The following day,
9408-409: The Della Scala of Verona or the Visconti of Milan , and conquered neighbouring cities threatening to unify northern Italy into one kingdom, a revived Lombard empire. In the end, a balance of power was reached in 1454 with the Peace of Lodi and northern Italy ended up divided between a small number of regional states, the most powerful were the Duchies of Savoy , Milan , Mantua , Ferrara and
9604-416: The European Union , and the Italian constituencies for the European Parliament . In pre-Roman centuries it was inhabited by different peoples among whom the Ligures , the ancient Veneti , who prospered through their trade in amber and breeding of horses, the Etruscans , attested in northern Italy at least since the early Iron Age during the Villanova period , founded the city of Bologna and spread
9800-444: The Frankish king Charlemagne conquered Pavia , deposed Desiderius , the last Lombard king, and annexed the Lombard Kingdom to his empire changing the name in Kingdom of Italy . The former Lombard dukes were mostly replaced by Frankish counts, prince-bishops or marquises. In the 10th century, north Italy, although formally under the rule of the Holy Roman Empire , was included in the kingdom of Italy , of which Pavia remained
9996-401: The Gallo-Italic linguistic panorama of Northern Italy , the Italo-Dalmatian , Neapolitan and its related dialects were largely unaffected by the Franco- Occitan influences introduced to Italy mainly by bards from France during the Middle Ages, but after the Norman conquest of southern Italy , Sicily became the first Italian land to adopt Occitan lyric moods (and words) in poetry. Even in
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#173285458897710192-465: The Grisons ), Corsica , and Vatican City . It has official minority status in Croatia , Slovenian Istria , and the municipalities of Santa Tereza and Encantado in Brazil . Italian is also spoken by large immigrant and expatriate communities in the Americas and Australia . Italian is included under the languages covered by the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in Romania , although Italian
10388-438: The Gulf of Trieste is occasionally affected by the cold bora winds in winter and spring. The coldest month is January: the Po valley 's mean temperature is between −1 and 1 °C (30 and 34 °F). Winter morning lows can occasionally reach −30 to −20 °C (−22 to −4 °F) in the Alps and −14 to −8 °C (7 to 18 °F) in the Po valley, with records close to −30 °C (−22 °F) near Bologna during some of
10584-437: The Italian Riviera , including Portofino , Sanremo , and of Cinque Terre . There are many historic cities in this part of Italy: Turin , the manufacturing capital of Italy, Milan , the business and fashion capital of the country and the important port of Genoa are the most popular tourist destinations of the area. Other cities like Aosta , Bergamo , Brescia , Como and Mantua have a rich cultural heritage, which shares
10780-408: The Italian front where many large battles such as the Battles of the Isonzo and the Battle of Monte Grappa took place. Italy would be victorious over Austria-Hungary but at a high price. Between 1943 and 1945, during the Second World War , northern Italy was part of the Fascist Italian Social Republic and the main theatre of the anti-fascist partisan activity . Between April 19 and 25, 1945
10976-399: The Kingdom of Italy in the Dodecanese ). Italian is widely spoken in Malta , where nearly two-thirds of the population can speak it fluently (see Maltese Italian ). Italian served as Malta's official language until 1934, when it was abolished by the British colonial administration amid strong local opposition. Italian language in Slovenia is an officially recognized minority language in
11172-698: The Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia ), although the masses kept speaking primarily their local vernaculars. Italian was also one of the many recognised languages in the Austro-Hungarian Empire . Italy has always had a distinctive dialect for each city because the cities, until recently, were thought of as city-states . Those dialects now have considerable variety . As Tuscan-derived Italian came to be used throughout Italy, features of local speech were naturally adopted, producing various versions of Regional Italian . The most characteristic differences, for instance, between Roman Italian and Milanese Italian are syntactic gemination of initial consonants in some contexts and
11368-430: The Mediterranean climate profile. In the Alpine foothills, characterised by an Oceanic climate ( Köppen Cfb ), numerous lakes exercise a mitigating influence, allowing the cultivation of typically Mediterranean crops (olives, citrus fruit ). A peculiarity of the regional climate is the thick fog that covers the plains between October and February, especially in the central Po Plain. The east coast, particularly on
11564-423: The North Sea through the basin of the Rhine . On the foothills of the Alps, there are a number of subalpine moraine-dammed lakes, the largest of which is Garda . Other well known of these subalpine lakes are Lake Maggiore , whose most northerly section is part of Switzerland , Como , Orta , Lugano , Iseo , Idro . The climate of northern Italy is mainly humid subtropical ( Köppen Cfa ), especially in
11760-452: The Occitan and Arpitan valleys in western Piedmont, and the Rhaeto-Romance group which includes Friulian and Ladin . Non-Romance languages are also spoken: Germanic languages such as "standard" German and Bavarian in South Tyrol , small Walser communities in Piedmont and Valle d'Aosta, and Cimbrian and mocheno in Veneto, Friuli and Trentino. Slavic languages are spoken in Friuli-Venezia Giulia: there are Slovenian minorities in
11956-423: The Placiti Cassinesi from the province of Benevento that date from 960 to 963, although the Veronese Riddle , probably from the 8th or early 9th century, contains a late form of Vulgar Latin that can be seen as a very early sample of a vernacular dialect of Italy. The Commodilla catacomb inscription is also a similar case. The Italian language has progressed through a long and slow process, which started after
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#173285458897712152-399: The Pope 's wishes, Badoglio also unilaterally declared Rome an open city , i.e., a demilitarized zone, a declaration the Allies would refuse to recognise and the Germans to respect. The Germans, anticipating an Italian defection, meanwhile began moving more and more troops into Italy ( Operation Achse ). Foreseeing a German invasion, a coalition of Anti-Fascist parties and Monarchists formed
12348-434: The Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute reported that northern Italy was one of Europe's most polluted areas in terms of smog and air pollution due to its climatic and geographic conditions, which cause the stagnation of pollutants. In March 2019, the European Space Agency (ESA) published images took from their satellites. These images show a big stain, made of nitrogen dioxide and fine particles, situated above
12544-505: The University of Bologna , the world's oldest university in continuous operation . The increasing richness of the city-states made them able to defy the traditional feudal supreme power, represented by the German emperors and their local vassals. This process led to the creation of different Lombard Leagues formed by allied cities of Lombardy that defeated the Hohenstaufen Emperor Frederick I , at Legnano , and his grandson Frederick II , at Parma , and becoming virtually independent from
12740-406: The Western Roman Empire's fall in the 5th century. The language that came to be thought of as Italian developed in central Tuscany and was first formalized in the early 14th century through the works of Tuscan writer Dante Alighieri , written in his native Florentine . Dante's epic poems, known collectively as the Commedia , to which another Tuscan poet Giovanni Boccaccio later affixed
