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120-844: The Amalfi Coast ( Italian : Costiera amalfitana or Costa d'Amalfi ) is a stretch of coastline in southern Italy overlooking the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Gulf of Salerno . It is located south of the Sorrentine Peninsula and north of the Cilentan Coast . Attracting international tourists of all classes annually, the Amalfi Coast was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997. Atrani and Vietri sul Mare are marketed as I Borghi più belli d'Italia ("The most beautiful villages of Italy"). During

240-689: A local language of Italy , most frequently the language spoken at home in their place of origin. Italian is a major language in Europe, being one of the official languages of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe and one of the working languages of the Council of Europe . It is the third-most-widely spoken native language in the European Union (13% of the EU population) and it

360-408: A "fabulously strong episode, and one of the series’ greatest hits". Episode 2 also received very positive reviews from publications such as IGN , PC Gamer , Game Revolution , and US Gamer . Conversely, staff writers from Hardcore Gamer , Destructoid , and Kotaku highlighted concerns over the level's technical issues and mandatory online connectivity. GameSpot criticized

480-486: A barrier. Some of the story threads designed to eliminate Caruso often lean upon his relationship with his late mother, or his mental health issues. Elverdam noted that feedback from many players of Sapienza indicate that they did not necessarily feel comfortable killing Caruso because of his humanizing qualities. He states that Caruso's sincere connection to his mother and his backstory as a victim of bullying made him more interesting and complex and this moral ambiguity made

600-470: A collaboration between writers and designers, and a way for the team to push the power fantasy of the Hitman experience through the player's manipulation of 47's quarry. For example, Elverdam cites 47's wait for Caruso's arrival while in the guise of Dr. Lafayette as a " chessmaster " moment, in that the character is seemingly one step ahead of his targets. Sapienza is presented as a scenic coastal town, with

720-477: A hand-made thick paper called bambagina , symbolic of Italy's traditional technique for paper production and historically used for private writings, legal acts, and revenue stamps. Other notable local products are a particular kind of anchovy (local Italian: alici ) from Cetara and the colourful handmade ceramics from Vietri . Buses and ferries run along the Amalfi Coast, as well as boat excursions from Positano and Amalfi. The Salerno Costa d'Amalfi Airport

840-565: A huge number of civil servants and soldiers recruited from all over the country introduced many more words and idioms from their home languages— ciao is derived from the Venetian word s-cia[v]o ("slave", that is "your servant"), panettone comes from the Lombard word panetton , etc. Only 2.5% of Italy's population could speak the Italian standardized language properly when

960-471: A little over one million people in the United States speak Italian at home. Nevertheless, an Italian language media market does exist in the country. In Canada, Italian is the second most spoken non-official language when varieties of Chinese are not grouped together, with 375,645 claiming Italian as their mother tongue in 2016. Italian immigrants to South America have also brought a presence of

1080-564: A marketing campaign named "Choose Your Hit" in which players voted to "kill" either Gary Busey or Gary Cole . There are also 3 bonus missions in Sapienza all set on different sections of the map. "The Icon" is a mission set around the Town Square that has been repurposed into a filming location, and requires the assassination of the film director for its completion. "Landslide" is another bonus mission that acts as prequel in which Agent 47

1200-410: A member of Caruso's household by saying “I’m the best”, which is meant to be a double meaning that references his true purpose. He describes the moment as "downplayed" yet "pretty powerful" and an example of how the "Opportunities" in the game allow the team to write meaningful banter for 47, where he could be "talking to the different targets or sometimes just introducing himself". The "Opportunities" are

1320-486: A palace: it may have different floors, a basement, an attic, with main and rear entrances and an adjacent garden. The level design approach behind Sapienza, with larger environments than levels seen in 2006's Hitman: Blood Money combined with dense populations of non-player characters used in Hitman: Absolution , is considered a bold departure from IO's previous work as the company had never before created

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1440-658: A poetic and literary origin in the works of Tuscan writers of the 12th century, and, although the grammar and core lexicon are basically unchanged from those used in Florence in the 13th century, the modern standard of the language was largely shaped by relatively recent events. However, Romance vernacular as language spoken in the Italian Peninsula has a longer history. In fact, the earliest surviving texts that can definitely be called vernacular (as distinct from its predecessor Vulgar Latin) are legal formulae known as

1560-417: A renewed interest in linguistics in the 16th century, sparked a debate that raged throughout Italy concerning the criteria that should govern the establishment of a modern Italian literary and spoken language. This discussion, known as questione della lingua (i.e., the problem of the language ), ran through the Italian culture until the end of the 19th century, often linked to the political debate on achieving

