History
The migrations of Indo-European peoples into Italy probably began about 2000 B.C. and continued until 1000 B.C. From about the 9th century B.C. until it was overthrown by the Romans in the 3rd century B.C., the Etruscan civilization was dominant. By 264 B.C., all Italy south of Cisalpine Gaul was under the leadership of Rome. For the next seven centuries, until the barbarian invasions destroyed the western Roman Empire in the 4th and 5th centuries A.D., the history of Italy is largely the history of Rome. From 800 on, the Holy Roman Emperors, Roman Catholic popes, Normans, and Saracens all vied for control over various segments of the Italian peninsula. Numerous city-states, such as Venice and Genoa, whose political and commercial rivalries were intense, and many small principalities flourished in the late Middle Ages. Although Italy remained politically fragmented for centuries, it became the cultural center of the Western world from the 13th to the 16th century.
In 1713, after the War of the Spanish Succession, Milan, Naples, and Sardinia were handed over to the Hapsburgs of Austria, which lost some of its Italian territories in 1735. After 1800, Italy was unified by Napolon, who crowned himself king of Italy in 1805; but with the Congress of Vienna in 1815, Austria once again became the dominant power in a disunited Italy. Austrian armies crushed Italian uprisings in 1820?1821 and 1831. In the 1830s, Giuseppe Mazzini, a brilliant liberal nationalist, organized the Risorgimento (Resurrection), which laid the foundation for Italian unity. Disappointed Italian patriots looked to the House of Savoy for leadership. Count Camille di Cavour (1810?1861), prime minister of Sardinia in 1852 and the architect of a united Italy, joined England and France in the Crimean War (1853?1856), and in 1859 helped France in a war against Austria, thereby obtaining Lombardy. By plebiscite in 1860, Modena, Parma, Tuscany, and the Romagna voted to join Sardinia. In 1860, Giuseppe Garibaldi conquered Sicily and Naples and turned them over to Sardinia. Victor Emmanuel II, king of Sardinia, was proclaimed king of Italy in 1861. The annexation of Venetia in 1866 and of papal Rome in 1870 marked the complete unification of peninsular Italy into one nation under a constitutional monarchy.
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Geography
Italy is a Mediterranean country located in southern Europe. It is bordered by the Adriatic Sea on the east coast, the Tyrrhenian Sea on the west or Mediterranean coast, and the Ionian Sea to the south. In the north, Italy is bordered by the countries of France, Switzerland, Austria, and Slovenia.
The Italian mainland is a long peninsula that resembles a tall boot, so much so that the country is often referred to as “the boot,” with the Puglia region in the southeast being the “heel of the boot” and the Calabria region in the southwest being the “toe of the boot.”
Italy only became a unified country in 1861, although the peninsula has several thousand years of history before that.
Italy is known for its Mediterranean climate, which is found mainly on the coast. Inland, it is generally cooler and wetter but usually hotter during the summer. Southern Italy has a hot and mostly dry climate while the north has more of an Alpine climate, getting lots of snow in winter.