12936-483: The empire collapsed in 476 . After the fall of the Western Empire , northern Italy suffered heavily from destruction brought about by migration from Germanic peoples . In 493 the Ostrogoths managed to create a stable and prosperous kingdom , with its capital first in Ravenna and then in Pavia , but the Gothic War caused the kingdom to fall and devastated the region. In the 570s the Germanic Lombards , or Longobardi, entered northern Italy from Friuli and founded
13132-406: The 111 Italian lecturer sections belonging to foreign schools where Italian is taught as a language of culture. As of 2022, Australia had the highest number of students learning Italian in the world. This occurred because of support by the Italian community in Australia and the Italian Government and also because of successful educational reform efforts led by local governments in Australia. From
13328-458: The 13th century in the form of various religious texts and poetry. Although these are the first written records of Italian varieties separate from Latin, the spoken language had probably diverged long before the first written records appeared since those who were literate generally wrote in Latin even if they spoke other Romance varieties in person. Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, the use of Standard Italian became increasingly widespread and
13524-438: The 1970s. It is official both on the national level and on regional level in two cantons : Ticino and Grisons . In the latter canton, however, it is only spoken by a small minority, in the Italian Grisons . Ticino, which includes Lugano , the largest Italian-speaking city outside Italy, is the only canton where Italian is predominant. Italian is also used in administration and official documents in Vatican City . Italian
13720-442: The Ardeatine Caves site ( Fosse Ardeatine ) was declared a Memorial Cemetery and National Monument open daily to visitors. Every year, on the anniversary of the slaughter and in the presence of the senior officials of the Italian Republic , a solemn state commemoration is held at the monument in honour of the fallen. Each year, 335 names are called out, a simple roll call of the dead, to reinforce that 335 discrete individuals symbolise
13916-425: The Ardeatine caves in truckloads and then, in groups of five, put to death inside the caves. Because the killing squad mostly consisted of officers who had never killed before, Kappler had ordered several cases of cognac delivered to the caves to calm the officers' nerves. The officers were ordered to lead the doomed prisoners into the caves with their hands tied behind their backs and then have them kneel down so that
14112-471: The Fosse Ardeatine monument resulted from a national competition and was a collaboration between five architects (Nello Aprile, Cino Calcaprina, Aldo Cardelli, Mario Fiorentino & Giuseppe Perugini) and two sculptors (Francesco Coccia & Mirko Basaldella ). The massive bronze gate by Mirko Basaldella used the ubiquitous barbed wire of battlefields and concentration camps as inspiration, merging it with
14308-669: The Fourteenth Army, whose jurisdiction included Rome. General Mackensen endorsed the recommendation. In turn, the staff of the German Commander-in-Chief South ( Oberbefehlshaber Süd ), passed this on to the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW). That night, Adolf Hitler authorised the reprisal, stipulating that it be carried out within 24 hours. Commander-in-Chief South Generalfeldmarschall Albert Kesselring , considered this an order, one he interpreted as calling for
14504-616: The German army began moving in on Rome, and that night the King and Badoglio fled the city for Pescara , whence by sea to Bari , leaving a leadership vacuum. The Royal Italian Army , although outnumbering the German soldiers three to one, was leaderless, poorly equipped, and in chaos. After a failed resistance in the working-class neighbourhood at the Porta San Paolo and the Pyramid of Cestius by remaining loyalist soldiers, carabinieri (including
14700-486: The German emperors. Although having the military purpose as preponderant, the Lombard League also had its own stable government, considered one of the first examples of confederation in Europe. The Leagues failed to develop from an alliance to a lasting confederation and subsequently, among the various local city-states, a process of consolidation took place; most of them became lordships ruled by powerful families like
14896-682: The German occupational authorities, Pankratius Pfeiffer, asking him to urge the Pope to intervene and limit reprisals on the grounds that they would inflame the Roman population and make the occupation (and negotiations for a separate peace with the Allies they all fervently wished for) even more difficult. According to Katz, the Secretariat of the Vatican believed that "the attack on Via Rasella had been undertaken to provoke
15092-461: The Germans firing in response; it is unknown. More would die over the next few days. All twelve Partisans, some of whom fired on the German column, succeeded in melting away into the crowd unscathed. The German police attaché and commander of the Security Police in Rome, SS Obersturmbannführer Herbert Kappler was on the scene soon afterwards to supervise the investigation. That evening he
15288-493: The Governatorato of Rome, reports the following details about yesterday's incident: the German victims numbered 26 soldiers; among the Italian civilians there were, unfortunately, three or four deaths; it is not easy to reconstruct what took place because everyone escaped; some apartments were sacked and the German police took complete control of the area, prohibiting any interference by other authorities; in any case, it seems that
15484-417: The Italian dialects has declined in the modern era , as Italy unified under Standard Italian and continues to do so aided by mass media from newspapers to radio to television, diglossia is still frequently encountered in Italy and triglossia is not uncommon in emigrant communities among older speakers. Both situations normally involve some degree of code-switching and code-mixing . Notes: Italian has
15680-485: The Italian language into a lingua franca used not only among clerks, nobility, and functionaries in the Italian courts but also by the bourgeoisie . Italian literature's first modern novel, I promessi sposi ( The Betrothed ) by Alessandro Manzoni , further defined the standard by "rinsing" his Milanese "in the waters of the Arno " ( Florence 's river), as he states in the preface to his 1840 edition. After unification,
15876-550: The Mediterranean. The increasing political and cultural relevance of Florence during the periods of the rise of the Medici Bank , humanism , and the Renaissance made its dialect, or rather a refined version of it, a standard in the arts. The Renaissance era, known as il Rinascimento in Italian, was seen as a time of rebirth, which is the literal meaning of both renaissance (from French) and rinascimento (Italian). During this time, long-existing beliefs stemming from
16072-517: The Nazis rounded up and deported the Jews of Rome for extermination at Auschwitz and also made numerous mass roundups of non-Jewish male civilians for forced labour . Meanwhile, General Mark Clark 's Fifth Army in Salerno suffered severe setbacks, and General Eisenhower and other Allied leaders began concentrating their attention on the imminent invasion of France, temporarily neglecting Italy. In December,
16268-519: The Partisans were the equivalent of terrorists and were, moreover, responsible for avoidable suffering, thus offering some support for the official judgment of the Vatican at the time. Historian Patrick Gallo, however, in For Love and Country: The Italian Resistance (2003), posited that the Rome-based Resistance not only undermined German morale but also achieved important strategic objectives and
16464-410: The Po Valley area, which incorporates the city of Milan , Turin , and Bologna . Milan and Turin share high levels of ozone and nitrogen oxides , which are mainly produced by cars diesel and petrol engines. The big stain analyzed by ESA is the main reason why Po Valley air pollution levels are so high it is considered nowadays the worst area in Europe for air quality. To shed light on how dangerous it
