94 Fun Facts About Italy

Which city was the Kingdom of Italy's capital right before Rome took the job in 1871?

Florence served as the Kingdom of Italy's capital from 1865 to 1871, after Turin (1861–65) and before the government moved to Rome.

Which common object is often used to describe the shape of the Italian peninsula?

Italy is famously shaped like a boot, lo Stivale in Italian, with Apulia forming the heel and Calabria the toe.

Which mountain range runs 1,200 km down the spine of peninsular Italy?

The Apennines run some 1,200 km as parallel smaller chains, joining the Ligurian Alps in the northwest and ending at Reggio di Calabria at the toe.

Which Roman emperor started building the Colosseum, though he never saw it finished?

Vespasian began the Colosseum around AD 72; his son Titus inaugurated it in AD 80, so the Flavian dynasty gave it its formal name, the Flavian Amphitheatre.

Which Renaissance 'non-painter' carved David and frescoed the Sistine Chapel ceiling?

Michelangelo, who saw himself as a sculptor, finished David in 1504 and painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling between 1508 and 1512.

What currency did Italy give up for the Euro in 2002?

The Lira was introduced by the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy in 1807 at par with the French franc, and served as Italy's currency from 1861 until 2002.

Which of these countries shares a land border with Italy?

Italy shares land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, and Slovenia.

Which volcano's eruption in AD 79 buried the Roman towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum?

Mount Vesuvius erupted in AD 79, burying Pompeii and Herculaneum along with Oplontis and Stabiae under ash and pyroclastic flows.

Which is the longest river in Italy, running 652 kilometres eastward from the Cottian Alps?

Counting the right-bank tributary the Maira brings the length to 682 kilometres.

Which sovereign enclave inside Rome was created by the Lateran Treaty of 1929?

Vatican City was created by the 1929 Lateran Treaty between Mussolini's Italy and the Holy See; at about 44 hectares it is the world's smallest sovereign state.

Which active stratovolcano on Sicily's east coast, about 3,400 metres high, is Italy's tallest peak south of the Alps?

Mount Etna is about two and a half times the height of the next largest of Italy's four active volcanoes, and its exact summit shifts with each eruption.

Roughly how many bridges link the islands of Venice's historic centre?

The islands sit in the Venetian Lagoon, an enclosed bay between the mouths of the Po and the Piave.

The Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed under Victor Emmanuel II on 17 March of which year, marking unification?

1861 was the year, a decade before Rome itself joined the kingdom; Victor Emmanuel II became its first king.

Roughly how many people live in Italy, the EU's third most populous member?

Italy's 2021 census counted about 59 million residents, placing it behind Germany and France but ahead of Spain within the EU.

The pizza Margherita's tomato, mozzarella and basil are said to represent what?

Red tomato, white mozzarella and green basil are said to echo the colours of the Italian flag; legend credits Neapolitan pizzaiolo Raffaele Esposito with making it for Queen Margherita in 1889.

Which cheese, aged at least a year in a few northern provinces, is the 'king of cheeses'?

Parmigiano Reggiano, aged at least 12 months, may only be made in Parma, Reggio Emilia, Modena and parts of Bologna and Mantua.

Garibaldi's Expedition of the Thousand landed in 1860 at which western Sicilian port?

The Thousand landed at Marsala on 11 May 1860, six days after sailing from Quarto near Genoa, opening the conquest of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.

In which city did Garibaldi's Italian Legion first acquire its famous red shirts?

Garibaldi's Italian Legion in Montevideo adopted red shirts in the 1840s, buying cheap stock meant for Buenos Aires slaughterhouses; he brought the look back to Italy in 1848.

The Leaning Tower of Pisa was built to house what for the neighbouring cathedral?

Its three-metre foundation in soft subsoil began tilting during construction, which dragged on for 199 years.

Coins tossed into the Trevi Fountain in Rome are collected and given to whom?

The coins, roughly 3,000 euros a day, are swept up and handed to the Catholic charity Caritas, which spends them on Rome's poor.

