Proper noun

Singular Italy

Plural -

Italy

1. A country in southern Europe, one of the states of the European Union. Official name: The Italian Republic (in Italian, la Repubblica Italiana).

Italy /ˈɪtəli/ (help·info) (Italian: Italia), officially the Italian Republic (Italian: Repubblica Italiana), is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia. The independent states of San Marino and the Vatican City are enclaves within the Italian Peninsula, and Campione d'Italia is an Italian exclave in Switzerland.

The land known as Italy today has been the cradle of many European cultures and peoples, such as the Etruscans and the Romans. Later it was the birthplace of the Renaissance that began in Tuscany and spread all over Europe. It also played a major role in the development of modern science and astronomy, particularly heliocentrism, as well as the University, and opera. Italy's capital, Rome, was for centuries the center of Western civilization. Italy possessed a colonial empire from the second half of the nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century.

Today, the cultural significance of Italy is reflected in the fact that it boasts by far the largest number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites (44) in the world. Contemporary Italy is a democratic republic and a developed country with the eighth-highest quality of life index rating in the world. It is a founding member of what is now the European Union, having signed the Treaty of Rome in 1957, and it is a founding member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). It is a member of the G8, having the world's seventh-largest nominal GDP, and is also a member state of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the World Trade Organization (WTO), the Council of Europe, the Western European Union, and the Central European Initiative. Italy is a Schengen state. It has the world's seventh-largest defence budget and shares NATO's nuclear weapons.

Italy is a country in the south of Europe.

Sourced

• L'Italia farà da sè.
  • Translation: "Italy will take care of itself."
  • Italian proverb; a common expression when Italy was in the process of reunification.

• Italy, my Italy! Queen Mary's saying serves for me (When fortune's malice Lost her Calais) "Open my heart and you will see Graved inside of it, 'Italy.'"
  • Robert Browning, De Gustibus. ii.

• Some jay of Italy, Whose mother was her painting, hath betray’d him: Poor I am stale, a garment out of fashion.
  • William Shakespeare, Cymbeline, Act iii, Scene 4.

• Venice once was dear, The pleasant place of all festivity, The revel of the earth, the masque of Italy.
  • Lord Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto iv, Stanza 3.

• How beautiful is sunset when the glow Of Heaven descends upon a land like thee, Thou Paradise of exiles, Italy!
  • Percy Bysshe Shelley, Julian and Maddalo, lines 55-57.

• Report of fashions in proud Italy, Whose manners still our apish nation Limps after in base imitation.
  • William Shakespeare, Richard II, Act ii, Scene 1.

• A man who has not been in Italy, is always conscious of an inferiority, from his not having seen what it is expected a man should see.
  • Samuel Johnson, Boswell, Life of Johnson.

From Wikiquote under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Sat Aug 8 18:15:13 2009