16660-686: The Po Valley suffer the most serious impact at the European level due to poor air quality, first of all, the metropolitan area of Milan, thirteenth in the ranking in terms of fine particulate impact, where any year 3967 premature deaths – approximately 9% of the total. Northern Italy is dominated by the Gallo-Italic family of languages , as opposed to the rest of the country where the Italo-Romance languages are spoken, and they include Emilian , Ligurian , Lombard , Piedmontese , and Romagnol . Venetian , on
16856-581: The Pontiff intervened personally, as he had on so many earlier occasions, through his nephew Prince Carlo Pacelli or through the General Superior of the Salvatorian Fathers, Father Pancrazio Pfeiffer. Nor should one be surprised that such a supposed intervention had little chance of success; the order had come from Berlin and, moreover, what argument could a papal emissary use in favour of restraint? For
17052-465: The Republics of Genoa and Venice , which had begun to extend its influence in the mainland from the 14th century onwards. In the 15th century, northern Italy became one of the centres of the Renaissance whose culture and works of art were highly regarded. The enterprising class of the communes extended its trade and banking activities well into northern Europe and " Lombards ", the term that designated
17248-529: The Roman populace along with a dangerous relaxation of caution on the part of Resistance members, that enabled the Nazis to arrest and torture many of its most important leaders. In the meantime, General Clark 's attempt to link up the Fifth Army with the Anzio troops was unsuccessful, as the Anzio forces were held back by a line of German fortifications hastily constructed using forced civilian labour. On 23 March 1944,
17444-511: The Via Rasella area on suspicion of involvement. Kappler's superior, SS Brigadeführer und Generalmajor der Polizei Wilhelm Harster , suggested making up the numbers from the 57 Jews also in Nazi custody. By noon on 24 March, Kappler had a list of 271 victims, each with his crime listed against his name, except for the Jews, who were simply listed as "Jew". By this time the death toll from the Via Rasella bombing had risen to 32. (One more would die while
17640-399: The Via Rasella attack as a legitimate act of war. Instead, they viewed it as a tragic act of terrorism by Communists, as did the Vatican, and as some of its defenders still do. According to Joseph Lichten , author of a monograph defending Pius XII written after the publication of Rolf Hochhuth 's play, The Deputy : In the absence of documentation, therefore, one is left to surmise that
17836-447: The Via Rasella bomb, were recipients of medals conferred by the post-war Italian government. Both Priebke and Kappler sought Vatican assistance after the war. Priebke escaped from a British prison camp in 1946 and fled, first to the Tyrol and then back to Rome, whence, using false papers supplied by the Vatican "ratline" , he emigrated to Argentina . He was unmasked on camera in 1994 during
18032-498: The West Germans having refused Italian requests to extradite him. The event was recreated in the 1962 film Dieci italiani per un tedesco (Via Rasella) ( Ten Italians for One German (Rasella Street) ) directed by Filippo Walter Ratti and starring Gino Cervi . Italian language Italian ( italiano , pronounced [itaˈljaːno] , or lingua italiana , pronounced [ˈliŋɡwa itaˈljaːna] )
18228-543: The area around Milan . More recently, the term Alta Italia (Italian for 'High Italy') became widely used, for such by the Comitato di Liberazione Nazionale Alta Italia during the Second World War . In the 1960s, the term Padania began to be sometimes used as a geographical synonym of the Po Valley . The term appeared sparingly until the early 1990s, when Lega Nord , then a secessionist political party, proposed Padania as
18424-429: The armed Partisan Resistance began to strike German forces in Rome. The Germans responded with raids carried out by mixed Gestapo and Italian Fascist police militias on Vatican institutions, known to be harbouring prominent CNL members and other Anti-Fascists. In January 1944, news of the surprise Allied landing behind enemy lines at Anzio ( Operation Shingle ), only 30 miles from Rome, created temporary euphoria among
18620-493: The attack on the SS troops. Addressed to the Papal Secretariat , it showed that the Vatican had indeed heard that the Germans were planning to punish Italian citizens tenfold for the SS deaths. However, the information was received only five hours before the massacre took place; the informant's statement was short and vague as to source; and it provided no information in regards to time, place, or logistics: L'ing. Ferraro, of
18816-410: The boy Piero Zuccheretti, who had been killed in Via Rasella. Historian Robert Wolfe finds "persuasive" Katz's characterisation of the Pope's decision to condemn the Partisans for the Via Rasella attack, rather than the Nazis for the reprisals, as evidence of "a moral failure" resulting from one of the "great misreadings of history". In the 1990s, there was a revisionist campaign by Il Giornale ,
19012-500: The canal-filled city of Venice , the cities of Verona , Vicenza , Padua , Trento , Bolzano , Cremona , Bologna , Ferrara , Parma , Ravenna , Cesena , Rimini and Trieste . There are also several mountain ranges such as the Dolomites, the Carnic and Julian Alps and first-class ski resorts like Cortina d'Ampezzo and Madonna di Campiglio. Ligurian cuisine consists of dishes from
19208-411: The capital until 1024, however, gradually, starting from the last decades of the 11th century was in fact divided in a multiplicity of small, autonomous city-states, the medieval communes and maritime republic . The 11th century marked a significant boom in northern Italy's economy, due to improved trading and agricultural innovations, culture flourished as well with many universities founded, among them
19404-444: The case of Northern Italian languages, however, scholars are careful not to overstate the effects of outsiders on the natural indigenous developments of the languages. The economic might and relatively advanced development of Tuscany at the time ( Late Middle Ages ) gave its language weight, although Venetian remained widespread in medieval Italian commercial life, and Ligurian (or Genoese) remained in use in maritime trade alongside
19600-417: The case was dismissed without a ruling on the matter at hand, "on the grounds of an amnesty dating back to 1970." Katz continued to publish various accusations against Pius XII until his death. In 1980, a relevant document ("the Governatorato document") was found in the Vatican archives and released by the Vatican. It was dated 24 March 1944, 10:15 a.m., and contained intelligence gathered only hours after
19796-463: The caves reads: WAYFARERS THIRSTY FOR LIBERTY – WE WERE ROUNDED UP AT RANDOM – IN THE STREET AND IN JAIL – AS A REPRISAL CAST IN EN MASSE – SLAUGHTERED AND WALLED WITHIN THESE PITS – ITALIANS, DO NOT CURSE – MOTHERS, BRIDES, DO NOT WEEP – CHILDREN, CARRY WITH PRIDE – THE MEMORY – OF THE HOLOCAUST OF YOUR FATHERS – IF OUR SLAUGHTER – WILL HAVE HAD A PURPOSE BEYOND REVENGE – IT IS TO ENSHRINE THE RIGHT OF HUMAN EXISTENCE – AGAINST THE CRIME OF MURDER Inside
19992-418: The cities of northern Italy began an insurrection against Fascist and Nazi forces that led to the liberation of northern Italy by Allied forces. Economic differences between northern Italy and the rest of the country, as well as the short history of Italy as a single nation, led in the 1990s to the emergence of Padanian nationalism , as Lega Nord promoted either secession or larger autonomy for Padania,
20188-654: The city of Senigallia in province of Ancona ) and Tuscany (most of the province of Massa-Carrara and the northernmost areas of Garfagnana in the province of Lucca , but also some parts of the Metropolitan City of Florence ), so these areas are considered linguistically part of northern Italy. In southern Italy Gallo-Italic languages are spoken in some language islands in Basilicata ( Gallo-Italic of Basilicata ) and Sicily ( Gallo-Italic of Sicily ). Other Gallo-Romance languages spoken are Occitan, Arpitan spoken in