1680-522: A result. Starting in late medieval times in much of Europe and the Mediterranean, Latin was replaced as the primary commercial language by languages of Italy, especially Tuscan and Venetian. These varieties were consolidated during the Renaissance with the strength of Italy and the rise of humanism and the arts . Italy came to enjoy increasing artistic prestige within Europe. A mark of

1800-503: A sentiment that it is not a gratifying task to complete. To Elverdam, the experience serve as a reminder for the team to be mindful of how there could be room for improvement for designing mission objectives for future levels. The feedback from players who said they felt forced to go down to the lab to destroy the virus every time they played the Sapienza level influenced the development of the New York DLC level from Hitman 2 , which

1920-561: A seven-vowel system, consisting of /a, ɛ, e, i, ɔ, o, u/ , as well as 23 consonants. Compared with most other Romance languages, Italian phonology is conservative, preserving many words nearly unchanged from Vulgar Latin . Some examples: Sapienza (Hitman) Episode 2 and its Sapienza level is often cited as the standard against which subsequent Hitman episodes from the World of Assassination trilogy of Hitman video games released between 2016 and 2021 are compared to, as well as one of

2040-479: A single language is that they have evolved so that they are no longer mutually intelligible ; this diagnostic is effective if mutual intelligibility is minimal or absent (e.g. in Romance, Romanian and Portuguese), but it fails in cases such as Spanish-Portuguese or Spanish-Italian, as educated native speakers of either pairing can understand each other well if they choose to do so; however, the level of intelligibility

2160-418: A sprawling maze of narrow streets punctuated by explorable buildings. A major landmark of Sapienza is a large clifftop mansion, with an attached observatory and secret underground laboratory, that is built over a site of old castle ruins. "World of Tomorrow" is the mission title of Episode 2 , which is centered around the elimination of a biological weapon, a deadly virus created by Silvio Caruso, housed within

2280-469: A summer holiday trip, where the good weather provided ample inspiration for Christensen. Christensen based Sapienza's look on towns along the Amalfi Coast, using both the colourful buildings and what he considered to be unusual topography. The team never traveled to Italy on a field trip in order to create Sapienza's in-game locales; instead, much of the research was done remotely using YouTube and Google Street View of Vernazza and other similar towns along

2400-543: A target as an example, Christensen emphasized that overall impression of the level's space is very important. In an interview, he noted that if a structure looks like it cannot objectively hold its own weight or if 47's animation for throwing someone out of a window somehow does not accommodate the thickness of a medieval wall, players will notice the incongruence, which will provoke a negative subliminal reaction from within themselves. Citing positive feedback from Italian players, Christensen also claimed that Sapienza's imitation of

2520-513: A united Italian state. Renaissance scholars divided into three main factions: A fourth faction claimed that the best Italian was the one that the papal court adopted, which was a mixture of the Tuscan and Roman dialects. Eventually, Bembo's ideas prevailed, and the foundation of the Accademia della Crusca in Florence (1582–1583), the official legislative body of the Italian language, led to

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2640-443: A video game level on such a scale. A distinctive feature of the level involve containing the main objectives in the mansion's premises, but the surrounding town area is filled with side content. The intricate, segmented nature of the mansion's private areas are contrasted with the surrounding Sapienza public area, a sprawling town that has no clear boundaries on where the level starts and stops. According to Elverdam, Sapienza represents

2760-427: Is 89% with French, 87% with Catalan , 85% with Sardinian , 82% with Spanish, 80% with Portuguese , 78% with Ladin , 77% with Romanian . Estimates may differ according to sources. One study, analyzing the degree of differentiation of Romance languages in comparison to Latin (comparing phonology , inflection , discourse , syntax , vocabulary , and intonation ), estimated that distance between Italian and Latin

2880-406: Is able to infiltrate any location. The open, relaxed and casual daytime aesthetic of Sapienza was also a partial response to the night-time gala ambience embodied by the enclosed Paris fashion show, its bright and vibrant atmosphere contrasting the muted lighting and soft colours of its immediate predecessor. According to Torbjørn Christensen, lead level designer of the World of Assassination series,

3000-695: Is also featured in Under the Tuscan Sun , Christopher Nolan 's Tenet and the Kath and Kim movie Kath & Kimderella . Italian language Italian ( italiano , pronounced [itaˈljaːno] , or lingua italiana , pronounced [ˈliŋɡwa itaˈljaːna] ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from the Vulgar Latin of

