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Holidays in Italy
Holidays in Italy + History of Italy up to the late 2000s,
Holidays in Italy
Holidays in Italy are a great idea, as Italy has allot to do. Italy has many thinfgs to do on a Holiday, it has fun in the plenty. Italy (Italia) is a republic in the south of Europe. It is a boot-shaped peninsula together with two large islands in the Mediterranean Sea: Sicily and Sardinia. It is one of the countries that uses the Euro currency. The capital is Rome (Roma), but the economic capital is Milan (Milano) in the north. Italy has won the Football WorldCup three (3) times: 1934, 1938 and 1982. (4 as of 2020 update as of beating France in the 2000s) Some of world's best Football teams come from Italy. The latter include Milan AC, Inter Milano FC, AS Roma, Lazio (also from Rome), Juventus (from Torino) and Fiorentina (from Florence). Italy is also well-known for its food (pizza, pasta, etc.) and the leaning tower of Pisa. Pisa is a beautiful small town in Tuscany, and the tower wasn't built to be leaning, but began leaning soon after they started construction around the thirteenth century. Italy has a diversified industrial economy with approximately the same total and per capita output as France and the United Kingdom. This capitalistic economy remains divided into a developed industrial north, dominated by private companies, and a less developed agricultural south, with more than 20% unemployment. Most raw materials needed by industry and more than 75% of energy requirements are imported. For several years Italy has adopted budgets compliant with the requirements of the European Monetary Union (EMU); representatives of government, labor, and employers also agreed to an update of the 1993 "social pact," which has been widely credited with having brought Italy's inflation into conformity with EMU requirements. Italy must work to stimulate employment, promote wage flexibility, hold down the growth in pensions, and tackle the informal economy. Growth was 1.3% in 1999 and should edge up to 2.6% in 2000, led by investment and exports.
History of Italy
Excavations throughout Italy reveal a modern human presence dating back to the Palaeolithic period some 200,000 years ago. In the 8th and 7th centuries BC Greek colonies were established all along Sicily and the southern part of the Italian Peninsula. Subsequently Romans referred to this area as Magna Graecia as it was so densely inhabited by Greeks. Ancient Rome, at first a small agricultural community founded circa 8th century BC, grew the next centuries into a colossal empire encompassing the whole Mediterranean Sea, in which Ancient Greek and Roman cultures merged into one civilization, so influential that parts of it survive in modern law, administration, philosophy and arts forming the ground where Western civilization is based upon. In its twelve-century existence, it transformed from a republic to monarchy and finally to autocracy. In steady decline since 2nd century AD, the empire finally broke into two parts in 285 AD, a western and an eastern. The western part under the pressure of Goths finally dissolved leaving the Italian peninsula divided into small independent kingdoms and feuding city states for the next 14 centuries, and the eastern part as the sole heir to Roman legacy.
Middle Ages
Following a short recapture of the peninsula by Byzantine Emperor, Justinian at 6th cen. AD from the Ostrogoths a new wave of Germanic tribes, the Lombards, soon arrived to Italy from the north. For several centuries the armies of the Byzantines were strong enough to prevent Arabs, Holy Roman Empire, or the Papacy from establishing a unified Italian Kingdom, but at the same time too weak to fully unify the former Roman lands. Nevertheless during early Middle Ages Imperial orders such as the Carolingians, the Ottonians and Hohenstaufens managed to impose their overlordship in Italy.
Italy's regions eventually interlocked to their neighbouring empires' conflicting interests and would remain divided up to 19th century. It was during this vacuum of authority that the region saw the rise of Signoria and Comune. In the anarchic conditions that often prevailed in medieval Italian city states, people looked to strong men to restore order and disarm the feuding elites. In times of anarchy or crisis, cities sometimes offered the Signoria to individuals perceived as strong enough to save the state, most notably Della Scala family in Verona, Visconti in Milan and Medici in Florence.
