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Italy (Italian: Italia [i'ta:lja] ), officially the Italian Republic (Italian: Repubblica Italiana [re'pub:lika ita'lja:na]), is a country consisting of a peninsula delimited by the Alps and several islands surrounding it. Italy is located in Southern Europe, and is also considered part of Western Europe. A unitary parliamentary republic with Rome as its capital, the country covers a total area of 301,340 km² (116,350 sq mi) and shares land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, and the enclaved microstates of Vatican City and San Marino. Italy has a territorial enclave in Switzerland (Campione) and a maritime exclave in Tunisian waters (Lampedusa). With around 60 million inhabitants, Italy is the third-most populous member state of the European Union.

Due to its central geographic location in Southern Europe and the Mediterranean, Italy has historically been home to myriad peoples and cultures. In addition to the various ancient peoples dispersed throughout what is now modern-day Italy, the most predominant being the Indo-European Italic peoples who gave the peninsula its name, beginning from the classical era, Phoenicians and Carthaginians founded colonies mostly in insular Italy, Greeks established settlements in the so-called Magna Graecia of Southern Italy, while Etruscans and Celts inhabited central and northern Italy respectively. An Italic tribe known as the Latins formed the Roman Kingdom in the 8th century BC, which eventually became a republic with a government of the Senate and the People. The Roman Republic initially conquered and assimilated its neighbours on the Italian peninsula, eventually expanding and conquering parts of Europe, North Africa and Asia. By the first century BC, the Roman Empire emerged as the dominant power in the Mediterranean Basin and became a leading cultural, political and religious centre, inaugurating the Pax Romana, a period of more than 200 years during which Italy's law, technology, economy, art, and literature developed. Italy remained the homeland of the Romans and the metropole of the empire, whose legacy can also be observed in the global distribution of culture, governments, Christianity and the Latin script. (Full article...)

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Glassmaking tools holding a glass horse being shaped

Venetian glass (Italian: vetro veneziano) is thought to have been made for over 1,500 years, and production has been concentrated on the Venetian island of Murano since the 13th century. Today Murano is known for its art glass, but it has a long history of innovations in glassmaking in addition to its artistic fame--and was Europe's major glassmaking center from the Middle Ages through the Renaissance. During the 15th century, Murano glassmakers created cristallo--which was almost transparent and considered the finest glass in the world. Murano glassmakers also developed a white-colored glass (milk glass called lattimo) that looked like porcelain. They later became Europe's finest makers of mirrors. Originally, Venice was controlled by the Byzantine Empire, but it eventually became an independent city state. It flourished as a trading center and seaport. Its connections with the Middle East helped its glassmakers gain additional skills, as glassmaking was more advanced in areas such as Syria and Egypt. Although Venetian glassmaking in factories existed as far back as the 8th Century, it became concentrated in Murano by law, beginning in 1291. Since glass factories often caught fire, this removed much of the possibility of a major fire disaster for the city. Venetian glassmakers developed secret recipes and methods for making glass, and the concentration of Venice's glassmaking on the island of Murano enabled better control of those secrets. (Full article...)

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Youth of Moses by Sandro Botticelli, 1481-82, Sistine Chapel
Porta Soprana is the best-known gate of the ancient walls of Genoa.
South face of the Tofana di Rozes in the Parco naturale regionale delle Dolomiti d'Ampezzo
View of Piazzetta San Marco toward Grand Canal of Venice, at dawn, with Doges' Palace on the left and Biblioteca Marciana on the right.
A section of the Sistine Chapel ceiling, painted by Michelangelo
Dome of Florence Cathedral
Interior of the Santa Maria della Vittoria in Rome
Sellajoch, South Tyrol and Trentino (seen from Pordoi Pass), Langkofel on the left, Piz Ciavazes on the right
The Forma Urbis Romae is a massive marble map of ancient Rome, created under the emperor Septimius Severus between 203 and 211.

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...that the Italian winery Vini Lunardelli produced a controversial "historical line" of wine bottles featuring images of Che Guevara, Adolf Hitler, Winston Churchill and Josef Stalin on their labels?

...that Vittorio Ambrosio was an Italian general who served an instrumental role in the fall of Mussolini and the eventual Italian renunciation of its alliance with Germany?

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Umbrian Pizza di Pasqua

The pizza di Pasqua ("Easter Pizza" in English), in some areas also called crescia di Pasqua, torta di Pasqua, torta al formaggio or crescia brusca, is a leavened savory cake typical of many areas of central Italy based on wheat flour, eggs, pecorino and parmesan. Traditionally served at breakfast on Easter morning, or as an appetizer during Easter lunch, it is accompanied by blessed boiled eggs, ciauscolo and red wine or, again, served at the Easter Monday picnic. Having the same shape as panettone, the pizza di Pasqua with cheese is a typical product of the Marche region, but also Umbrian (where, as a traditional food product, it obtained the P.A.T. recognition). There is also a sweet variant. The peculiarity of this product is its shape, given by the particular mold in which it is leavened and then baked in the oven: originally in earthenware, today in aluminum, it has a flared shape. (Full article...)