3120-759: Is also spoken by a minority in Monaco and France, especially in the southeastern part of the country. Italian was the official language in Savoy and in Nice until 1860, when they were both annexed by France under the Treaty of Turin , a development that triggered the " Niçard exodus ", or the emigration of a quarter of the Niçard Italians to Italy, and the Niçard Vespers . Giuseppe Garibaldi complained about

3240-497: Is emotionally attached to his mother and her cooking. Caruso and many other Italian characters do not speak in English with an Italian accent however; according to Elverdam, the team faced limitations on what they could accomplish for 2016's Hitman episodic content. He explained that while the team liked the idea of "globe-trotting", the complexity and logistics with regards to other languages or region-appropriate accents proved to be

3360-534: Is higher than that between Sardinian and Latin. In particular, its vowels are the second-closest to Latin after Sardinian . As in most Romance languages, stress is distinctive. Italian is the official language of Italy and San Marino and is spoken fluently by the majority of the countries' populations. Italian is the third most spoken language in Switzerland (after German and French; see Swiss Italian ), although its use there has moderately declined since

3480-448: Is hired by Silvio Caruso to eliminate a local politician running for mayor during his campaign rally being held at the beach. "The Author" mission released as part of the "Patient Zero" campaign is set around a book reading in the church during which a famous author plans to meet a cult member to exchange a viral weapon prototype. 47 is tasked with eliminating both targets and retrieving the viral sample. Episode 2: Sapienza , which marked

3600-510: Is known for its production of limoncello liqueur, made between February and October from lemon (known as sfusato amalfitano in Italian) grown in terraced gardens along the entire coastline. Another typical liqueur is concerto (literally, "concert", derived from the mix of herbs that compose it), a dark rosolio with spicy notes typically produced in Tramonti. Amalfi is also a known maker of

3720-460: Is markedly lower between Italian-Spanish, and considerably higher between the Iberian sister languages of Portuguese-Spanish. Speakers of this latter pair can communicate with one another with remarkable ease, each speaking to the other in his own native language without slang/jargon. Nevertheless, on the basis of accumulated differences in morphology, syntax, phonology, and to some extent lexicon, it

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3840-462: Is not difficult to identify that for the Romance varieties of Italy, the first extant written evidence of languages that can no longer be considered Latin comes from the ninth and tenth centuries C.E. These written sources demonstrate certain vernacular characteristics and sometimes explicitly mention the use of the vernacular in Italy. Full literary manifestations of the vernacular began to surface around

3960-488: Is set in a bank. Once IO had decided to make breaking into the vault found on the level an objective of the mission, they chose to let players decide to either break into the vault or instead collect a series of data disks carried by various characters. The town square of Sapienza and its streets are turned into a trespassing zone for the duration of "The Icon", a creative decision which the IO team would never do otherwise because

4080-594: Is spoken as a second language by 13.4 million EU citizens (3%). Including Italian speakers in non-EU European countries (such as Switzerland, Albania and the United Kingdom ) and on other continents, the total number of speakers is approximately 85 million. Italian is the main working language of the Holy See , serving as the lingua franca (common language) in the Roman Catholic hierarchy as well as

4200-414: Is the most proximal airport to the coast, however, Naples International Airport (Napoli-Capodichino) serves the main international gateway airport to reach the area from abroad. The natural beauty and picturesque landscapes of the Amalfi Coast have made it one of the most popular destinations of the world's jet set , earning it the nickname of "Divine Coast" ( Divina costiera ). The rulers of Amalfi are

4320-421: Is the setting of Episode 2: Sapienza of 2016's Hitman , the first entry in a trilogy of video games referred to as the World of Assassination by Danish video game developer IO Interactive, the owner and developer of the Hitman video game franchise. Episode 2 was developed in parallel with Episode 1: Paris : both levels share the creative vision of being built around exclusivity and the idea that Agent 47

4440-549: Is used, and the town of Chipilo near Puebla, Mexico; each continues to use a derived form of Venetian dating back to the 19th century. Other examples are Cocoliche , an Italian–Spanish pidgin once spoken in Argentina and especially in Buenos Aires , and Lunfardo . The Rioplatense Spanish dialect of Argentina and Uruguay today has thus been heavily influenced by both standard Italian and Italian regional languages as

4560-509: The Il Globo (Australia) and the La gazzetta del Sud Africa (South Africa). Italian is widely taught in many schools around the world, but rarely as the first foreign language. In the 21st century, technology also allows for the continual spread of the Italian language, as people have new ways to learn how to speak, read, and write languages at their own pace and at any given time. For example,

