About Italy
Instantly recognizable
On any map of the world Italy can be recognized at once. A long, lean peninsula, it juts out into the Mediterranean like a leg in a high-heeled boot kicking a football. The big triangular island of Sicily is the ball; another large island, Sardinia, lies further to the west. Four-fifths of the Italian mainland is mountainous; the Alps girdle the north, while down the centre of the country runs the long spine of the Apennines. Some of Italy’s peaks dominate their surroundings in a highly active way: live volcanoes such as Etna and Vesuvius (which caused the destruction of Pompeii) continue to menace local inhabitants. The rich soil which volcanoes have created over the centuries provides good farming land. But, in spite of this, much of the southern part of Italy is hard to farm, since erosion has destroyed the land’s surface. In the north, however, the River Po – Italy’s longest – continually brings water and fertility to its huge valley, where farms produce heavy crops of cereals and rice. Although it is one of the oldest of Europe’s civilized nations, Italy has only been a united country since 1870. With its fertile plains and bare clay hills, its high mountains and 3000 km of coastline, it is a land of dramatic regional contrasts. And
In 1982, Italians were asked in a survey what language they spoke at home. Under a third of them spoke nothing but pure Italian. The words that came to them more naturally were those of their own dialect.
In a country where the regions are defined so sharply, regional dialects are naturally important, and they differ widely from the standard language. Until recently, the state religion was Roman Catholicism. Italy also contains the world headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church: the Vatican City. But in 1985 a new agreement was signed giving all religions the same status and legal equality. Over 90 per cent of Italy’s 57 million people are officially Roman Catholic, but they do not accept the guidance of the Church as unquestioningly as they once did. For example, divorce (not accepted under Catholicism) became legal in 1974. The word civilization comes from the Latin for ‘city’, and it is of a city that most people think whenever the ancient history of Italy is mentioned.
Rome and its empire was one of the greatest forces for change Europe has ever known and, wherever the Roman legions took their eagle standards, so Rome’s contributions to civilized living went as well. These included central heating, town planning, public water supplies, a coherent legal system, and a highly sophisticated cuisine. But the Romans were not the first in Italy to lead a civilized life, in Rome or out of it. Rome itself first came to power as a possession of the Etruscans, a mysterious group that dominated much of Italy between 750 and around 500 BC. No-one knows where they originally came from (or where they finally went). Their language is just as much of a mystery. But, thanks to their art, we do know that they were a lively, energetic people; expressive sculptors, brilliant workers in gold and other metals, and ingenious inventors. They even found how to make sets of false teeth!
Their art shows that they seem to have treated women as men’s equals, and they may have introduced the horse-drawn carriage to Italy.`Greater Greece’
Another early civilization that took root in Italy was that of the neighbouring Greeks. Again around 750 Bc, they started establishing colonies in southern Italy and Sicily. Naples was one of their cities, and the whole area became known as Magna Graecia, or ‘Greater Greece’. The power of these early colonists lasted in Italy for 500 years. However, like the Etruscans, they were in the end to be overtaken by the greater power of Ancient Rome.
Politics and trade
From its peak in the second century AD, the Italian-based Roman Empire took many years to fade away. But, under the onslaught of repeated invasions by northern European tribes, it finally collapsed and, in 476, an invading general seized the power of the last of Italy’s Roman Emperors. It would be over 1300 years before the country came under unified Italian rule again. During the Middle Ages, Italy’s politics were confused and bloody. But trade carried on throughout. And the traders had rich customers, including princes and nobles inside and outside Europe, and the great lords of the Roman Catholic Church, whose principal bishop was the ‘Papa’ or Pope, based in Rome.
Trade depended on travel, and ports like Venice and Genoa prospered. It also depended on peace. Italy was not peaceful, but its talented craftsmen enjoyed a legacy from the old Roman Empire that helped trade flourish: strong, secure cities to live and work in. Especially in the north, the wealth of Italy’s medieval cities grew, and so did their power. By the thirteenth century, the most energetic of them had
become mini-states in their own right, dominating the country around and eager to snap up extra territory. A relentless process of ‘dog eat dog’ continued until, by the 1400s, just a few states were emerging as the great powers of northern Italy: Venice, Milan and Florence.Florence’s wealth and power were based on wool. So it was the demand for Florentine textiles that in the end gave the world Italy’s greatest gift –the far-reaching revolution in ideas and art that we call the Renaissance. Florence was the city where the Renaissance was pioneered, and this could happen only because there were by then enough Florentines with the money and leisure to encourage new ideas and ways of expressing them.