Italy during this period became notable for its merchant Republics. These city-states, oligarchical in reality, had a dominant merchant class which under a relative freedom nurtured academic and artistic advancement. The four classic Maritime Republics in Italy were Venice, Genoa, Pisa, Amalfi reflecting the temporal sequence of their dominance.
Venice and Genoa were Europe's gateway to trade with the East, with the former producer of the renown venetian glass, whilst Florence was the capital of silk, wool, banks and jewelry. The Maritime Republics were heavily involved in the Crusades, taking advantage of the new political and trading opportunities, most evidently in the conquest of Zara and Constantinople funded by Venice.
During late Middle Ages Italy was divided into smaller city states and territories: the kingdom of Naples controlled the south, the Republic of Florence and the Papal States the centre, the Genoese and the Milanese the north and west, and the Venetians the east. Fifteenth-century Italy was one of the most urbanised areas in Europe and the birthplace of Renaissance. Florence, in particular with the writings of Dante Alighieri (1265–1321), Francesco Petrarch (1304–1374) and Giovanni Boccaccio (c. 1313–1375), as well as the painting of Giotto di Bondone (1267–1337) is considered the center of this cultural movement. Scholars like Niccolò de' Niccoli and Poggio Bracciolini scoured the libraries in search of works of classical authors as Plato, Aristotle, Euclid, Ptolemy, Cicero and Vitruvius.
The Black Death pandemic in 1348 left its mark on Italy by killing one third of the population. The recovery from the disaster led to a resurgence of cities, trade and economy which greatly stimulated the successive phase of the Humanism and Renaissance. In 1494 the French king Charles VIII opened the first of a series of invasions, lasting up to sixteenth century, and a competition between France and Spain for the possession of the country. Ultimately Spain prevailed through the Treaty of Cateau-Cambresis which recognised Spanish dominance over the Duchy of Milan and the Kingdom of Naples. The holy alliance between Habsburg Spain and the Holy See resulted in the systematic persecution of any Protestant movement. Austria succeeded Spain as hegemon in Italy under the Peace of Utrecht. Through Austrian domination, the northern part of Italy, gained economic dynamism and intellectual fervor. The French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars (1796–1815) introduced the ideas of equality, democracy, law and nation.
Kingdom of Italy (1861-1946)
The creation of the Kingdom of Italy was the result of the efforts by Italian nationalists and monarchists loyal to the House of Savoy to establish a united kingdom encompassing the entire Italian Peninsula. In the context of 1848 liberal revolutions that swept through Europe an unsuccessful war was declared on Austria. Giuseppe Garibaldi popular amongst southern Italians led the Italian republican drive for unification in southern Italy, while the northern Italian monarchy of the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia whose government was led by Camillo Benso, conte di Cavour, had the ambition of establishing a united Italian state under its rule. The kingdom successfully challenged Austrian Empire in the Second Italian War of Independence with the help of Napoleon III, liberating the Lombardy-Venetia. In 1866 Victor Emmanuel II aligned the kingdom to Prussia during the Austro-Prussian War waging the Third Italian War of Independence which allowed Italy to annex Venice. In 1870, as France during the disastrous Franco-Prussian War abandoned its positions in Rome, Italy rushed to fill the power gap by taking over the Papal State from French sovereignty. Italian unification finally was achieved, and shortly afterwards Italy's capital was moved to Rome.
As Northern Italy was industrialized and modernized, the south became overcrowded, forcing millions of people to emigrate for a better life abroad. The Sardinian Statuto Albertino of 1848, extended to the whole Kingdom of Italy in 1861, provided for basic freedoms, but the electoral laws excluded the non-propertied and uneducated classes from voting. In 1913 male universal suffrage was allowed. The Socialist Party became the main political party, outclassing the traditional liberal and conservative organisations. Starting from the last two decades of the nineteenth century, Italy developed into a colonial power by forcing Somalia, Eritrea and later Libya and Dodecanese under its rule. During World War I Italy stayed at first neutral, but in 1915, signed the London Pact entering Entente, promised Trento, Trieste, Istria, Dalmatia and parts of Ottoman Empire. During the war, 600,000 Italians died and the economy collapsed. Under the Peace Treaty of Saint-Germain, Italy obtained just Bolzano-Bozen, Trento, Trieste and Istria in a victory defined as "mutilated" by public.