4680-991: The La Voce del Popolo ( Croatia ), the Corriere d'Italia (Germany), the L'italoeuropeo (United Kingdom), the Passaparola ( Luxembourg ), the America Oggi (United States), the Corriere Canadese and the Corriere Italiano (Canada), the Il punto d'incontro (Mexico), the L'Italia del Popolo ( Argentina ), the Fanfulla (Brazil), the Gente d'Italia ( Uruguay ), the La Voce d'Italia ( Venezuela ),

4800-702: The Gallo-Italic linguistic panorama of Northern Italy , the Italo-Dalmatian , Neapolitan and its related dialects were largely unaffected by the Franco- Occitan influences introduced to Italy mainly by bards from France during the Middle Ages, but after the Norman conquest of southern Italy , Sicily became the first Italian land to adopt Occitan lyric moods (and words) in poetry. Even in

4920-400: The Hitman series, Episode 2 is designed for repeated playthroughs in multiple configurations. Other alternate missions which feature the Sapienza setting include Escalation and Elusive Target missions, which offer additional complications for players to consider and overcome. One particularly notable elusive target featured on the map is real-life actor Gary Busey , which was the result of

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5040-674: The Kingdom of Italy in the Dodecanese ). Italian is widely spoken in Malta , where nearly two-thirds of the population can speak it fluently (see Maltese Italian ). Italian served as Malta's official language until 1934, when it was abolished by the British colonial administration amid strong local opposition. Italian language in Slovenia is an officially recognized minority language in

5160-773: The Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia ), although the masses kept speaking primarily their local vernaculars. Italian was also one of the many recognised languages in the Austro-Hungarian Empire . Italy has always had a distinctive dialect for each city because the cities, until recently, were thought of as city-states . Those dialects now have considerable variety . As Tuscan-derived Italian came to be used throughout Italy, features of local speech were naturally adopted, producing various versions of Regional Italian . The most characteristic differences, for instance, between Roman Italian and Milanese Italian are syntactic gemination of initial consonants in some contexts and

5280-1033: The Middle Ages , the established written language in Europe was Latin, although the great majority of people were illiterate, and only few were well versed in the language. In the Italian Peninsula , as in most of Europe, most would instead speak a local vernacular. These dialects, as they are commonly referred to, evolved from Vulgar Latin over the course of centuries, unaffected by formal standards and teachings. They are not in any sense "dialects" of standard Italian, which itself started off as one of these local tongues, but sister languages of Italian. Mutual intelligibility with Italian varies widely, as it does with Romance languages in general. The Romance languages of Italy can differ greatly from Italian at all levels ( phonology , morphology , syntax , lexicon , pragmatics ) and are classified typologically as distinct languages. The standard Italian language has

5400-554: The Placiti Cassinesi from the province of Benevento that date from 960 to 963, although the Veronese Riddle , probably from the 8th or early 9th century, contains a late form of Vulgar Latin that can be seen as a very early sample of a vernacular dialect of Italy. The Commodilla catacomb inscription is also a similar case. The Italian language has progressed through a long and slow process, which started after

5520-691: The Roman Empire . Italian is the least divergent language from Latin , together with Sardinian (meaning that Italian and Sardinian are the most conservative Romance languages). Spoken by about 85 million people, including 67 million native speakers (2024), Italian is an official language in Italy , San Marino , Switzerland ( Ticino and the Grisons ), Corsica , and Vatican City . It has official minority status in Croatia , Slovenian Istria , and

5640-416: The Sorrentine Peninsula , leaving little room for rural and agricultural development. The only land route to the Amalfi Coast is the 40 kilometres (25 mi) long Amalfi Drive (Strada Statale 163) which runs along the coastline from the town of Vietri sul Mare in the east to Positano in the west. Thirteen municipalities are located on the Amalfi Coast, many of them centred on tourism. The Amalfi Coast

5760-528: The Western Roman Empire's fall in the 5th century. The language that came to be thought of as Italian developed in central Tuscany and was first formalized in the early 14th century through the works of Tuscan writer Dante Alighieri , written in his native Florentine . Dante's epic poems, known collectively as the Commedia , to which another Tuscan poet Giovanni Boccaccio later affixed

5880-597: The 10th–11th centuries, the Duchy of Amalfi existed on the territory of the Amalfi Coast, centred in the town of Amalfi . The Amalfi coast was later controlled by the Principality of Salerno until Amalfi was sacked by the Republic of Pisa in 1137. Like the rest of the region, the Amalfi Coast has a Mediterranean climate , featuring warm summers and mild winters. It is located on the relatively steep southern shore of

6000-532: The 111 Italian lecturer sections belonging to foreign schools where Italian is taught as a language of culture. As of 2022, Australia had the highest number of students learning Italian in the world. This occurred because of support by the Italian community in Australia and the Italian Government and also because of successful educational reform efforts led by local governments in Australia. From