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Italian cuisine Pizza Ancient Roman cuisine Pasta Roman cuisine Parmigiano-Reggiano Sicilian cuisine Mozzarella Fettuccine Alfredo Acquacotta Carbonara Gelato Marron glacé Minestrone Chianti Food and dining in the Roman Empire Espresso Italian wine Testaroli Prodotto agroalimentare tradizionale

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The following are images from various Italy-related articles on Wikipedia.

Marchese Guglielmo Marconi was the inventor of radio.
Michelangelo's David, one of the symbols of Italian Renaissance.
Italy and the nearby islands in the 1st century BCE.
Italian unification.
The Pompeii Lakshmi, an ivory statuette from the Indian subcontinent found in the ruins of Pompeii. The Indo-Roman trade relations, beginning around the 1st century BCE, testifies to extensive Roman trade in far away regions.
Official portrait of Benito Mussolini.
Antonio Vivaldi, in 1723. His best-known work is a series of violin concertos known as The Four Seasons
The naval jack of the modern Italian Republic features the coats of arms of the four best known medieval Maritime Republics. Clockwise from upper left: Venice, Genoa, Pisa, Amalfi.
Map of Etruscan civilisation.
"Italophone" world.
  Official language.

  Secondary, widely spoken or understood.

  Understood by some due to former colonisation.
The Capitoline Wolf sculpture in the Capitoline Museums. According to legend, Rome was founded in 753 BCE by Romulus and Remus, who were raised by a she-wolf.
French troops entering Rome in 1798
A Prada shop in Singapore.
Fiat 600, iconic middle-class dream car and status symbol of the 1950-60s.
Sandro Botticelli, The Birth of Venus (c. 1486). Tempera on canvas. 172.5 cm × 278.9 cm (67.9 in × 109.6 in). Uffizi, Florence
Imperial ambitions of Fascist Italy in Europe, 1936.
Pyramid of Monte d'Accoddi is an archaeological site in northern Sardinia, Italy, located in the territory of Sassari near Porto Torres. 4th millennium BC.
Ancient Greek colonies and their dialect groupings in Southern Italy.
  NW Greek
  Achaean
  Doric
  Ionian
The Venice Film Festival is the oldest film festival in the world and one of the "Big Three" alongside Cannes and Berlin
The Santa Maria del Fiore cathedral in Florence, which has the biggest brick dome in the world, and is considered a masterpiece of Italian architecture and world architecture.
Sheets with the iconic picture of Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, exposed as a sign of protest against Italian Mafia. They read: "You did not kill them: their ideas walk on our legs".
The historic seat of the Corriere della Sera in via Solferino in Milan.
Rai Radio 1.
Botticelli's The Birth of Venus, ca. 1482-85.
Regions of Roman Italy.
Petroglyph in Valcamonica, Lombardy, the largest collection of prehistoric petroglyphs in the world (10th millennium BC).
Giuseppe Verdi, one of Italy's greatest opera composers. Portrait by Giovanni Boldini.
Milan Cathedral is the fourth-largest church in the world.
Italian prisoners in El Alamein, November 1942.
Italian cavalry in Trento on 3 November 1918, after the victorious Battle of Vittorio Veneto. Italy's victory marked the end of the war on the Italian Front, secured the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and contributed to the end of World War I just one week later.
William Shakespeare is an example of an Italophile of the 16th century.
Attack of the far-right terrorist group NAR at the Bologna railway station on 2 August 1980, which caused the death of 85 people.
Italy has been a home for innovation in science in the centuries since Galileo formulated his theories of planetary movement.
Italian Lombard kingdom (781-1014).
Umberto II, the last King of Italy, was exiled to Portugal.
Ötzi, a natural mummy discovered in the southern Alps (region of Trentino-Alto Adige) dating from the 4th millennium BC.
Italian irredentism map.
Federico Fellini, considered one of the most influential and widely revered filmmakers of the 20th century.
the Arch of Constantine in Rome.
Iron Age hut foundations on the Palatine Hill considered to be the Casa Romuli, the reputed dwelling-place of Romulus.
The Roman Empire at its greatest extent under Trajan in CE 117.
The Roman Empire provided an inspiration for the medieval European. Although the Holy Roman Empire rarely acquired a serious geopolitical reality, it possessed great symbolic significance.
Sergio Mattarella, President of the Italian Republic, elected on 3 February 2015.
David, by Michelangelo (Accademia di Belle Arti, Florence, Italy) is a masterpiece of Renaissance and world art.
Giuseppe Mazzini.
From left to right, Chamberlain, Daladier, Hitler, Mussolini and Italian Foreign Minister Count Ciano at the signing of Munich Agreement.
Dante Alighieri, one of the greatest poets of the Middle Ages. His epic poem The Divine Comedy ranks among the finest works of world literature.
The Vitruvian man by Leonardo da Vinci, representing the ideal human proportions as described by Roman architect Vitruvius, is a quintessential masterpiece of the Renaissance.
A chocolate gelato ice cream dessert.
Brunello di Montalcino is one of Italy's finest red wines, made around the town of Montalcino from a Sangiovese variant known locally as Brunello.