The turbulence that followed the devastations of World War I, inspired by the Russian Revolution, led to turmoil and anarchy. The liberal establishment, fearing a socialist revolution, started to endorse the small National Fascist Party, led by Benito Mussolini. In October 1922 the fascists attempted a coup (the "Marcia su Roma", i.e. March on Rome); but the king ordered the army not to intervene, instead forming an alliance with Mussolini. Over the next few years, Mussolini banned all political parties and curtailed personal liberties thus forming a dictatorship. In 1935, Mussolini subjugated Ethiopia after a surprisingly lengthy campaign. This resulted in international alienation and the exodus of the country from the League of nations. A first pact with Nazi Germany was concluded in 1936, and a second in 1938. Italy strongly supported Franco in the Spanish civil war and Hitler's annexation of Austria and Czechoslovakia.
On 7 April 1939 Italy occupied Albania, a de facto protectorate for decades and entered World War II in 1940 taking part in the late stages of the Battle of France. Mussolini wanting a quick and swift victory which would emulate Hitler's blitzkrieg in Poland and France, invaded Greece in October 1940 via Albania but was forced to a humiliating defeat after a few months. At the same time Italy after initially conquering British Somalia, saw an allied counter-attack leading to the loss of all possessions in the Horn of Africa. Italy was also defeated by British forces in North Africa and was only saved by the urgently dispatched German Africa Corps led by Erwin Rommel. Italy was invaded by Allies in June 1943 leading to the collapse of the fascist regime and the arrest of Mussolini. In September 1943, Italy surrendered. Immediately Germany invaded its former ally with the country becoming a battlefield for the rest of the war. The country was liberated on 25 April 1945.
The Italian Republic (1946-)
In 1946 Vittorio Emanuele III's son, Umberto II, was forced to abdicate. Italy became a Republic after a referendum held on 2 June 1946, a day celebrated since as Republic Day. This was the first election in Italy allowing women to vote.[15] The Republican Constitution was approved and came into force on 1 January 1948. Under the Paris Peace Treaties of 1947, the eastern border area was lost to Yugoslavia and the free territory of Trieste was divided between the two states. The Marshall Plan in 1949 helped to revive the Italian economy which in 1950s and 1960s enjoyed a prolonged economic growth. Italy is a founding member of European Union (EU). In the 1970s and 1980s the country experienced the Years of Lead, a period characterised by widespread social conflicts and terrorist acts carried out by extra-parliamentary movements. The assassination of the leader of the Christian Democracy , Aldo Moro, led to the end of a historic compromise between the DC and the Communist Party.
From 1992 to 1997, the Italian economy faced significant challenges with massive government debt, extensive corruption, and organized crime's considerable influence collectively called the political system Tangentopoli. The Tangentopoli scandals involved all major parties, and between 1992 and 1994 the DC underwent a severe crisis splitting up into several factions, including the Italian People's Party and the Christian Democratic Center. The Italian Socialist Party (PSI) completely dissolved. The 1994 elections put media magnate Silvio Berlusconi into the Prime Minister's seat. However he was forced to step down in December when Lega Nord withdrew its support. In April 1996, national elections led to the victory of a centre-left coalition under the leadership of Romano Prodi. Prodi's first government became the third-longest to stay in power before he narrowly lost a vote of confidence, by three votes, in October 1998. A new government was formed by Massimo D'Alema, but in April 2000 he resigned. In 2001 the centre-right formed government and Silvio Berlusconi was able to remain in power for a complete five year mandate, but with two different governments. The first one (2001–2005) became the longest government in post-war Italy. Italy participated in the US-led military coalition in Iraq. The elections in 2006 won by centre-left, allowed Prodi to form his second government but in early 2008, he resigned because of the collapse of his coalition. In the ensuing new early elections in April 2008, Silvio Berlusconi convincingly won to form a government for the third time.