6120-510: The 13th century in the form of various religious texts and poetry. Although these are the first written records of Italian varieties separate from Latin, the spoken language had probably diverged long before the first written records appeared since those who were literate generally wrote in Latin even if they spoke other Romance varieties in person. Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, the use of Standard Italian became increasingly widespread and

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6240-562: The 1970s. It is official both on the national level and on regional level in two cantons : Ticino and Grisons . In the latter canton, however, it is only spoken by a small minority, in the Italian Grisons . Ticino, which includes Lugano , the largest Italian-speaking city outside Italy, is the only canton where Italian is predominant. Italian is also used in administration and official documents in Vatican City . Italian

6360-467: The 2016 Hitman title. Roberts concluded that Sapienza "marked the true rebirth of Hitman ", and a high watermark for the rest of the episodic 2016 series. Jack de Quidt from The Guardian , who gave the complete version of the 2016 Hitman a perfect score in his review article dated January 2017, declared Sapienza as its standout level. Caty McCarthy from US Gamer thoroughly enjoyed the setting of Sapienza and expressed disappointment that Hitman 2 ,

6480-599: The 2017 American superhero film Wonder Woman , where it was depicted as the Amazon island of Themyscira . The Amalfi Coast serves as a setting for fictional racetracks in the Forza Motorsport 3 , Forza Motorsport 4 and Gran Turismo 4 . It also plays host to the fictional town of Sapienza in Hitman . The city of Positano is featured in John Steinbeck 's 1953 short story Positano . The city

6600-481: The Coast. Of particular interest to them was the exploration of verticality in coastal towns and how streets and corridors would connect everything within such a place. The team placed a lot of importance on attention to detail and worked meticulously over details that most players would not perceive such as the thickness of a medieval wall in Sapienza or realism of animation work. Using 47's potential defenestration of

6720-412: The Italian coastal town aesthetic is said to be quite authentic or convincing. The developers initially decided that the main assassination target should be an Italian mafia boss living in a large mansion, which then spawned the concept of a secret cave under the mansion where various illegal activities would be conducted by his underlings. The developers visualized 47 infiltrating the mansion as if he would

6840-417: The Italian dialects has declined in the modern era , as Italy unified under Standard Italian and continues to do so aided by mass media from newspapers to radio to television, diglossia is still frequently encountered in Italy and triglossia is not uncommon in emigrant communities among older speakers. Both situations normally involve some degree of code-switching and code-mixing . Notes: Italian has

6960-489: The Italian language into a lingua franca used not only among clerks, nobility, and functionaries in the Italian courts but also by the bourgeoisie . Italian literature's first modern novel, I promessi sposi ( The Betrothed ) by Alessandro Manzoni , further defined the standard by "rinsing" his Milanese "in the waters of the Arno " ( Florence 's river), as he states in the preface to his 1840 edition. After unification,

7080-556: The Mediterranean. The increasing political and cultural relevance of Florence during the periods of the rise of the Medici Bank , humanism , and the Renaissance made its dialect, or rather a refined version of it, a standard in the arts. The Renaissance era, known as il Rinascimento in Italian, was seen as a time of rebirth, which is the literal meaning of both renaissance (from French) and rinascimento (Italian). During this time, long-existing beliefs stemming from

7200-421: The Sapienza level, Elverdam believed that an important achievement by the team is a "belief in the Hitman sandbox" which dated back to 2006's Hitman: Blood Money ; Elverdam claimed that the team was unsure there was still an audience for this style of game design, and that Sapienza was an instructive experience on how to build such a level and find an audience with players who might like it. Elverdam remarked that

7320-440: The assassination. Disguising himself by impersonating certain important non-player characters (NPC's) allows 47 to get close to Caruso and De Santis in order to carry out the assassinations without any witnesses. Example characters include Dr. Oscar Lafayette, a psychologist assigned to treat Caruso's mental health, and Sal Falcone, a private detective from Milan who serves as an informant for De Santis. Like other episodes in

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7440-429: The best video game levels from the 2010s. The fictional town of Sapienza itself has been lauded by critics for its intricate and inventive design. The positive reception from critics and players towards Episode 2: Sapienza convinced its developers that their approach towards sandbox game design for the series as well as overall handling of the Hitman franchise were headed in the appropriate creative direction. Sapienza

7560-426: The best video game levels of the year 2016. Samuel Roberts from PC Gamer described Sapienza as "classic" Hitman albeit with "an unprecedented level of environmental detail". He called it a turning point creatively for IO Interactive, proving that the studio was capable of producing "quality assassination sandboxes" following the divisive critical reception to Absolution and a controversial episodic release plan for