20384-525: The coldest winters. Summer is usually more stable, although quite stormy near the Alps, with July temperatures in the range 22–24 °C (72–75 °F) near the Alps or by the sea, like in Milan or Venice , whereas in southern Po plain 24–25 °C (75–77 °F) can be reached, like in Bologna . The number of days with lows below 0 °C (32 °F) is usually from 60 to 90 a year, with peaks of 100–110 days in
20580-630: The colonial period. In the early 19th century, Eritrea was the country with the highest number of Italians abroad, and the Italian Eritreans grew from 4,000 during World War I to nearly 100,000 at the beginning of World War II. In Asmara there are two Italian schools, the Italian School of Asmara (Italian primary school with a Montessori department) and the Liceo Sperimentale "G. Marconi" (Italian international senior high school). Italian
20776-614: The conquest of Gaul , Julius Caesar precipitated the civil war within the Roman Republic which led, eventually, to the establishment of the Roman Empire . To this day the term "crossing the Rubicon" means, figuratively, "reaching the point of no return". In late antiquity, the strategic role of northern Italy was emphasized by the moving of the capital of the Western Empire from Rome to Mediolanum in 286 and later to Ravenna from 402 until
20972-513: The country (some 0.42% of the total population). Their numbers dropped dramatically after World War II following the Istrian–Dalmatian exodus , which caused the emigration of between 230,000 and 350,000 Istrian Italians and Dalmatian Italians. Italian was the official language of the Republic of Ragusa from 1492 to 1807. It formerly had official status in Albania due to the annexation of
21168-508: The country to the Kingdom of Italy (1939–1943). Albania has a large population of non-native speakers, with over half of the population having some knowledge of the Italian language. The Albanian government has pushed to make Italian a compulsory second language in schools. The Italian language is well-known and studied in Albania, due to its historical ties and geographical proximity to Italy and to
21364-446: The country. A few hundred Italian settlers returned to Libya in the 2000s. Italian was the official language of Eritrea during Italian colonisation . Italian is today used in commerce, and it is still spoken especially among elders; besides that, Italian words are incorporated as loan words in the main language spoken in the country (Tigrinya). The capital city of Eritrea, Asmara , still has several Italian schools, established during
21560-564: The country. The official census, carried out in 2002, reported 2,258 ethnic Italians ( Istrian Italians ) in Slovenia (0.11% of the total population). Italian language in Croatia is an official minority language in the country, with many schools and public announcements published in both languages. The 2001 census in Croatia reported 19,636 ethnic Italians (Istrian Italians and Dalmatian Italians ) in
21756-466: The culinary tradition of Liguria , a region of northwestern Italy , which makes use of ingredients linked both to local production (such as preboggion , a mixture of wild herbs), and to imports from areas with which, over the centuries, the Ligurians have had frequent trade (such as pecorino sardo , one of the ingredients of pesto ). Venetian cuisine , from the city of Venice , or more widely from
21952-464: The design and fashion industries, in some sports such as football and especially in culinary terms. In Italy, almost all the other languages spoken as the vernacular —other than standard Italian and some languages spoken among immigrant communities—are often called " Italian dialects ", a label that can be very misleading if it is understood to mean "dialects of Italian". The Romance dialects of Italy are local evolutions of spoken Latin that pre-date
22148-572: The diffusion of Italian television in the country. Due to heavy Italian influence during the Italian colonial period , Italian is still understood by some in former colonies such as Libya. Although it was the primary language in Libya since colonial rule , Italian greatly declined under the rule of Muammar Gaddafi , who expelled the Italian Libyan population and made Arabic the sole official language of
22344-546: The duchies of Spoleto and Benevento . During the late Middle Ages , after the fall of the northern part of the Lombard Kingdom to Charlemagne , the term Longobardia was used to mean northern Italy within the medieval Kingdom of Italy . As the area became partitioned into regional states, the term Lombardy subsequently shifted to indicate only the area of the Duchies of Milan , Mantua , Parma and Modena and later only to
22540-690: The eastern Mediterranean and the discoveries of sea routes to Asia around Africa and the Americas led to the decline of the Venetian Republic. While the Republic of Genoa managed to become the main banking base of the Spanish Empire. Pestilences, like that of 1628/1630 , and the generally declining conditions of Italy's economy in the 17th and 18th centuries halted the further development of northern Italy. The only polity that managed to thrive in this period
22736-584: The eastern regions (including Lombardy) have since become wealthier than Piedmont and Liguria . With a 2021 nominal GDP estimated at €1.0 trillion, northern Italy accounts for 56% of the Italian economy , despite having just 46% of the population. In 2023, the population resident in northern Italy amounts to 27,497,280 inhabitants divided as follows: The most populous cities (with over 100,000 inhabitants) as of 31 July 2021, estimates were: Aosta Valley , Piedmont , Veneto , Trentino Alto-Adige , Liguria , Friuli-Venezia Giulia and Lombardy are known as
22932-472: The educated gentlemen was to make the Grand Tour , visiting Italy to see its great historical monuments and works of art. It was expected that the visitor would learn at least some Italian, understood as language based on Florentine. In England, while the classical languages Latin and Greek were the first to be learned, Italian became the second most common modern language after French, a position it held until
23128-458: The establishment of Italian, and as such are sister languages to the Tuscan that was the historical source of Italian. They can be quite different from Italian and from each other, with some belonging to different linguistic branches of Romance. The only exceptions to this are twelve groups considered " historical language minorities ", which are officially recognized as distinct minority languages by
23324-696: The exception of part of Liguria all of northern Italy lies in the drainage basin of the Adriatic Sea (with rivers Po, Piave , Adige , Brenta , Tagliamento , Reno ) though the waters from some border municipalities ( Livigno in Lombardy, Innichen and Sexten in Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol) drain into the Black Sea through the basin of the Danube , and the waters from the Lago di Lei in Lombardy drain into
23520-616: The execution of Italians who had been previously sentenced to death. He was assured by Kappler that sufficient prisoners were available. However, Kappler had only four prisoners sentenced to death in his Hausgefängnis (private prison) at SS headquarters in the German Embassy on 145 Via Tasso (now the Museum of the Liberation of Rome ); plus 17 serving long sentences; 167 deemed "worthy of death"; and two to four civilians who had been rounded up in
23716-484: The face of such deeds, every honest heart is left profoundly grieved in the name of humanity and Christian sentiment. Thirty-two victims on the one hand, and on the other, three-hundred-and-twenty persons sacrificed for the guilty parties who escaped arrest." Subsequently, the Nazi Occupation forces stepped up their hunt among Roman civilians for suspected Resistance supporters, whom it rounded up and tortured. In 1952,
23912-433: The fact that it was linguistically an intermediate between the northern and the southern Italian dialects. Thus the dialect of Florence became the basis for what would become the official language of Italy. Italian was progressively made an official language of most of the Italian states predating unification, slowly replacing Latin, even when ruled by foreign powers (such as Spain in the Kingdom of Naples , or Austria in