Other fine points about Italy's history. in my riticism of the right.
In the late 1910s, far right members of Italy's forces killed around 234 Leftists. Mussolini and his forces were fighting leftists and his allies were killing some, The king helped Mussolini into power really. Plus the king back the war in the 1910s. Some say no one died under Mussoloni, but there were assainations by his forces, such as of a Socialist opposition leader, with the king ignoring socialist please to oust the regime. Plus political prisoners, did die of terrible conditions even before the war. Some put the death toll of political rivals and dissidents by the right at between five hundred and six hundred and thirty nine. Half before the full take over of power. There is no doubt Mussoloni was not as tyranical as Hitler, but he was a dictator. Plus single figure deaths in the takeover of Corfu in the 1920s by the regime. Thousands were also jailed for political beliefs in the regime in peace time. Plus a number more in the tens died in political violence in the regime, of anarchists v the right. Libya's native population fell under Italian rule from 1900 to nineteen forty five as of fascist and imperial policies, Also Italian imperialism in 19th Century Ethiopia and 20th Century Ethiopia killed many. The invasion of Ethiopia in the 1930s saw 10,000 Italian subjects killed, and about 382000 Ethiopians. Albania saw some deaths in Italy's invasion. And they supported Frano a war where some Italians died, but many more under Franco's and his army's oppressions. Plus in the late 20th Century far right terrorists killed hundreds of Italians, which was bad. Plus of course during World War Two, the far right allied to the Nazis which caused them to help with the Holocaust which caused the deaths of so many Jews, Gypsies and more, plus there were many Italians killed in the war itself, and by Nazi forces killing Italian civilians in massacres as reprisals for the action of partisans fighting occupying Nazi Soldiers. So that was bad of the right wing as well.
So then after the war, and referendum in favour of a republic, Italy had it's great socialist and Christian democrat regimes that restored it to great wealth under free and fair elections after the wars. It is also the home of the best food, to many spaghetti bolognese, lasagne, pizza etc, the best fashion to many, Milan, etc, and the best cars to many, Ferraris and lambos, Plus the home of the Leanardo, Michael Angelo, the leaning tower of Pisa, Rome, and Milan, such. Plus it is the home of the Pope and the Vatican, great cities and lands. So I was not putting Italy down there with the attack on the right, it is a great country, with many successes, and the right do have their fair views to add to democracy and the political spectrum, but they should not be dictators. Italy has helped many country's around the world, with aid, and trade of it's culture and stuff so that beats all it's bad stuff by the far right. So Italy is a very positive force for the world. With Florence and all that great art as well. Plus of course Serie A, and great teams such as Ac Milan, Inter Milan, Juventus, Roma, Geona, Lazio and Fiorentina, and Naples, Atalanta, and Livorno. Plus Italy is famous for winning 4 world cups in football.
I have been on holiday to Rome, where I saw the Colosseum, the forum, and museums, and the Vatican City, and it's great museum, probably the best in the world, plus been to Milan, where I saw the San Siro, and Milan Cathedral etc, plus I saw Corsica on the way back, from the plane.
You may also want to holiday in Monaco or holiday in San Marino, the oldest republic in the worldl, those 2 great mini states along with the Vatican City, and the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, that neighbour Italy. (Plus Liechtenstein), and there is a Italian enclave in Switerland, that is kind of a mini state Campione d'italia, and you could say Malta holiday in Malta, is near Italy, and Austria dn Swziterland has many cantons and states, or lander ro whatevr, and Slovenia is not that big, it is not a mini state but is small for Europe, so Italy has lots of mini states near it. It must be a hangover from when Italy was many states. Also there was Ragusa a mini state on Croatia;s coast a bit like Venice was. A holiday in Venice would be good as well. Hotels in Italy or Hotels in Rome are good ideas as well. Sardinia and Venice, and Northern Italy have strong seccesionist groups. Though Italy seems likely to remain united as of strong ties.