7680-444: The case of Northern Italian languages, however, scholars are careful not to overstate the effects of outsiders on the natural indigenous developments of the languages. The economic might and relatively advanced development of Tuscany at the time ( Late Middle Ages ) gave its language weight, although Venetian remained widespread in medieval Italian commercial life, and Ligurian (or Genoese) remained in use in maritime trade alongside

7800-582: The central figures in John Webster 's Jacobean tragedy The Duchess of Malfi . The Dutch artist M. C. Escher produced a number of artworks of the Amalfi coast, and Spike Milligan describes his time in Amalfi during a period of leave in the fourth part of his war memoirs, Mussolini: His Part in My Downfall . The Amalfi Coast was used for scenes of Federico Fellini 's 1972 film Roma and for

7920-414: The character a "deeper target" compared to what they had done before. Ultimately Elverdam believes this produced a better outcome than if his characterization had remained as a typical gangster leader. Story threads in Sapienza also allowed the team to add layers and subtlety to Agent 47's personality. Elverdam cited as an example a scene where Agent 47, disguised as the psychiatrist Dr. Lafayette, reassures

8040-416: The character to do her loop. As a result, the main loops for both assassination targets were shortened and confined to the mansion. Post-release feedback towards aspects of the Sapienza level is also something the developers take seriously, with player feedback about the termination of Caruso's virus named by Creative Director Christian Elverdam as an example. In contrast to the non-linear gameplay surrounding

8160-455: The colonial period. In the early 19th century, Eritrea was the country with the highest number of Italians abroad, and the Italian Eritreans grew from 4,000 during World War I to nearly 100,000 at the beginning of World War II. In Asmara there are two Italian schools, the Italian School of Asmara (Italian primary school with a Montessori department) and the Liceo Sperimentale "G. Marconi" (Italian international senior high school). Italian

8280-403: The core concept of Episode 2 began with "Coastal Town" and was the only direction they had in the beginning of development. This allowed the team much freedom in order to be creative. An Italian-themed setting was eventually chosen, which became the Sapienza level. Along with another colleague who worked as an environment artist, Christensen spent about two weeks mocking up a rough version during

8400-405: The country (some 0.42% of the total population). Their numbers dropped dramatically after World War II following the Istrian–Dalmatian exodus , which caused the emigration of between 230,000 and 350,000 Istrian Italians and Dalmatian Italians. Italian was the official language of the Republic of Ragusa from 1492 to 1807. It formerly had official status in Albania due to the annexation of

8520-408: The country to the Kingdom of Italy (1939–1943). Albania has a large population of non-native speakers, with over half of the population having some knowledge of the Italian language. The Albanian government has pushed to make Italian a compulsory second language in schools. The Italian language is well-known and studied in Albania, due to its historical ties and geographical proximity to Italy and to

8640-446: The country. A few hundred Italian settlers returned to Libya in the 2000s. Italian was the official language of Eritrea during Italian colonisation . Italian is today used in commerce, and it is still spoken especially among elders; besides that, Italian words are incorporated as loan words in the main language spoken in the country (Tigrinya). The capital city of Eritrea, Asmara , still has several Italian schools, established during

8760-525: The country. The official census, carried out in 2002, reported 2,258 ethnic Italians ( Istrian Italians ) in Slovenia (0.11% of the total population). Italian language in Croatia is an official minority language in the country, with many schools and public announcements published in both languages. The 2001 census in Croatia reported 19,636 ethnic Italians (Istrian Italians and Dalmatian Italians ) in

8880-464: The design and fashion industries, in some sports such as football and especially in culinary terms. In Italy, almost all the other languages spoken as the vernacular —other than standard Italian and some languages spoken among immigrant communities—are often called " Italian dialects ", a label that can be very misleading if it is understood to mean "dialects of Italian". The Romance dialects of Italy are local evolutions of spoken Latin that pre-date

9000-415: The designers and writers often work back and forth on the story and thematic elements of each mission. For him, contrast is a key tool in creating atmosphere and adding environmental context, with one example cited is the discrepancies between the idyllic setting and Caruso’s internal turmoil. The team still wanted to depict Caruso with stereotypically Italian traits, like being a hot tempered "mamma's boy" who

9120-588: The diffusion of Italian television in the country. Due to heavy Italian influence during the Italian colonial period , Italian is still understood by some in former colonies such as Libya. Although it was the primary language in Libya since colonial rule , Italian greatly declined under the rule of Muammar Gaddafi , who expelled the Italian Libyan population and made Arabic the sole official language of