24108-411: The former quarries themselves, there are two more plaques. One in the tunnel: WE WERE SLAUGHTERED IN THIS PLACE BECAUSE – WE FOUGHT AGAINST INTERNAL TYRANNY – FOR FREEDOM AND AGAINST THE FOREIGNER – FOR THE INDEPENDENCE OF THE HOMELAND – WE DREAMT A FREE, JUST – AND DEMOCRATIC ITALY. MAY OUR SACRIFICE AND OUR BLOOD – SOW THE SEED AND ACT AS WARNING FOR – GENERATIONS TO COME. And another in the 'cave' at
24304-468: The free website and application Duolingo has 4.94 million English speakers learning the Italian language. According to the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs , every year there are more than 200,000 foreign students who study the Italian language; they are distributed among the 90 Institutes of Italian Culture that are located around the world, in the 179 Italian schools located abroad, or in
24500-581: The funeral in any Catholic church in Rome. But the Society of St Pius X , a Catholic splinter group often accused of having far-right and anti-Semitic leanings, offered to hold the ceremony in the city of Albano Laziale . During the funeral service, violent clashes broke out between fascist sympathisers and anti-fascist protesters. Don Florian Abrahamowicz , a priest expelled from the Society of St Pius X for his extreme right-wing views, told Italy's Radio 24 : "Priebke
24696-481: The hiding of the bodies, which were buried summarily instead of being returned to their families – the slaughter became a symbol of the various massacres carried out against civilians in Italy, from 8 September 1943 until the German surrender on 8 May 1945. In December 2007, Giorgio Bettio , a city councillor of Treviso, Italy and member of the Northern League party, suggested that "With immigrants, we should use
24892-594: The highest death rate from fine particulate matter (PM 2.5 ) in Europe. Vicenza ( Veneto ) and Saronno (Lombardy) are respectively in fourth and eighth place in the top ten of ten cities. Turin and Milan are also at the top of the European ranking – 3rd and 5th respectively – in terms of increased mortality from nitrogen dioxide, a gas that derives mainly from traffic and in particular from diesel vehicles, while Verona , Treviso , Padova , Como and Venice rank eleventh, fourteenth, fifteenth, seventeenth and twentythird respectively. The data show that many cities in
25088-483: The island of Corsica (but not in the neighbouring Sardinia , which on the contrary underwent Italianization well into the late 18th century, under Savoyard sway: the island's linguistic composition, roofed by the prestige of Spanish among the Sardinians , would therein make for a rather slow process of assimilation to the Italian cultural sphere ). The rediscovery of Dante's De vulgari eloquentia , as well as
25284-563: The language has a 7-vowel sound system ('e' and 'o' have mid-low and mid-high sounds). Italian has contrast between short and long consonants and gemination (doubling) of consonants. During the Middle Ages , the established written language in Europe was Latin, although the great majority of people were illiterate, and only few were well versed in the language. In the Italian Peninsula , as in most of Europe, most would instead speak
25480-631: The language to that continent. According to some sources, Italian is the second most spoken language in Argentina after the official language of Spanish, although its number of speakers, mainly of the older generation, is decreasing. Italian bilingual speakers can be found scattered across the Southeast of Brazil as well as in the South. In Venezuela , Italian is the most spoken language after Spanish and Portuguese, with around 200,000 speakers. In Uruguay , people who speak Italian as their home language are 1.1% of
25676-491: The late 18th century when it tended to be replaced by German. John Milton , for instance, wrote some of his early poetry in Italian. Within the Catholic Church , Italian is known by a large part of the ecclesiastical hierarchy and is used in substitution for Latin in some official documents. Italian loanwords continue to be used in most languages in matters of art and music (especially classical music including opera), in
25872-525: The late 19th to the mid-20th century, millions of Italians settled in Argentina, Uruguay, Southern Brazil and Venezuela, as well as in Canada and the United States, where they formed a physical and cultural presence. In some cases, colonies were established where variants of regional languages of Italy were used, and some continue to use this regional language. Examples are Rio Grande do Sul , Brazil, where Talian
26068-563: The law. On the other hand, Corsican (a language spoken on the French island of Corsica ) is closely related to medieval Tuscan , from which Standard Italian derives and evolved. The differences in the evolution of Latin in the different regions of Italy can be attributed to the natural changes that all languages in regular use are subject to, and to some extent to the presence of three other types of languages: substrata, superstrata, and adstrata . The most prevalent were substrata (the language of
26264-514: The mainly rural zones. In the colder winters, the Venice Lagoon may freeze, and in the coldest ones even enough to walk on the ice sheet. Precipitation is evenly distributed during the year, more abundant in spring and autumn at low altitudes and in summer at high elevations; it is more intense in the Prealpine zone, up to 1,500 to 2,000 mm (59 to 79 inches) annually, but is abundant also in
26460-475: The merchants or bankers coming from northern Italy, were present in all of Europe. The Italian Wars between 1494 and 1559 ended the north Italian Renaissance and brought the region to be fought between France and the Spanish and Austrian House of Habsburg . After the decisive Battle of Pavia , most of present-day Lombardy became under the direct or indirect control of Spain . At the same time Ottoman control of
26656-655: The most celebrated, was the aristocratic Colonel Giuseppe Montezemolo (age 44), who, after the flight of the King and Badoglio, had elected to stay and go underground in Rome, disguised in mufti as a professor or Ingegnere (engineer), to organize and lead the FMRC, representing the Badoglio Government, with which he had been in continual radio contact up until his arrest on 25 January 1944. Colonel Giuseppe Montezemolo's incredible courage under torture which included having his nails and teeth pulled out, became legendary. Another
26852-411: The moving curlicues of a Tree of Life. The curved lines morph into a tangle of limbs reaching out across each other at those awkwardly bent angles characteristic of corpses. Also at the entrance is a colossal concrete statue by Francesco Coccia of three male figures standing together as one. Hands tied behind their backs, the three ages of man are bound together by ideals and fate—the youngest Fosse victim
27048-728: The name chosen to represent northern Italy. Northern Italy is made of the basin of the River Po , which comprises the whole of the broad plain extending from the foot of the Apennines to that of the Alps , together with the valleys and slopes on both sides of it, the Venetian Plain and the Ligurian coast. Northern Italy has the Alps as the northern and western boundary and the Apennine Mountains as
27244-412: The nation was unified in 1861. Italian is a Romance language , a descendant of Vulgar Latin (colloquial spoken Latin). Standard Italian is based on Tuscan , especially its Florentine dialect , and is, therefore, an Italo-Dalmatian language , a classification that includes most other central and southern Italian languages and the extinct Dalmatian . According to Ethnologue , lexical similarity
27440-407: The new Italian Supreme Court declared the Via Rasella attack to have been a legitimate act of war after an appeal by Kappler's lawyers of his conviction of guilt in the Ardeatine Massacre. This decision was reaffirmed in 1999, when the Italian Supreme Court declared the Partisans immune from prosecution after a Roman prosecutor had unsuccessfully attempted to bring a suit against them for the death of
