| The Italian Republic or Italy (Italian:
Repubblica italiana or Italia) is a country in
Southern Europe. It comprises a
boot-shaped
peninsula and two large islands in the
Mediterranean Sea,
Sicily
and
Sardinia, and shares its northern alpine boundary with
France,
Switzerland,
Austria
and
Slovenia. It is a founding member of what is now the
European Union, and a member state of the
United Nations,
NATO and
the G8 nations.
San
Marino and the
Vatican City are
enclaves
countries within Italian territory, while
Campione d'Italia is an Italian exclave in Switzerland. Italy
consists predominantly of a large
peninsula with a distinctive boot shape that extends into the
Mediterranean Sea, where together with its two main islands
Sicily
and
Sardinia it creates distinct bodies of water, such as the
Adriatic Sea to the north-east, the
Ionian Sea to the south-east, the
Tyrrhenian Sea to the south-west and finally the
Ligurian Sea to the north-west.
The
Apennine mountains form the backbone of this peninsula, leading
north-west to where they join the
Alps, the
mountain range that then forms an arc enclosing Italy from the north.
Here is also found a large alluvial plain, the
Po-Venetian plain, drained by the
Po
River and its many tributaries flowing down from the Alps,
Apennines and
Dolomites. Other well-known rivers include the
Tiber,
Adige and
Arno.
Its highest point is
Mont Blanc (Monte Bianco) at 4,810 m, but Italy is more
typically associated with two famous
volcanoes:
the currently dormant
Vesuvius near
Naples
and the very active
Etna on
Sicily.
Italy is well-known for its art and culture. It has many famous works
of architecture, among them the
leaning tower of Pisa, the Roman
Colosseum, the Greek temple of
Neptune
of
Paestum. It is renowned for its
food (pizza,
pasta,
etc.), wine,
lifestyle,
elegance,
automobiles, visual
art and
design,
cinema,
theatre,
literature,
poetry,
music
(notably
Opera),
holidays, and generally speaking, taste.
Europe's
Renaissance period began in Italy during the
14th and
15th centuries. Literary achievements, such as the poetry of
Dante,
Petrarch,
Tasso, and
Ariosto and the prose of
Boccaccio,
Machiavelli, and
Castiglione exerted a tremendous and lasting influence on the
subsequent development of Western culture, as did the
painting,
sculpture, and
architecture contributed by giants such as
Filippo Brunelleschi,
Leonardo da Vinci,
Raphael,
Botticelli,
Fra Angelico,
Melozzo da Forlì and
Michelangelo. Modern artists include the sculptor
Tommaso Geraci.
Source: Wikipedia
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