9240-399: The direct sequel to 2016's Hitman , will no longer be released in episodic format. She expressed a hope that Hitman 2 would feature level design as intricate and varied as that of its predecessor, which in her view is exemplified by IO's work on Sapienza. The development of Sapienza became the subject of a 2017 feature article spanning multiple pages by Phil Savage of PC Gamer . Sapienza

9360-478: The educated gentlemen was to make the Grand Tour , visiting Italy to see its great historical monuments and works of art. It was expected that the visitor would learn at least some Italian, understood as language based on Florentine. In England, while the classical languages Latin and Greek were the first to be learned, Italian became the second most common modern language after French, a position it held until

9480-483: The episodic release model was met with an initially divisive response. Martin Kitts agreed that Sapienza is a high point for the Hitman series, but criticized the third objective that involves the infiltration of the underground laboratory to destroy the virus, which he described as approaching "a little close to becoming a chore" compared to the level's other aspects. Commenting on the overall favorable feedback towards

9600-462: The establishment of Italian, and as such are sister languages to the Tuscan that was the historical source of Italian. They can be quite different from Italian and from each other, with some belonging to different linguistic branches of Romance. The only exceptions to this are twelve groups considered " historical language minorities ", which are officially recognized as distinct minority languages by

9720-433: The fact that it was linguistically an intermediate between the northern and the southern Italian dialects. Thus the dialect of Florence became the basis for what would become the official language of Italy. Italian was progressively made an official language of most of the Italian states predating unification, slowly replacing Latin, even when ruled by foreign powers (such as Spain in the Kingdom of Naples , or Austria in

9840-427: The first appearance of the Sapienza location, received generally favorable reviews from video game publications on all release platforms according to review aggregator Metacritic . Much of the positive commentary highlighted the level's sense of scale, the setting's beautiful aesthetics, and the mission objectives' vast replay value. Sam White from The Telegraph gave Episode 2 a perfect score, and called Sapienza

9960-476: The free website and application Duolingo has 4.94 million English speakers learning the Italian language. According to the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs , every year there are more than 200,000 foreign students who study the Italian language; they are distributed among the 90 Institutes of Italian Culture that are located around the world, in the 179 Italian schools located abroad, or in

10080-489: The island of Corsica (but not in the neighbouring Sardinia , which on the contrary underwent Italianization well into the late 18th century, under Savoyard sway: the island's linguistic composition, roofed by the prestige of Spanish among the Sardinians , would therein make for a rather slow process of assimilation to the Italian cultural sphere ). The rediscovery of Dante's De vulgari eloquentia , as well as

10200-640: The language to that continent. According to some sources, Italian is the second most spoken language in Argentina after the official language of Spanish, although its number of speakers, mainly of the older generation, is decreasing. Italian bilingual speakers can be found scattered across the Southeast of Brazil as well as in the South. In Venezuela , Italian is the most spoken language after Spanish and Portuguese, with around 200,000 speakers. In Uruguay , people who speak Italian as their home language are 1.1% of

10320-498: The late 18th century when it tended to be replaced by German. John Milton , for instance, wrote some of his early poetry in Italian. Within the Catholic Church , Italian is known by a large part of the ecclesiastical hierarchy and is used in substitution for Latin in some official documents. Italian loanwords continue to be used in most languages in matters of art and music (especially classical music including opera), in

10440-534: The late 19th to the mid-20th century, millions of Italians settled in Argentina, Uruguay, Southern Brazil and Venezuela, as well as in Canada and the United States, where they formed a physical and cultural presence. In some cases, colonies were established where variants of regional languages of Italy were used, and some continue to use this regional language. Examples are Rio Grande do Sul , Brazil, where Talian

10560-567: The law. On the other hand, Corsican (a language spoken on the French island of Corsica ) is closely related to medieval Tuscan , from which Standard Italian derives and evolved. The differences in the evolution of Latin in the different regions of Italy can be attributed to the natural changes that all languages in regular use are subject to, and to some extent to the presence of three other types of languages: substrata, superstrata, and adstrata . The most prevalent were substrata (the language of

10680-414: The level and players are not forced to backtrack if they do not wish to. Elverdam conceded the team were initially concerned about the density in small pockets of the level, but felt that it ultimately worked out as there is still ample amount of space where players can "breathe" and not feel claustrophobic. Playtesting was a crucial part of the development process and helped the team refine many aspects of

10800-400: The level's mediocre AI and animations and repetition of "the same old spy tricks" from a previous level. Gareth Damian Martin from Killscreen found the lack of Italian accents for the English dialogue spoken by the level's non-player characters to be immersion breaking, particularly when contrasted with the attention to detail for the level's environments. Jeff Marchiafava was unimpressed with