How many FIFA World Cups had Italy won by the end of 2022?

The wins came in 1934, 1938, 1982 and 2006, though the Azzurri failed to qualify for both 2018 and 2022.

Angelo Moriondo's 1884 patent, an espresso-machine ancestor, pushed water through the coffee with what?

Moriondo's 1884 machine used steam pressure from a boiler to force hot water through coffee in bulk; Luigi Bezzera's 1901 Milan patent made single cups practical.

Which poet is known in Italy as il Sommo Poeta and called the father of the Italian language?

Dante Alighieri wrote the Divine Comedy in his native Tuscan rather than Latin and died in exile in Ravenna in 1321, where his tomb stands.

La Scala's opera season traditionally opens on 7 December, the feast day of which saint?

Ambrose is Milan's patron; the house itself opened in 1778 with a Salieri opera on the site of a demolished church.

Guglielmo Marconi shared the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics for work in which field?

Marconi shared the 1909 prize with Karl Ferdinand Braun for contributions to wireless telegraphy; in 1901 he claimed to receive the letter S sent from Cornwall to Newfoundland.

Which Italian physicist, born in Como, is credited with inventing the electric battery?

Alessandro Volta, born in Como in 1745, built the voltaic pile in 1799–1800, the first true battery; the volt is named for him, and he also identified methane.

The name of the Vespa scooter is the Italian word for which insect?

Vespa is Italian for wasp, a name Enrico Piaggio reportedly chose for the 1946 scooter's narrow waist and buzzing engine; Roman Holiday (1953) turned it into a global icon.

The dessert name 'tiramisu' translates roughly to what?

Tiramisù means 'pick me up' (tirami su); the mascarpone and coffee-soaked savoiardi dessert is usually traced to Le Beccherie restaurant in Treviso around 1970.

Under what condition did Galileo spend the rest of his life after his 1633 conviction?

Galileo was sentenced to house arrest and spent his last years at his villa in Arcetri near Florence, where he wrote Two New Sciences, published in 1638.

San Marino, the tiny republic surrounded by Italy, is led by two Captains Regent who serve for how long?

Tradition holds that the state was founded by Saint Marinus in 301, making it the world's oldest surviving republic.

The Giro d'Italia leader's jersey takes its colour from what?

The leader's pink jersey echoes the pink newsprint of La Gazzetta dello Sport, which founded the Giro in 1909; the jersey appeared in 1931, mirroring the Tour's yellow for L'Auto.

Ferrari's prancing horse emblem was originally the personal symbol of what kind of person?

Francesco Baracca's mother suggested Enzo Ferrari adopt the horse for luck; it first appeared on a car in 1932.

Juventus's black-and-white striped shirts were copied from which English club in 1903?

Juventus player John Savage asked a friend in Nottingham for hard-wearing kit; the Notts County shirts that arrived in 1903 replaced Juve's fading pink and have stayed ever since.

Which is the largest of Italy's lakes?

Garda covers about 370 square kilometres, split between Lombardy, Veneto and Trentino.

Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper is painted on the wall of what kind of room in Milan?

The mural covers a wall of the refectory, the dining hall, of the Dominican convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie; Leonardo's tempera on gesso rather than true fresco has flaked for five centuries.

Which Florence gallery houses Botticelli's The Birth of Venus?

The Birth of Venus, painted around 1485, hangs in the Uffizi beside Botticelli's Primavera; it was among the first large-scale nudes from classical myth in Renaissance art.

Federico Fellini holds the record for most wins of which Academy Award?

Four Fellini films won Best Foreign Language Film: La Strada (1956), Nights of Cabiria (1957), 8½ (1963) and Amarcord (1974), more than any other director's work.

Which king appointed Mussolini prime minister after the March on Rome in 1922?

Victor Emmanuel III refused to sign a state-of-siege decree and invited Mussolini to form a government on 29 October 1922, so the Fascists took power without a shot fired in the capital.