A divided country
In the centuries that followed the great days of the city states, the rule of Italians by Italians became almost a thing of the past. The great states of Europe – France, Spain, Austria –divided the Italian peninsula between themselves. Napoleon brought it under his domination, but after his defeat, it was split up again. By the 1830s, the majority of Italy’s 18 million inhabitants were divided between seven states: Lombardy-Venetia, Tuscany, Parma and
Modena, all controlled by Austria; the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, in the hands of Spain’s ruling family, the Bourbons; the Papal States, ruled by the Pope; and the independent Kingdom of Sardinia – Sardinia and Piedmont.
It was the Piedmontese state and its rulers that really guided Italy along the path to national unity. In 1848, Italians all over the peninsula rose against their hated overlords. The Austrians were expelled from Venice and Milan. A republic was founded in Rome, where the Piedmontese thinker and patriot, Mazzini, took up the government. He was helped by another Piedmontese, Garibaldi, who had recently returned from exile. But these successes did not last. Again the Austrians and the Pope took power. Unity with Piedmont In 1852, Count Cavour became the Piedmontese prime minister. He was a shrewd politician who used European public opinion, pressure and troops to bring some Italian states into unity with Piedmont. Finally, in 1860, a new rebellion broke out in Sicily. The rebels were led to victory by ‘the Thousand’, the band of volunteers from all over Italy, raised by Garibaldi. He took the whole southern region, which he handed over to the Piedmontese king, Victor Emmanuel II. In 1861, Victor Emmanuel was proclaimed king of most of Italy except the Papal States. These were united to Italy nine years later, in 1870.On 1 July 1871, Rome became the official capital of the newly-united Italy. But unification did not mark the end of the Italians’ troubles. Social reforms were needed; the south regarded its northern rulers with suspicion; and the Pope, though allowed to continue ruling over the Vatican, flatly refused to recognize the new Italian state. (Papal recognition was only granted under the Lateran Treaty of 1929.) In the First World War, Italy joined Britain and France, hoping to gain new possessions at the expense of Germany’s allies. Up to a point, the gamble paid off, for part of Austria became Italian. But the price was very high: 700,000 dead. After the war, social unrest led to the growth of fascism, a right-wingpolitical movement that used force to achieve its ends.
Mussolini’s hold
In 1922, the fascist leader, Benito Mussolini, became the head of the government, and in 1925 announced a dictatorship. Continuing Italy’s search for new lands, he attacked Ethiopia in 1935 and installed the Italian king as Ethiopian emperor. International opposition edged him into alliance with Nazi Germany and it was on Hitler’s side that Italians fought in the Second World War. Mussolini’s hold on Italy only really ended when, in 1945, he was captured and killed by partisans. When the Second World War ended in 1945, Italy was still geared mainly to farming. Half the country – the south-was desperately poor, and the richer northern areas were still not rich enough to make Italy’s average living standards equal to those elsewhere in western Europe. Today, however, Italy is one of the richest countries in the world. The main source of its wealth is industry rather than farming; even though more than one in 10 of its workers works on the land ( a high figure for a European country), it buys more food than it sells. Its greatest foreign sales are in engineering products, although the returns from tourism come a close second: visitors to Italy have risen from a mere two million in 1931 to nearly 50 million today. The living standards enjoyed by the Italians themselves have soared and, as a result of deliberate state encouragement, industries have been set up in the south that have helped ease some of its poverty. Italy has had what is called an ‘economic miracle’: the result of good industrial planning, superb technical skills, and hard work.But, although Italy is much richer than it was, it still has difficult problems to solve, some of which result from prosperity. Industrial production is being increased, for example, through the installation of robots, but this means putting people out of work.
Unemployment in Italy is already high: standing at 11 per cent of the workforce in late 1985, it was only slightly less bad than Britain’s. It is also especially high in the south. Earnings there are lower, too.
All of Italy has severe pollution problems: smog, detergent-filled rivers and dirty coasts. Meanwhile, the flow of workers to the big industrial centres has caused both overcrowding and the growth of sprawling, anonymous estates on the fringes of Italy’s cities.From the monuments of ancient Greece, Etruria and Rome to the modern sculptures of Marino Marini and the mysterious, haunting paintings of Giorgio de Chirico, art has always surrounded the Italians. The country’s churches and museums contain many of the world’s greatest art treasures. Squares are adorned with fountains and statues. Streets in old towns like Verona display superb examples of Italian architecture.
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A new spirit
Although a love of the visual arts runs right through Italian history, its peak was reached in the period of intense intellectual activity that was the Renaissance. At first the thinkers and artists of the times aimed only to revive the arts and the ideals of the classical period. But then a completely new spirit of artistic honesty grew up. Artists, instead of accepting other people’s ideas, looked closely and carefully at the world around, and drew what they saw.
This was the principle that guided the work of such great Italians as Leonardo da Vinci, and the spirit of inquiry behind it has helped form creative standards that have lasted ever since: Italy’s greatest contribution to the world’s culture.