27636-405: The northern part of Italy . The Italian National Institute of Statistics defines the region as encompassing the four northwestern regions of Piedmont , Aosta Valley , Liguria and Lombardy in addition to the four northeastern regions of Trentino-Alto Adige , Veneto , Friuli-Venezia Giulia and Emilia-Romagna . With a total area of 120,311 km (46,452 sq mi), and
27832-408: The number of printing presses in Italy grew rapidly and by the year 1500 reached a total of 56, the biggest number of printing presses in all of Europe. This enabled the production of more pieces of literature at a lower cost and Italian, as the dominant language, spread. Italian became the language used in the courts of every state in the Italian Peninsula , as well as the prestige variety used on
28028-419: The occupiers into an excessively repressive act and increase the people's hatred of the Germans. "This was what the Pope's liaison Padre Pancrazio had been told in the Vatican the night before [the reprisal]. It was also the opinion held by Dollman and Möllhausen. None of them seemed to believe that the Partisans meant to hurt the Germans as never before to extend the popularity of the Resistance" nor did they view
28224-630: The openness of vowels, the length of the consonants, and influence of the local language (for example, in informal situations andà , annà and nare replace the standard Italian andare in the area of Tuscany, Rome and Venice respectively for the infinitive "to go"). There is no definitive date when the various Italian variants of Latin—including varieties that contributed to modern Standard Italian—began to be distinct enough from Latin to be considered separate languages. One criterion for determining that two language variants are to be considered separate languages rather than variants of
28420-584: The original inhabitants), as the Italian dialects were most probably simply Latin as spoken by native cultural groups. Superstrata and adstrata were both less important. Foreign conquerors of Italy that dominated different regions at different times left behind little to no influence on the dialects. Foreign cultures with which Italy engaged in peaceful relations with, such as trade, had no significant influence either. Throughout Italy, regional varieties of Standard Italian, called Regional Italian , are spoken. Regional differences can be recognized by various factors:
28616-403: The other hand, almost everyone still speaks the Corsican idiom , which, due to its linguistic proximity to the Italian standard language, appears both linguistically as an Italian dialect and therefore as a carrier of Italian culture, despite the French government's decades-long efforts to cut Corsica off from the Italian motherland. Italian was the official language in Monaco until 1860, when it
28812-458: The other hand, has different origins. Its precise place within the Romance language family remains somewhat controversial. Both Ethnologue and Glottolog group it into the Gallo-Italic branch. Devoto , Avolio and Ursini reject such classification, and Tagliavini places it in the Italo-Dalmatian branch of Romance. The Gallo-Italic languages also reach the north of the Marche region in central Italy ( province of Pesaro and Urbino and
29008-404: The past several months, the Pope had argued that German restraint would ease the tension in Rome. Suddenly, the entire papal strategy had been undermined by the spectacular and tragic liquidation of 33 German soldiers. In the aftermath of the massacre, Pope Pius XII debated whether to protest against the massacre but decided not to because, as one of his defenders reported, "all the convents, all
29204-437: The place of execution from becoming known. The bodies of the victims were placed in piles, typically about a metre in height, and then buried under tons of rock debris when German military engineers set explosives to seal the caves and hide the atrocity. They remained summarily buried and abandoned for over a year inside the caves. Families of the victims were notified with excruciating slowness by an individual letter, if at all,
29400-426: The plains and Alpine zones, with an average of 600 to 850 mm (24 to 33 inches) annually. The total annual rainfall is on average 827 mm (32.6 inches). Snow is quite common between early December and early March in cities like Turin, Milan and Bologna, but sometimes it appears in late November or late March and even April. Both the Alps and the Apennine can see up to 500–1,000 cm (200–390 inches) of snow in
29596-435: The plains. Winter in northern Italy is normally long, relatively dry and rather cold. In addition, there is a high seasonal temperature variation between summer and winter. In the mountains, the climate is humid continental ( Köppen Dfb ). In the valleys it is cold but usually with low humidity, while it can be severely cold above 1,000 metres (3,300 ft), with copious snowfalls. The coastal areas of Liguria generally fit
29792-406: The population of Italy could speak Standard Italian. He reports that in 1951 that percentage had risen to 87%. The ability to speak Italian did not necessarily mean it was in everyday use, and most people (63.5%) still usually spoke their native dialects. In addition, other factors such as mass emigration, industrialization, and urbanization, and internal migrations after World War II , contributed to
29988-469: The proliferation of Standard Italian. The Italians who emigrated during the Italian diaspora beginning in 1861 were often of the uneducated lower class, and thus the emigration had the effect of increasing the percentage of literates, who often knew and understood the importance of Standard Italian, back home in Italy. A large percentage of those who had emigrated also eventually returned to Italy, often more educated than when they had left. Although use of
30184-465: The pronunciation of stressed "e", and of "s" between vowels in many words: e.g. va bene "all right" is pronounced [vabˈbɛːne] by a Roman (and by any standard Italian speaker), [vaˈbeːne] by a Milanese (and by any speaker whose native dialect lies to the north of the La Spezia–Rimini Line ); a casa "at home" is [akˈkaːsa] for Roman, [akˈkaːsa] or [akˈkaːza] for standard, [aˈkaːza] for Milanese and generally northern. In contrast to
30380-429: The province of Trieste, in the eastern parts of those of Udine and Gorizia, and Istria , where the main languages today are Slovene and Croatian but Italian is recognized as a minority language due to the presence of the Istrian Italians . During the Middle Ages , mainly between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries, an illustrious vulgar was in use, by the name of "Lombard-Venetian koiné". In medieval sources, it
30576-415: The publication of Agnolo Monosini 's Latin tome Floris italicae linguae libri novem in 1604 followed by the first Italian dictionary in 1612. An important event that helped the diffusion of Italian was the conquest and occupation of Italy by Napoleon in the early 19th century (who was himself of Italian-Corsican descent). This conquest propelled the unification of Italy some decades after and pushed
30772-403: The publication of Robert Katz 's first book, Death in Rome (1967), in which he speculated that Pope Pius XII had advance knowledge of the Nazi orders and did little to forestall it. Katz wrote later that he had put together "circumstantial evidence... from six separate sources, though no single element was conclusive." This charge was vigorously disputed by the Pope's defenders. In 1974, Katz
30968-420: The referendum that allowed France to annex Savoy and Nice, and a group of his followers (among the Italian Savoyards ) took refuge in Italy in the following years. Corsica passed from the Republic of Genoa to France in 1769 after the Treaty of Versailles . Italian was the official language of Corsica until 1859. Giuseppe Garibaldi called for the inclusion of the " Corsican Italians " within Italy when Rome
