The name Italy comes from the word Italia, meaning “calf land,” perhaps because the bull was a symbol of the Southern Italian tribes.
Historical News
The capital of Italy is Rome (also known as the Eternal City) and is almost 3,000 years old. It has been the capital since 1871 and is home to the Dome of St. Peter’s, the Sistine Chapel, the Coliseum, and the famous Trevi Fountain.
Historical News
By the year 2000 B.C., Italic tribes (Oscans, Umbrians, Latins) had established themselves in Italy. They were followed by the Etruscans in 800 B.C. and the Greeks, who established colonies known as Magna Graeca in southern Italy (present-day Apulia). Rome was founded in 753 B.C., and soon thereafter the Romans began conquering the peninsula.
Historical News
At its height in A.D. 117, the Roman Empire stretched from Portugal in the West to Syria in the east, and from Britain in the North to the North African deserts across the Mediterranean. It covered 2.3 million miles (two-thirds the size of the U.S.) and had a population of 120 million people. During the Middle Ages, Rome had perhaps no more than 13,000 residents.
Historical News
When McDonald’s opened in 1986 in Rome, food purists outside the restaurant gave away free spaghetti to remind people of their culinary heritage.
Italians created parmesan, provolone, mozzarella, and many other cheeses. Parmesan cheese originated in the area around
Historical News
Vatican City is the only nation in the world that can lock its own gates at night. It has its own phone company, radio, T.V. stations, money, and stamps. It even has its own army, the historic Swiss Guard.
Historical News
Parma, Italy. Italians also created many other cheeses, including gorgonzola, mozzarella, provolone, and ricotta. No one knows when the pizza was invented, but the people of Naples made it popular.
Historical News
The European Union law states that we have the free movement of companies, they have freedom of establishment. This is in fact the entire point of the whole Single Market program. One company, based anywhere inside the EU, can then sell to all 27 other countries in the EU without needing to have a permanent establishment in each of those 27. And believe me the EU isn’t going to allow someone to over turn that very basic foundation of the entire project. It’s just not going to happen. So I am perfectly free to buy any goods that are legally sold throughout Europe, provided that they can be delivered, even though they are not legal in Italy, even because in Italy only stupidity is legal.
Carl William Brown
Italian is a Romance language descended from Vulgar Latin, just like Spanish, French, Portuguese and Romanian, the dialect spoken by the people living during the last years of the Roman Empire. Before the Romans came, people spoke their own languages, and the mixture of these original tongues with Latin produced many of the languages and dialects that are still in use today. Italian has more Latin words than any other Romance languages, and its grammatical system remains similar to Latin. Latin is still the official language of the Vatican City in Rome. In the 1930s and 40s, Italian fascist Benito Mussolini (1883-1945) tried to eliminate foreign words from Italian. In soccer, “goal” became “meta” and Donald Duck became “Paperino.” Mickey Mouse became “Topolino” and Goofy became “Pippo.” While the ban was not permanent, the Italian names remain common.
Historical News
The world’s first operas were composed in Italy at the end of the sixteenth century. Opera reached the height of popularity in the nineteenth century, when the works of Gioacchino Rossini (1792-1868), Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924), and Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901) became hugely popular. The late
tenor Luciano Pavarotti (1935-2007) is a national celebrity, and
Claudio Monteverdi (c. 1567-1643) is regarded as the father of the modern opera.
Historical News
Venice, Italy, is one of the world’s most beautiful and unusual cities. It was founded over 1,400 years ago on a collection of muddy islands in a wide and shallow lagoon. It has been sinking into the mud for centuries and is plagued by floods.
Italy was one of the founders of the EU and is a member of the Group of Eight (G8), a forum for eight of the world’s most powerful nations.
Historical News
In Italy there are about 60 million people and we know how high is the percentage of morons on national soil. However, in China there are about 1.4 billion people and in India almost 1.3 billion. Therefore I wonder then, if more or less all the world is a small village, with how many morons should we have to come to terms on the territory of this stupid planet. It’s the same the world over, or the world is the same wherever you go!