Pavarotti's signature aria 'Nessun dorma', made famous by the 1990 World Cup, comes from which opera?

'Nessun dorma' is Calaf's aria from Puccini's Turandot (1926); the BBC used Pavarotti's recording as its Italia '90 theme, and the first Three Tenors album became the best-selling classical record.

Enrico Fermi's Chicago Pile-1, which went critical in 1942, was the first working what?

Chicago Pile-1 achieved the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction on 2 December 1942, making it the first working nuclear reactor; Fermi had left Italy in 1938 straight after collecting his Nobel Prize.

Prosecco is made mainly from which grape?

Glera was the grape's new name from 2009; it had been called Prosecco, after the village near Trieste, until the name was reserved for the wine's origin.

What does the final T in the carmaker's name FIAT stand for?

Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino was founded in 1899 and its Lingotto plant was once Europe's largest car factory.

Roughly 7,000 Bronze Age stone towers called nuraghi are found on which Italian island?

Sardinia, the Mediterranean's second-largest island, has roughly 7,000 surviving nuraghi, stone towers the Nuragic civilisation began building around 1500 BC.

Nutella was created in Piedmont partly because of a post-war shortage of what ingredient?

Cocoa was scarce and rationed after the war, so Pietro Ferrero stretched it with Piedmont's abundant hazelnuts; the Nutella jar first left the Alba factory in 1964.

Which Italian town is an exclave, entirely surrounded by Switzerland?

Campione d'Italia sits on Lake Lugano, cut off from the rest of Italy by Swiss territory; Italy in turn surrounds two enclaves of its own, San Marino and Vatican City.

Italy's highest point, at 4,810 metres, lies on the summit of which mountain in the Alps?

Mont Blanc's summit ridge marks the border with France, and Italians call it Monte Bianco; Italy's 4,810-metre high point sits on it.

Which region sends just one senator to Rome, the smallest delegation of any region?

Aosta Valley elects a single senator; Molise is next with two, and since the 2020 constitutional reform every other region is guaranteed at least three.

How many of Italy's regions hold special autonomous status under the constitution?

They are Aosta Valley, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Sardinia, Sicily and Trentino-Alto Adige.

Stromboli's near-constant minor eruptions earned the island what nickname?

Stromboli's glow, visible far out to sea, earned it the nickname Lighthouse of the Mediterranean; its mild Strombolian bursts recur every 10 to 20 minutes.

Which emperor completed the present Pantheon in Rome, whose unreinforced concrete dome is still the world's largest?

Hadrian completed the present building after the original burnt down, and its dome remains the largest unreinforced concrete dome in the world almost two millennia later.

Chianti is produced principally from which grape?

Sangiovese is Chianti's backbone; Baron Bettino Ricasoli, twice prime minister, set the blend's blueprint in 1872 with Sangiovese dominant over Canaiolo and Malvasia.

A gold label on traditional balsamic vinegar means at least how many years of ageing?

Under Reggio Emilia's labels, gold means at least 25 years of ageing, with red for 12 and silver for 18; the vinegar passes through a battery of ever-smaller barrels.

Which Italian city hosted the 2006 Winter Olympics?

Turin hosted the 2006 Winter Games; the city also staged World Cup matches in 1934 and 1990 and the Eurovision Song Contest in 2022.

The Mole Antonelliana, Turin's architectural symbol, hosts which national museum?

The Mole Antonelliana has housed the National Museum of Cinema since 2000; Turin's separate Museo Egizio holds one of the largest Egyptian collections outside Egypt.

The oldest university in continuous operation, founded in 1088, is in which city?

The University of Bologna, founded in 1088, is the oldest university in continuous operation and is credited as the first to award degrees in the modern sense.

Which Italian writer won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1997?

Dario Fo, the satirist behind Accidental Death of an Anarchist, won in 1997; Italy's first literature Nobel had gone to Giosuè Carducci in 1906.

Giuseppe Mazzini founded which nationalist movement in the 1830s?

Mazzini founded Young Italy (La Giovine Italia) in Marseille in 1831 to campaign for a unitary republic, not the monarchy that unification eventually produced.

Roman tradition dates the founding of Rome to 21 April of which year?

Tradition, following Varro's chronology, dates Romulus's founding of Rome to 21 April 753 BC; the site had been inhabited for centuries before that.

Which Roman poet first called Rome 'the Eternal City'?

The elegist Tibullus wrote of the aeterna urbs around 19 BC in his second book of Elegies; Ovid and Livy later took up the phrase, and Urbs Aeterna stuck.

Venice's historic centre is built on a group of roughly how many islands?

The historic centre stands on about 126 small islands, older counts say 118, in the shallow Venetian Lagoon between the mouths of the Po and the Piave.

Venice's traditional first doge, Paolo Lucio Anafesto, was elected in which year?

Tradition puts Anafesto's election in 697, a claim resting on the chronicle of John, deacon of Venice, written around 1008; many historians doubt he existed at all.

A Venetian sumptuary law required gondolas to be painted which colour?

A 1562 sumptuary law ended the nobles' gaudy decoration and made every gondola black; the boats are also built asymmetrically so a single oar can drive them straight.

On which day does the Carnival of Venice end?

Carnival ends on Shrove Tuesday, Martedì Grasso, the day before Lent begins; revived in 1979, the modern festival draws around three million visitors a year.

Napoli's home stadium was renamed in honour of which player?

Diego Maradona, the Argentine attacking midfielder, spent seven years at Napoli and led it to its first two league titles, so the ground became the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona.

Palermo was under Arab rule in the Emirate of Sicily from 831 until which year?

Robert Guiscard and Roger I took Palermo in 1072; the Normans later made it capital of the Kingdom of Sicily, which lasted until its 1816 merger into the Two Sicilies.

Gelato typically contains roughly what proportion of air?

Gelato is churned slowly and takes in only about 25–35% air, against 50% or more for ice cream; its 4–8% butterfat, lower than ice cream's, lets the flavour come through.

The Palio di Siena is run twice a year, on 2 July and on the 16th of which month?

The second Palio, the Palio dell'Assunta, runs on 16 August; in each race ten of the city's seventeen contrade ride bareback for three laps of the Piazza del Campo.

Before sports cars, Ferruccio Lamborghini founded a company in 1948 making what?

Ferruccio Lamborghini founded Lamborghini Trattori in 1948, building tractors from surplus military engines; SAME bought the tractor business in 1973, and the sports cars came in 1963.

Maserati's emblem is modelled on a fountain statue of which god's weapon?

Neptune's trident, drawn by Mario Maserati from the Fountain of Neptune in Piazza Maggiore, became the company logo.

Monza was the third purpose-built racing circuit, after Indianapolis and which track?

Brooklands (1907) and Indianapolis (1909) came first; some 3,500 workers built Monza in about 110 days in 1922, and drivers call it the Temple of Speed.

The Formula One Italian Grand Prix left Monza only once, in 1980, for which circuit?

The 1980 race moved to Imola while Monza was refurbished; Imola then hosted the San Marino Grand Prix from 1981, leaving the Italian title to Monza.

Roberto Baggio's nickname 'Il Divin Codino' refers to what?

He won the 1993 Ballon d'Or and carried Italy to the 1994 World Cup final.

Italy's men won three straight volleyball World Championships starting in which year?

The run covered 1990, 1994 and 1998, plus Olympic silvers in 1996, 2004 and 2016.

The Accademia della Crusca, the official body of the Italian language, was founded when?

It published the first Italian dictionary in 1612.

The Venice Film Festival, the world's oldest, was first held in which year?

The first Venice festival ran in August 1932 as part of the Biennale; its top prize, the Golden Lion, dates from 1949.

Which composer wrote the scores for Sergio Leone's Dollars Trilogy?

Ennio Morricone scored A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965) and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966), all directed by his former schoolmate Sergio Leone.

Sophia Loren won her Best Actress Oscar for which 1960 film?

Two Women (La ciociara), directed by Vittorio De Sica, won Loren the 1962 Best Actress Oscar, the first acting Oscar for a foreign-language performance.

The 11.6 km Mont Blanc Tunnel, opened in 1965, links Courmayeur with which French town?

The Mont Blanc Tunnel runs 11.6 km from Courmayeur in the Aosta Valley to Chamonix in France; it took eight years to dig and opened in July 1965.

The five villages of the Cinque Terre lie in which region?

The five Ligurian villages, Monterosso al Mare, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola and Riomaggiore, cling to the coast between Levanto and La Spezia.

At its narrowest, the Strait of Messina between Sicily and the mainland is how wide?

At its northern end, between Capo Peloro and Torre Cavallo, the strait narrows to about 3.1 km; its rocks and whirlpools gave rise to the legend of Scylla and Charybdis.

From which island did Emperor Tiberius govern Rome from AD 27 until his death?

Tiberius withdrew to Capri in AD 27 and ruled from there until his death in AD 37; Tacitus says he had twelve villas on the island, Villa Jovis the grandest.

The Carabinieri were founded in 1814 by the king of which state?

Victor Emmanuel I of the Kingdom of Sardinia created the corps in Turin on 13 July 1814, modelling it on the French gendarmerie.

The moka pot popularised by Bialetti is named after a port city in which country?

The pot takes its name from Mocha (al-Mukha), the Yemeni Red Sea port that once dominated the coffee trade; Alfonso Bialetti introduced it in 1933 and his son Renato made it a household staple.

Verdi's chorus 'Va, pensiero' comes from which opera?

'Va, pensiero', the Hebrew slaves' chorus from Verdi's Nabucco (1842), was later embraced as an anthem of the unification movement.

Cavour, Italy's first prime minister, died after how long in office?

Cavour became the Kingdom of Italy's first prime minister on 23 March 1861 and died on 6 June, less than three months later; he never saw Rome taken in 1870.

The President of Italy serves a term of how many years?

The President of the Republic serves seven years with no term limit; Sergio Mattarella, first elected in 2015, was re-elected in 2022.

Which Napoleonic sister state first adopted the Italian tricolour as its flag in 1797?

The Cispadane Republic's congress at Reggio Emilia adopted the green, white and red tricolour on 7 January 1797, a date marked each year as Tricolour Day.

Who was named man of the match in the 2006 World Cup final?

Andrea Pirlo, whose corner set up Materazzi's equaliser, was named man of the match as Italy beat France 5–3 on penalties after a 1–1 draw and Zidane's red card.

The world's first motorway, opened in 1924, ran from Milan towards which lakes?

Piero Puricelli's Autostrada dei Laghi opened on 21 September 1924 from Milan to Varese, reaching toward lakes Como and Maggiore; its route became the A8 and A9 motorways.

Trenitalia's Frecciarossa high-speed trains run at up to what speed?

Frecciarossa, 'red arrow', trains run at up to 300 km/h on Italy's high-speed lines; the Frecciarossa 1000 was built for 360 km/h but is capped at 300 in service.

Carlo Collodi's novel The Adventures of Pinocchio first appeared in which year?

The story was serialised in the Giornale per i bambini from July 1881 as Storia di un burattino, and appeared as a book in 1883.

In 2022, Italy was the world's largest producer of which of these?

Italy made about 50 million hectolitres of wine in 2022, ahead of France and Spain; it is also a leading grower of artichokes, kiwifruit and hazelnuts.

Which navigator's first name was Latinised to label the New World on a 1507 map?

Martin Waldseemüller's 1507 world map labelled the new continent 'America' after Americus Vesputius, the Latinised form of Amerigo Vespucci's first name.

Before nylon, Prada originally sold leather goods imported from which country?

Mario Prada founded the house in Milan in 1913.