Italia

Italy
1. History
Italy, officially the Italian Republic (Italian: Repubblica Italiana), is a sovereign member of the European Union. It is a bi-continental country's territory in Western Europe and North Africa, its European territory is formed by the peninsula, the Po Valley and two large islands in the Mediterranean Sea: Sicily and Sardinia, in Africa are the Pelagie Islands and the islandof Pantelleria. In the north is bordered by the Alps, where it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia. The independent states of San Marino and the Vatican City are enclaves within Italy. In turn Campione d'Italia is an Italian municipality forming a small enclave in Switzerland.
It has been the home of many European cultures such as the Etruscans, Greeks and Romans and was also thebirthplace of the Humanism and Renaissance, that began in Tuscany and soon spread throughout Europe. Italy's capital, Rome, was for centuries the political and cultural center of Western civilization, and also is the holy city for the Catholic Church, for within the city is the Vatican microstate. The country's cultural significance is reflected in its World Heritage because it has forty-seven, thelargest number of the world.2
It is the third European Union country that receives more tourists per year, making it the third largest city Rome visitada.3 Other major cities include Milan, center of finance and industry, and, according to the Global Language Monitor, the capital of Fashion , 4 Naples and Turin, center of automotive and industrial design. Italy is a democratic republic, is partof the G8 or Group of Eight leading industrial nations and is a developed country with a high quality of life, found in 2005 among the top eight of World.5
It is the country number 24 (HR 2011) in high human development index just behind Spain and ahead of Luxemburgo.6 is a founding member of the European Union, signed the Treaty of Rome in 1957. It is also a founding member of the AtlanticTreaty Organization (NATO) and a member of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the World Trade Organization, the Council of Europe and Western European Union. The country, and especially Rome, has a strong impact on political and cultural issues in global organizations such as the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), 7 the International Fund for Agricultural Development(IFAD), the Glocal Forum, 8 or the World Food Programme (WFP).
2. Language
It is the official language of Italy, San Marino, and one of the four official languages ​​of Switzerland, spoken in Italy by 60.7 million people, and another 10 million worldwide. It is a Romance language that comes from the Florentine dialect, belonging to the family of Italic Lela Italian language originated in theregion of Tuscany. The modern Italian is a Tuscan dialect that has managed to impose as the language of a region much larger than its native region. This is the Tuscan dialect of Florence, Pisa and Siena, which has been imposed not by any political, economic or military as usual, but because he was carrying cultural prestige as the language in which he wrote the Divine Comedy, which is considered thefirst literary work written in the "modern language". The Tuscan is indeed the language in which he wrote Dante Alighieri, Francesco Petrarca and Giovanni Boccaccio, considered the three great writers of the Indo-European italiano.nguas PreRenaissance.
3. Italian currency or euro
The euro (EUR or €) is the currency for the European nations belonging to the European Union Eurozone. The eurocoins have two different sides, a common side (front) across Europe indicating the value of the currency and a national side with the chosen design for each of the countries.
Italian euro coins each have a unique design, dedicated to honoring the Italian art better known. Each coin was designed by a different artist, namely coin 1 cent to 2 euro: Eugenio Driutti, Luciana De Simoni, Ettore Lorenzo...