Carl William Brown
Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) was an Italian-born scientist. When he argued that the Earth revolved around the Sun, the Catholic Church imprisoned Galileo in his own house. The Church issued a formal apology in 1992.
Historical News
A part of northern Italy called Val Camonica contains about 350,000 petroglyphs that were created nearly 10,000 years ago. Brescia is a famous town at 75 km from there, it is very popular for Beretta arms industry, the oldest in the world, the Garda Lake and also because Carl William Brown was born there.
Historical News
Before the Romans came, people spoke their own languages, and the mixture of these original tongues with Latin produced many of the languages and dialects that are still in use today. If you know one of the Romance languages, you can often understand bits of another. Just as members of the same family can look similar but have totally different characters. You find the same contradictions in the dialects (regional or local language differences) in Italy and in other countries. If you visit Italy, you’ll hear various accents and dialects as you travel the country. Despite the number of dialects, you may be surprised to discover that everybody understands your Italian and you understand theirs. (Italians don’t normally speak in their dialect with foreigners.)
Linguistic News
About 70% of our English words come from Latin. This alone make Latin the most important language to influence English. For example, the word, promise, comes from “pro-mitto,” meaning to send before. Here are some more examples: word = verbum; canine = canis; college =collegium. I think you get the picture. Also Latin has influenced our grammar. For example, the distinction between “I” and “me” is based on cases. I equals nominative case in Latin and me equals dative, ablative and accusative cases. Even little things like the improper use of split infinitives come from Latin, since in Latin infinitives cannot be split. For example, to love is amare (one word) in Latin. So, in short, Latin continues to play a huge role.
Linguistic News
Italian is the official language of Italy and it is spoken by about 70 million people, primarily in this country. It’s the official language of San Marino as well, and one of the official languages of Switzerland, spoken mainly in Ticino and Grigioni cantons.
Linguistic News
The Italian Flag or il Tricolore is a green, white and red tricolor flag with equal panels representing the territories of the Republic of Italy. Adopted as the national flag on 1 January 1948, official colour designation under the Pantone Textile policy was established in 2003, then ratified into law in 2006.
Historical News
When I was growing up, my parents told me, “Finish your dinner. People in China and India are starving.” I tell my daughters, “Finish your homework. People in India and China are starving for your job.”
Thomas Friedman
Who goes to Rome a beast returns a beast.
Italian Proverb
Italy hasn’t had a government since Mussolini.
Richard Nixon
How did Italy manage to end up with no Caribbean islands at all? Christopher Columbus took the trouble to discover the
Caribbean personally before the end of the fifteenth century. Try to get a decent plate of spaghetti there now.
Calvin Trillin
Italy, and the spring and first love all together should suffice to make the gloomiest person happy.
Bertrand Russell
In Italy, for 30 years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, they had 500 years of democracy and peace – and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.
Orson Welles
If Spain goes under, Italy will come under even more scrutiny.
Mario Monti
In the Church of San Giovanni (One of the finest Renaissance churches in Italy) you can see Tintoretto’s masterpiece, “Madonna with Four Saints”. In the Church of San Giacomo you can see Botticelli’s masterpiece, “Two Saints with the Madonna”. In the Church of San Bartolomeo do not miss Tiepolo’s huge canvas, “Madonna with Twenty Three Saints”. In the chapel of San Marco, the focus of attention is Perugino’s small painting, “Madonna with just One Saint”.
George Mikes
Italy is a geographical expression.
Prince Metternich
Certainly, in Italy, nobody takes light for granted.
Barbara Steele
A man who has not been in Italy, is always conscious of an inferiority.
Samuel Johnson
Every country gets the circus it deserves. Spain gets bullfights. Italy the Church. America Hollywood.
Erica Jong
Internet penetration in Italy is quite low and the Berlusconi media machine controls most of what people see.
Joichi Ito
I would like to thank my parents in Vergaio, a little village in Italy. They gave me the biggest gift: poverty.
Roberto Benigni
Gli italiani sono irrimediabilmente fatti per la dittatura.
Ennio Flaiano
The ideological mix-up is a natural, exasperating and, at the same time, endearing feature in this country of fierce individualists. There are seventy-five political parties in Italy – although not all are represented in parliament. Most of these parties are very small but even the smallest can boast of a sharp and unbridgeable ideological split. There is a party which has only one single member. He is schizophrenic.