31164-414: The region of Veneto , has a centuries-long history and differs significantly from other cuisines of northern Italy (notably Friuli-Venezia Giulia and Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol ), and of neighbouring Austria and of Slavic countries (notably Slovenia and Croatia ), despite sharing some commonalities. Cuisine in Veneto may be divided into three main categories, based on geography: the coastal areas,
31360-413: The region's visitors with beautiful landscapes such as the lakes Garda (with Grottoes of Catullus and Gardone Riviera ), Como (with Bellagio and Varenna ) and Maggiore (with Borromean Islands and Angera ). There are also important ski resorts like Sestriere , Courmayeur , Breuil-Cervinia , Livigno and Bormio . This part of Italy also boasts several important tourist attractions, such as
31556-432: The region. Rhaeto-Romance and Gallo-Italic languages are spoken in the region, as opposed to the Italo-Dalmatian languages spoken in the rest of Italy. The Venetian language is sometimes considered to be part of the Italo-Dalmatian languages, but some major publications such as Ethnologue (to which UNESCO refers on its page about endangered languages) and Glottolog define it as Gallo-Italic. Northern Italy
31752-416: The religious houses of Rome were full of refugees, Communists, Jews, democrats and anti-Fascists, ex-generals, etc. Pius XII had even suspended the rules for the cloister. If Pius XII had made a public protest, there would have been searches in all these houses and catastrophe would have ensued". Instead, a special editorial entitled "The Deeds in Via Rasella" appeared in the "semi-official" Vatican newspaper,
31948-417: The reprisal was underway; the death toll eventually reaching 33.) To make up the numbers, Questore Pietro Caruso , chief of the Fascist police in Rome, offered some Italians from his Regina Coeli prison , among them Maurizio Giglio , who had been one of his own lieutenants, before being unmasked as a double agent working for the American OSS in charge of radio communications with the Fifth Army . Because of
32144-421: The same system the SS used, punish 10 of them for every slight against one of our citizens", in reference to Italy's current debate over immigration policies. This comment was met with public condemnation, and Bettio later said, "I certainly made a mistake in citing the SS". He claimed the incident had been "sensationalized" by the media. The Vatican 's role in the massacre came under particular scrutiny following
32340-412: The soldiers could fire a bullet directly into the cerebellum , ensuring that no more than one bullet would be needed per prisoner. Many were forced to kneel down over the bodies of those who had been killed before them because the cave had become filled with dead bodies. During the killings, the existence of the five extra prisoners was discovered, and it was decided to kill them anyway, in order to prevent
32536-429: The southern one. In between the two mountain ranges lies a large plain made of the Venetian Plain and the valley of the Po , the largest river in Italy, which flows 652 km (405 miles) eastward from the Cottian Alps to the Adriatic Sea and receives all the waters that flow from the Apennines northwards, and all those that descend from the Alps towards the south. The Po Valley is the largest plain in Italy and holds
32732-401: The teachings of the Roman Catholic Church began to be understood from new perspectives as humanists —individuals who placed emphasis on the human body and its full potential—began to shift focus from the church to human beings themselves. The continual advancements in technology play a crucial role in the diffusion of languages. After the invention of the printing press in the 15th century,
32928-417: The terror of the Roman Ghetto. The massacre was perpetrated without prior public notice in a little-frequented rural suburb of the city, inside the tunnels of the disused quarries of pozzolana , near the Via Ardeatina . By mistake, a total of 335 Italian prisoners were taken, five in excess of the 330 called for. On 24 March, led by SS officers Erich Priebke and Karl Hass , they were transported to
33124-420: The time limit that Hitler had imposed, Mälzer and Kappler agreed that the victims would have to be shot in the back of the head at close range rather than by conventional firing squad . The men of the regiment Bozen, the unit which was hit in the attack, were offered the chance to avenge their comrades, but they refused to do it in that way. 26 of the victims shot in the caves were Jews betrayed by Celeste Di Porto
33320-410: The title Divina , were read throughout the peninsula and his written dialect became the "canonical standard" that all educated Italians could understand. Dante is still credited with standardizing the Italian language. In addition to the widespread exposure gained through literature, the Florentine dialect also gained prestige due to the political and cultural significance of Florence at the time and
33516-463: The titular head of the Italian state and Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces under Mussolini, appointed Marshal Pietro Badoglio to head a new military government. He then ordered his gendarmerie , the Carabinieri , to arrest and imprison Mussolini. On 13 August 1943, Rome was bombed again, and the Badoglio government began secret surrender negotiations with the Allies in Sicily , although still outwardly allied to Nazi Germany. In accordance with
33712-421: The total population of the country. In Australia, Italian is the second most spoken foreign language after Chinese, with 1.4% of the population speaking it as their home language. The main Italian-language newspapers published outside Italy are the L'Osservatore Romano ( Vatican City ), the L'Informazione di San Marino ( San Marino ), the Corriere del Ticino and the laRegione Ticino ( Switzerland ),
33908-421: The use of writing; later, starting from the 5th century BC, the area was invaded by Celtic – Gallic tribes . These people founded several cities like Turin and Milan and extended their rule from the Alps to the Adriatic Sea. Their development was halted by the Roman expansion in the Po Valley from the 3rd century BC onwards. After centuries of struggle, probably officially around 81 BC, the entire area of what
34104-401: The vast majority of the north Italian population. The Alps are home to some worldwide-known mountains like the Matterhorn (Cervino), Monte Rosa , Gran Paradiso in the western Alps, and Bernina , Stelvio and Dolomites along the eastern side of the Alps. The highest peak in Europe is Mont Blanc , at 4,810 m (15,780 feet) above sea level, located at the border with France . With
34300-489: The very end where the massacre actually took place: HERE WE WERE SLAUGHTERED – VICTIMS OF A HORRENDOUS SACRIFICE – MAY OUR SACRIFICE GIVE RISE TO A BETTER HOMELAND – AND TO LASTING PEACE AMONG THE PEOPLES. FROM THE DEPTHS, I HAVE CRIED OUT TO YOU, O LORD. The last phrase, taken from Penitential Psalm 130, was most likely chosen for its parallel significance in Christianity and Judaism, simultaneously speaking for 260 Christians and 75 Jews killed and buried side by side. The text
34496-430: The working languages of the Council of Europe . It is the third-most-widely spoken native language in the European Union (13% of the EU population) and it is spoken as a second language by 13.4 million EU citizens (3%). Including Italian speakers in non-EU European countries (such as Switzerland, Albania and the United Kingdom ) and on other continents, the total number of speakers is approximately 85 million. Italian
34692-510: Was 15 years old. Political prisoners included members of the GAP, the PA, and the Monarchist Clandestine Military Front of the Resistance (FMRC), which included many policemen. Members of the Bandiera Rossa ("Red Flag") a dissident Communist Resistance group, constituted the largest group. One political prisoner, Padre Pietro Pappagallo , was one of the models for the character of Padre Pietro in Roberto Rossellini 's pioneering neo-realist film Rome, Open City , filmed in 1944. Another, perhaps
34888-411: Was 15, the oldest 70. Each face has a distinct expression portraying the range of emotions the men likely felt marching to their deaths in the quarry: despair, eyes half-closed in resignation, a resolute distant stare. Each face on the statue directs its gaze towards an important element of the memorial complex: the burial slab, the old quarries, and the forecourt. The memorial plaque outside the entry to
35084-517: Was General Simone Simoni , a war hero aged 64, who had endured torture with a blowtorch. The old soldier had replied to his captors, "My only regret is that I was not younger because there was so much more I could have done [for my country]". Neither man ever talked or in any way betrayed their network. Besides Simoni, four more generals were among the executed, all members of the Clandestine Military Front : Vito Artale , Dardano Fenulli , Roberto Lordi , and Sabato Martelli Castaldi . The design of
35280-422: Was a friend of mine, a Christian, a faithful soldier." Kappler, a Protestant until his late conversion in life, unsuccessfully sought asylum within the Vatican. Tried by the British and sentenced to life imprisonment in Gaeta , in 1977 he successfully escaped from a Roman military hospital where he had been undergoing treatment for cancer. He died unmolested the following year at his home in Soltau , West Germany,
35476-439: Was also introduced to Somalia through colonialism and was the sole official language of administration and education during the colonial period but fell out of use after government, educational and economic infrastructure were destroyed in the Somali Civil War . Italian is also spoken by large immigrant and expatriate communities in the Americas and Australia. Although over 17 million Americans are of Italian descent , only
35672-419: Was annexed to the Kingdom of Italy , but King Victor Emmanuel II did not agree to it. Italian is generally understood in Corsica by the population resident therein who speak Corsican , which is an Italo-Romance idiom similar to Tuscan. Francization occurred in Nice case, and caused a near-disappearance of the Italian language as many of the Italian speakers in these areas migrated to Italy. In Corsica, on
35868-427: Was called by different terms in different periods of history. During ancient times the terms Cisalpine Gaul , Gallia Citerior or Gallia Togata were used to define that part of Italy inhabited by Celts ( Gauls ) between the 4th and 3rd century BC. Conquered by the Roman Republic in the 220s BC, it was a Roman province from c. 81 BC until 42 BC, when it was merged into Roman Italy . Until that time, it
36064-403: Was carried out by 12 partisans of the Communist-dominated resistance organisation Gruppo d'Azione Patriottica ("Patriotic Action Group") or GAP. An improvised explosive device was prepared consisting of 12 kilogrammes of TNT packed in a steel case. This was inserted into a bag containing an additional six kilograms of TNT and TNT-filled iron tubing. Although reported as having been thrown from
36260-502: Was considered part of Gaul , precisely that part of Gaul on the "hither side of the Alps " (from the perspective of the Romans), as opposed to Transalpine Gaul ("on the far side of the Alps"). After the fall of the Roman Empire and the settlement of the Lombards the name Langobardia Maior was used, in the early Middle Ages , to define the domains of the Lombard Kingdom in northern Italy with capital Pavia . The Lombard territories beyond were called Langobardia Minor, consisting of
36456-429: Was hence not a useless provocation, as contended by critics, but an act of legitimate military significance in furthering the Allied victory. Reviewing Katz's book, The Battle for Rome , István Deák , on the other hand, cautions that although "armed resistance during World War II was romanticised because the Nazis were such an appalling enemy and because in that war the guerrillas' targets were still mainly soldiers", it
36652-443: Was mirrored by a decline in the use of the dialects. An increase in literacy was one of the main driving factors (one can assume that only literates were capable of learning Standard Italian, whereas those who were illiterate had access only to their native dialect). The percentage of literates rose from 25% in 1861 to 60% in 1911, and then on to 78.1% in 1951. Tullio De Mauro , an Italian linguist, has asserted that in 1861 only 2.5% of
36848-406: Was replaced by the French. This was due to the annexation of the surrounding County of Nice to France following the Treaty of Turin (1860) . It formerly had official status in Montenegro (because of the Venetian Albania ), parts of Slovenia and Croatia (because of the Venetian Istria and Venetian Dalmatia ), parts of Greece (because of the Venetian rule in the Ionian Islands and by
37044-428: Was simply called "written language" or Lombard, because the toponym "Lombardy" was then used to indicate the entire region of northern Italy. This literary koiné manifested itself with authors such as Bonvesin da la Riva , Giacomino da Verona , Uguccione da Lodi , Girardo Patecchio , etc. Northern Italy is the most developed and productive area of the country, with one of the highest GDPs per capita in Europe . It
37240-448: Was substantially reduced. However, from the late 19th century and especially with the economic boom of the 1950s–1960s , northern Italy and especially the cities of Turin, Genoa, and Milan was the most important region in the Italian industrialization and sharpened its status of richest and most industrialized part of Italy. During World War I Italian and Austro-Hungarian fought in brutal Mountain warfare between 1915 and 1918 on
37436-426: Was sued in the Roman courts by Pius's niece, Countess Elena Pacelli Rossignani. Katz was initially found guilty, but an appeals court overturned this initial ruling. The appeals court decision was in turn appealed by the prosecution. Further evidence ("the Governatorato document" - see below) was revealed; the court case was reconfigured; and Katz was found guilty of "intention to denigrate" Pius XII. Ultimately, however,
37632-409: Was summoned to the headquarters of the German Armed Forces Commandant in Rome, Luftwaffe Generalmajor Kurt Mälzer , who had decided that the killings called for reprisals . They agreed that the execution of ten Italians for each German policeman killed was a suitable ratio. Mälzer, who also proposed burning down part of Rome, passed this on to General Eberhard von Mackensen , the commander of
37828-420: Was the Savoy's state which, thanks to military and diplomatic victories in 1720, managed to acquire the island of Sardinia , through which the then Dukes gained legitimacy as a proper Kingdom and increased Turin's importance as a European capital. After the French Revolution in the late 18th century northern Italy was conquered by the French armies, many client republics were created by Napoleon and in 1805
38024-430: Was the first part of Italy to become industrialised in the last half of the 19th century; the so-called industrial triangle was formed by the manufacturing centres of Milan and Turin , as well as the seaport of Genoa . Since then, the industrial core of the area has shifted eastward; the current industrial triangle consists of Lombardy , Veneto , and Emilia-Romagna . A similar shift happened for GDP per capita, and
38220-427: Was the state that launched Italy's unification in 1859–1861. After defeating the Austrians in 1859 and annexing northern Italy the new state proceeded to launch a campaign to conquer southern and central Italy and Turin briefly became the capital of the almost whole of Italy . After Italian unification the capital was moved from Turin to Rome and the administrative and institutional importance of northern Italy
38416-427: Was under Austrian rule , either direct like in the Lombardo-Venetian Kingdom or indirect like in the Duchies of Parma and Modena . Bologna and Romagna were given to the Papal State . The Austrian imperial government was unpopular because of their anti-liberal politics and northern Italy became the intellectual centre leading the Italian unification process . Piedmont and the Kingdom of Sardinia, in particular,
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