Alcide De Gasperi, Prime Minister 1945-53, is revered as a founding father of modern Italy and Europe.
Italy and the Habsburg Empire in 1547.
Greek temple of Hera, Selinunte, Sicily.
Giants of Mont'e Prama, Sardinia, Italy, early 1st millennium BC.
the Leaning Tower of Pisa
Venetian dessert tiramisù.
Andrea Palladio is often described as the most influential architect in the Western world.
Aragonese Castle in Reggio Calabria
Socialist leader Giacomo Matteotti was murdered a few days after he openly denounced Fascist violence during the 1924 elections.
The Redipuglia War Memorial of Redipuglia, resting place of 100,000 Italian soldiers. More than 650,000 died on the battlefields of World War I. The total deaths for Italy amounted to 1,240,000.
Gucci and Dolce & Gabbana Store on the Las Vegas Strip in Las Vegas
Marco Polo at the court of Kublai Khan (painting by Tranquillo Cremona, 1863).
Italy today.
The Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C., reflects the president's admiration for classical Roman aesthetics.
The discovery of the New World by Christoper Columbus.
Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour, the first Prime Minister in the history of Italy.
Insurgents celebrating the liberation of Naples after the Four days of Naples (27-30 September 1943).
Spanish Republican poster against the Italian intervention in the Spanish Civil War, reading "The claw of the Italian invader intends to enslave us."
Entrance of Garibaldi into Naples on 7 September 1860
Italian states in 1494.
Regional seat of RAI in Cosenza.
Neapolitan pizza Margherita.
The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci, possibly one of the most famous and iconic examples of Italian art
Maximum extent of the Italian Empire.
Pinocchio Disney film is based on The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi.
The signing ceremony of the Treaty of Rome on 25 March 1957, creating the EEC, forerunner of the present-day EU.
The espresso comes from the Italian esprimere, which means "to express," and refers to the process by which hot water is forced under pressure through ground coffee.
Su Nuraxi nuraghe, Sardinia, Italy, 2nd millennium BC.
Antonio Meucci, c.1880, inventor of the first telephone
Italian kingdom in 1919.
Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa is an Italian art masterpiece worldwide famous
Etruscan pendant with swastika symbols, Bolsena, Italy, 700-650 BCE. Louvre Museum.
Florence Cathedral, Arnolfo di Cambio, campanile by Giotto dome engineered by Filippo Brunelleschi.
Silvio Berlusconi, Prime Minister of Italy for almost ten years between 1994 and 2011.
A Ferrari SF70H by Scuderia Ferrari, the oldest surviving and most successful Formula One team.
The Colosseum, originally known as the Flavian Amphitheatre, is an elliptical amphitheatre in the centre of the city of Rome, the largest ever built in the Roman Empire.
The Uffizi.
Leonardo da Vinci is one of the greatest painters and most versatile geniuses in history.
St. Peter's Basilica is the world's largest Christian church. It is the second church to stand above the crypt (tomb) believed to hold the body of Saint Peter, the first pope.
Carmine Crocco
The Creation of Adam is one of the scenes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel of the Vatican, painted by Michelangelo sometime between 1508 and 1512.
Italian states in 1796.
Galileo Galilei, the founder of modern experimental science.
This mosaic depicts some of the Gladiators entertainments that would have been offered at the games.
Commedia dell'arte troupe Gelosi in a late 16th-century Flemish painting.
Mussolini and Hitler in June 1940.
Contemporary engraving of Naples during the Naples Plague in 1656
Antonio Canova's Venus Victrix.
Palazzo della Carovana, the current seat of the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa.
the Ecstasy of Saint Teresa by Gian Lorenzo Bernini.
The Battle of San Romano by Paolo Uccello (ca. 1438-40).
The Colosseum in Rome, built in the 1st century.
The celebration of the Azzurri for the first victory (of four) in the 1934 World football championship
Alessandro Manzoni, one of Italy's greatest 19th-century writers.
the EUR in Rome is a perfect example of modern Italian architecture
Etruscan fresco in the Tomb of the Leopards, Monterozzi necropolis, 5th century BCE.
Fresco of dancing Peucetian women in the Tomb of the Dancers in Ruvo di Puglia, 4th-5th century BCE
Benito Mussolini during the March on Rome in 1922.
Italian Kingdom in 1861.
The Battle of Bitonto by Giovanni Luigi Rocco
Italian states (1815-1859).
Pasta with pesto sauce.
A 1905 Fiat advertisement.
Mussolini reviewing adolescent soldiers, late 1944.
Residents of Fiume cheering D'Annunzio and his Legionari, September 1919. At the time, Fiume had 22,488 (62% of the population) Italians in a total population of 35,839 inhabitants.
Giuseppe Garibaldi, hero of Italian unification.
The Roman Forum, the commercial, cultural, and political center of the city and the Republic which housed the various offices and meeting places of the government.
Emirate of Sicily (831-1072).
Chiostro of the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore.