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Italy (Italian: Italia [i'ta:lja] ), officially the Italian Republic (Italian: Repubblica Italiana [re'pubblika ita'lja:na]), is a country consisting of a peninsula delimited by the Alps and surrounded by several islands. Italy is located in south-central Europe, and it is also considered a part of western Europe. A unitary parliamentary republic with its capital in Rome, 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 exclave 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.

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Top: Panorama view of Mergellina Port, Mergellina, Chiaia area, over view of Mount Vesuvius, Second left: Naples Directional Center (Centro Direzionale di Napoli) and Spaccanapoli Street, Second right: Via Toledo Street, Third left: Naples Media Center, Third right: Castel Nuovo (Maschio Angioino), Bottom: View of Centro direzionale di Napoli, from Naples Railroad Station

Naples (; Italian: Napoli ['na:poli] ; Neapolitan: Napule ['n?:p?l?, 'n?:pul?]; Ancient Greek: , romanized: Neápolis) is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy after Rome and Milan with a population of 967,069 within the city's administrative limits as of 2017. Its province-level municipality is the third-most populous metropolitan area in Italy with a population of 3,115,320 residents, and its continuously built-up metropolitan area (that stretches beyond the boundaries of the Metropolitan City of Naples) is the second-most populous metropolitan area in Italy and one of the most densely populated cities in Europe.

First settled by Greeks in the second millennium BC, Naples is one of the oldest continuously inhabited urban areas in the world. In the ninth century BC, a colony known as Parthenope or was established on the Island of Megaride. In the 6th century BC, it was refounded as Neápolis. The city was an important part of Magna Graecia, played a major role in the merging of Greek and Roman society, and was a significant cultural centre under the Romans. Read more...

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

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...that the Italian automaker Autobianchi was founded by the bicycle manufacturer Bianchi, tire giant Pirelli and Fiat?

...that Umarell [uma'r?:l:], is an Italian slang term for sidewalk superintendent, popular in Bologna and increasingly used in other part of the country?

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Roman cuisine comes from the Italian city of Rome. It features fresh, seasonal and simply-prepared ingredients from Roman Campagna. These include peas, globe artichokes and fava beans, shellfish, milk-fed lamb and goat, and cheeses such as Pecorino Romano and ricotta. Olive oil is used mostly to dress raw vegetables, while strutto (pork lard) and fat from prosciutto are preferred for frying. The most popular sweets in Rome are small individual pastries called pasticcini, gelato (ice cream) and handmade chocolates and candies. Special dishes are often reserved for different days of the week; for example, gnocchi is eaten on Thursdays, baccalà (salted cod) on Fridays, and trippa on Saturdays. Read more...

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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 Pizza di Pasqua 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.

Milan Cathedral is the fourth-largest church in the world.
The Venice Film Festival is the oldest film festival in the world and one of the "Big Three" alongside Cannes and Berlin
Fiat 600, iconic middle-class dream car and status symbol of the 1950-60s.
Ötzi the oldest mummy in the world discovered in the southern Alps (region of Trentino-Alto Adige) with extremely sophisticated equipment to that time. 4th millennium BC.
Imperial ambitions of Fascist Italy in Europe, 1936.
Commedia dell'arte troupe Gelosi in a late 16th-century Flemish painting.
Marchese Guglielmo Marconi was the inventor of radio.
Fresco of dancing Peucetian women in the Tomb of the Dancers in Ruvo di Puglia, 4th-5th century BCE
The celebration of the Azzurri for the first victory (of four) in the 1934 World football championship
Chiostro of the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore.
Etruscan fresco, 5th century BCE.
Italian kingdom in 1861.
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
Maximum extent of the Italian Empire.
Giuseppe Garibaldi, hero of Italian unification.
Emirate of Sicily (831-1072).
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.
Socialist leader Giacomo Matteotti was murdered a few days after he openly denounced Fascist violence during the 1924 elections.
Antonio Vivaldi, in 1723. His best-known work is a series of violin concertos known as The Four Seasons
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.
"Italophone" world.
  Official language.

  Secondary, widely spoken or understood.

  Understood by some due to former colonisation.
A chocolate gelato ice cream dessert.
Spanish Republican poster against the Italian intervention in the Spanish Civil War, reading "The claw of the Italian invader intends to enslave us."
Ancient Greek colonies and their dialect groupings in Southern Italy.
  NW Greek
  Achaean
  Doric
  Ionian
Italy's Naval Jack, featuring the coats of arms of the four best known Maritime Republics. Clockwise from upper left: Venice, Genoa, Pisa, Amalfi.
Italian states (1815-1859).
Andrea Palladio is often described as the most influential architect in the Western world.
A 1905 Fiat advertisement.
Palazzo della Carovana, the current seat of the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa.
Antonio Meucci, c.1880, inventor of the first telephone
Aragonese Castle in Reggio Calabria
William Shakespeare is an example of an Italophile of the 16th century.
Petroglyph in Valcamonica, Lombardy, the largest collection of prehistoric petroglyphs in the world (10th millennium BC).
Mussolini reviewing adolescent soldiers, late 1944.
Pasta with pesto sauce.
Regions of Roman Italy.
Attack of the far-right terrorist group NAR at the Bologna railway station on 2 August 1980, which caused the death of 85 people.
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 prisoners in El Alamein, November 1942.
Michelangelo's David, one of the symbols of Italian Renaissance.
The Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C., reflects the president's admiration for classical Roman aesthetics.
The signing ceremony of the Treaty of Rome on 25 March 1957, creating the EEC, forerunner of the present-day EU.
Italian unification.
Italy and the Habsburg Empire in 1547.
Alessandro Manzoni, one of Italy's greatest 19th-century writers.
Rai Radio 1.
The Roman Empire at its greatest extent under Trajan in CE 117.
Giants of Mont'e Prama, Sardinia, Italy, early 1st millennium BC.
Italian states in 1494.
The Uffizi.
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 Leaning Tower of Pisa
The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci, possibly one of the most famous and iconic examples of Italian art
Mussolini and Hitler in June 1940.
Giuseppe Verdi, one of Italy's greatest opera composers. Portrait by Giovanni Boldini.
The Battle of San Romano by Paolo Uccello (ca. 1438-40).
Botticelli's The Birth of Venus, ca. 1482-85.
the EUR in Rome is a perfect example of modern Italian architecture
Insurgents celebrating the liberation of Naples after the Four days of Naples (27-30 September 1943).
Su Nuraxi nuraghe, Sardinia, Italy, 2nd millennium BC.
the Arch of Constantine in Rome.
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.
Italian irredentism map.
Italy and the nearby islands in the 1st century BCE.
Etruscan pendant with swastika symbols, Bolsena, Italy, 700-650 BCE. Louvre Museum.
Gucci and Dolce & Gabbana Store on the Las Vegas Strip in Las Vegas
Physician attire for protection from the Bubonic plague or Black death, 1656.
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.
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.
Neapolitan pizza Margherita.
From left to right, Chamberlain, Daladier, Hitler, Mussolini and Italian Foreign Minister Count Ciano at the signing of Munich Agreement.
Official portrait of Benito Mussolini.
Federico Fellini, considered one of the most influential and widely revered filmmakers of the 20th century.
Italian states in 1796.
Italian Lombard kingdom (781-1014).
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.
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.
Venetian dessert tiramisù.
Florence Cathedral, Arnolfo di Cambio, campanile by Giotto dome engineered by Filippo Brunelleschi.
Map of Etruscan civilisation.
The discovery of the New World by Christoper Columbus.
Marco Polo at the court of Kublai Khan (painting by Tranquillo Cremona, 1863).
Alcide De Gasperi, Prime Minister 1945-53, is revered as a founding father of modern Italy and Europe.
Giuseppe Mazzini.
Silvio Berlusconi, Prime Minister of Italy for almost ten years between 1994 and 2011.
Italy has been a home for innovation in science in the centuries since Galileo formulated his theories of planetary movement.
Italian kingdom in 1919.
David, by Michelangelo (Accademia di Belle Arti, Florence, Italy) is a masterpiece of Renaissance and world art.
This mosaic depicts some of the Gladiators entertainments that would have been offered at the games.
Greek temple of Hera, Selinunte, Sicily.
Pinocchio Disney film is based on The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi.
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.
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.
Sergio Mattarella, President of the Italian Republic, elected on 3 February 2015.
Regional seat of RAI in Cosenza.
Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour, the first Prime Minister in the history of Italy.
A Ferrari SF70H by Scuderia Ferrari, the oldest surviving and most successful Formula One team.
Umberto II, the last King of Italy, was exiled to Portugal.
A Prada shop in Singapore.
the Ecstasy of Saint Teresa by Gian Lorenzo Bernini.
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.
Italy today.
The Battle of Bitonto by Giovanni Luigi Rocco
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.
Iron Age hut foundations on the Palatine Hill considered to be the Casa Romuli, the reputed dwelling-place of Romulus.
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.
Carmine Crocco
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.
Antonio Canova's Venus Victrix.
Benito Mussolini during the March on Rome in 1922.
Leonardo da Vinci is one of the greatest painters and most versatile geniuses in history.
Galileo Galilei, the founder of modern experimental science.
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.
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.
The Colosseum in Rome, built in the 1st century.
The historic seat of the Corriere della Sera in via Solferino in Milan.
Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa is an Italian art masterpiece worldwide famous