| About Italy |
• Economy
Modern Italy is an important industrial nation. The “Italian miracle” started in the 50s and now Italy is one of the seven most industrialised countries in the world. Italy has a developed mixed private and publicly owned economy, but its public sector is one of the most extensive in Europe.
Industry is well diversified. Steel production forms the backbone of the metallurgical and engineering industries. The main manufactured products include textile machinery, machine tools, automobiles and domestic electrical appliances. Italy’s principal exports are machinery and transport equipment, clothing and shoes, and food products such as pasta, olive oil, wine and fruit.
Tourism is well developed, centring on Italy’s unsurpassed Roman antiquities and works of art and architecture from the Middle Ages through the Renaissance and on into the 18th century.
• People
The Italian people are not ethnically homogenous, reflecting a long history of foreign invasion and migration. A variety of physical types is present in the population. Nevertheless, most speak Italian or dialects or languages related to Italian. These dialects vary considerably from region to region and are considered separate languages in the case of Sardinian, Friulian and Ladin two Rhaeto-Romanic languages spoken in the region of Friuli and in the mountains of Alto Adige. There are a few minorities speaking German, French, Slovenian, Greek and Albanian.
• Cultural Life
Italy’s contributions to the arts are unparalleled. Through Dante, Petrarch and Giovanni Boccaccio, Italian literature early reached the greatness. After the creation of Ludovico Ariosto and Torquato Tasso in the later Renaissance, Italian literature declined somewhat into formalism but was reinvigorated in the 19th century by Alessandro Manzoni and Giacomo Leopardi and in the 20th century by Gabriele D’Annunzio and Luigi Pirandello.
The great names in Italian visual arts and architecture through the centuries include Giotto, Donatello, botticelli, Michelangelo, Leonardo Da Vinci, raffaello, Tiziano and Tintoretto.
Italian music can boast of such composers as Claudio Monteverdi, Antonio Vivaldi, Alessandro e Domenico Scarlatti, Gioacchino Rossini, Giuseppe Verdi and Giacomo Puccini.
Italy’s most significant contribution to contemporary culture has probably been in cinema. Important directors include Rossellini, De Sica, Antonioni, Fellini, Pasolini, Visconti, Moretti, Salvatores, Archibugi and Benigni.