George Mikes
In Italy there are about 60 million people and we know how high is the percentage of morons on national soil. However, in China there are about 1.4 billion people and in India almost 1.3 billion. Therefore I wonder then, if more or less all the world is a small village, with how many morons should we have to come to terms on the territory of this stupid planet.
Carl William Brown
You have to remember that Italy is second to none, in fact, if Germany has more than 3,500 brothels, Italy has the Vatican!
Carl William Brown
Appeal to all scholars of stupidity in the world. Come to Italy, this country has the highest rate of morons of the universe, especially among political, bureaucratic, judicial, religious, intellectual, artistic, and mass media members, so it is the best place to develop your own field research.
Carl William Brown
To be a true philosopher you must study stupidity a lot, that’s why, as Doctor Samuel Johnson used to say, a man who has not been in Italy, is always conscious of an inferiority.
Carl William Brown
Italy is one of the world leading country of bureaucracy and stupidity.
Carl William Brown
The ideological mix-up is a natural, exasperating and, at the same time, endearing feature in this country of fierce individualists. There are seventy-five political parties in Italy – although not all are represented in parliament. Most of these parties are very small but even the smallest can boast of a sharp and unbridgeable ideological split. There is a party which has only one single member. He is schizophrenic.
George Mikes
Since Italy is the land of bureaucratic and political nonsense, it tries to make up for the lost chances through a complex system of confused laws and logical stupidity.
Carl William Brown
The increased presence of Muslims in Italy and in Europe is directly proportional to our loss of freedom.
Oriana Fallaci
Italy is doomed to disappear, it is too stupid to survive!
Carl William Brown
The most hypocritical, bootlicking, obsequious, slavelike, submissive, unfree journalists in Europe, this is Italy.
Carl William Brown
The Italians may be clever and quick-witted but they are not intellectuals. They lack wanderlust, indeed, most of them lack intellectual curiosity in every shape and form.
George Mikes
In Italy there are a lot of illegal things, since the law is illegal too.
Carl William Brown
Prices in Italy are only slightly lower than in France, which means that Italy is a very expensive country for everyone, natives, visitors and tourists.
George Mikes
Repetita iuvant. Italy, a land of great saints, poets, sailors, artists, statesmen, businessmen, lawyers, intellectuals, professors, journalists, whores, gangsters, religious parasites and dickheads.
Carl William Brown
The main characteristic of English conversation is that no one ever speaks; of Italian that everyone speaks at the same time. One iron law reigns supreme in Italian conversation: the survival of the loudest.
George Mikes
In Italy we have not a Common law legal system, we have a stupid one instead!
Carl William Brown
Hotel bills are scrupulously honest all over Italy… The only case which puzzled me occured in Naples. I wondered whether they were justified in adding 230 lire for heating to my bill in early June.
George Mikes
The Cathedral of this ancient and beautiful city of ……….* is of particular interest. It is the third largest Cathedral in Italy. It is a magnificent Gothic building (not pure Gothic but pure enough for the vast majority of tourists). The Italians, in their outlandish way, like to refer to the Cathedral as Il Duomo. * Fill in the name of the city with pencil. Rub it afterwards.
George Mikes
In Italy there are many illegal things, but stupidity is the most legal of all.
Carl William Brown
Italians intellectuals are few and far between. This is not a derogatory statement; nor is it a praise… Italy can boast of a number of intellectuals – brilliant and witty. But their number is small – much smaller than in France, England or Germany. The Italians, as a nation, do not read much. Observe a rush hour crowd in London or New York on the one hand and in Rome on the other. In London and New York one person in ten will be without a paper; in Rome one in ten will have a paper. The Italians will watch the women in the bus or tram, the crowd in the street or the passing shop-windows but they do not read.
George Mikes
The stupidest and most corrupted, dangerous, useless, incompetent, unfit and inefficient politicians in Europe: this is Italy.
Carl William Brown
Read also:
https://www.english-culture.com/christmas-in-italy/