10920-427: The level. An important change following playtesting feedback was to the routes a target will travel and repeat, otherwise known as target loops. For example, Francesca De Santis was originally supposed to wander around the town, with detours to the church and the cave as part of her main loop. The travel times between those locations were determined to be overly long, which tested the patience of playtesters in waiting for

11040-449: The level: he found fault with the episodic release format, the persistent issues surrounding publisher Square Enix's online servers, and insisted that "bigger isn't necessarily better" in response to the sheer size of the Sapienza level. The Sapienza level and setting is cited as an influential factor for the Hitman franchise, attracting widespread praise in the years after the release of Episode 2 . PC Gamer staff ranked Sapienza among

11160-407: The levels in the Hitman franchise as a whole. Kotaku and TechRadar both ranked it as the best mission of the World of Assassination trilogy while PC Gamer placed it second behind Hitman 2 's Miami mission and Rock Paper Shotgun placed it 5th. Game Rant ranked it as the best level out of the 14 levels from 2016's Hitman and 2018's Hitman 2 . The Digital Fix ranked Sapienza as

11280-430: The main assassination targets which provides high replay value, 47's mission to destroy the virus is linear in nature as it can only be accomplished using a singular approach, which meant that players may be less enthusiastic about the mission objective in subsequent playthroughs. It was also the first time the team had built the mission around an objective that is not a human target, which Elverdam believed had given players

11400-405: The mission's circumstances justifies the area's closure to the public. Besides presenting a set of challenges for the player, the film set also allowed the team to introduce an unusual story element in the form of a "robot invasion in Italy". The Italian scientist Silvio Caruso originally filled the role of the mafia boss; his profession was altered in the final version of the level. As a result of

11520-820: The municipalities of Santa Tereza and Encantado in Brazil . Italian is also spoken by large immigrant and expatriate communities in the Americas and Australia . Italian is included under the languages covered by the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in Romania , although Italian is neither a co-official nor a protected language in these countries. Some speakers of Italian are native bilinguals of both Italian (either in its standard form or regional varieties ) and

11640-412: The nation was unified in 1861. Italian is a Romance language , a descendant of Vulgar Latin (colloquial spoken Latin). Standard Italian is based on Tuscan , especially its Florentine dialect , and is, therefore, an Italo-Dalmatian language , a classification that includes most other central and southern Italian languages and the extinct Dalmatian . According to Ethnologue , lexical similarity

11760-408: The number of printing presses in Italy grew rapidly and by the year 1500 reached a total of 56, the biggest number of printing presses in all of Europe. This enabled the production of more pieces of literature at a lower cost and Italian, as the dominant language, spread. Italian became the language used in the courts of every state in the Italian Peninsula , as well as the prestige variety used on

11880-590: The official language of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta . Italian has a significant use in musical terminology and opera with numerous Italian words referring to music that have become international terms taken into various languages worldwide. Almost all native Italian words end with vowels , and the language has a 7-vowel sound system ('e' and 'o' have mid-low and mid-high sounds). Italian has contrast between short and long consonants and gemination (doubling) of consonants. During

12000-630: The openness of vowels, the length of the consonants, and influence of the local language (for example, in informal situations andà , annà and nare replace the standard Italian andare in the area of Tuscany, Rome and Venice respectively for the infinitive "to go"). There is no definitive date when the various Italian variants of Latin—including varieties that contributed to modern Standard Italian—began to be distinct enough from Latin to be considered separate languages. One criterion for determining that two language variants are to be considered separate languages rather than variants of

12120-584: The original inhabitants), as the Italian dialects were most probably simply Latin as spoken by native cultural groups. Superstrata and adstrata were both less important. Foreign conquerors of Italy that dominated different regions at different times left behind little to no influence on the dialects. Foreign cultures with which Italy engaged in peaceful relations with, such as trade, had no significant influence either. Throughout Italy, regional varieties of Standard Italian, called Regional Italian , are spoken. Regional differences can be recognized by various factors:

12240-458: The other hand, almost everyone still speaks the Corsican idiom , which, due to its linguistic proximity to the Italian standard language, appears both linguistically as an Italian dialect and therefore as a carrier of Italian culture, despite the French government's decades-long efforts to cut Corsica off from the Italian motherland. Italian was the official language in Monaco until 1860, when it

12360-462: The pinnacle of a "Swiss Cheese design", which utilizes the impression of a volume of content that is constructed meticulously and filled with connections. He explained that the reason Sapienza feels larger than it is in terms of square meters is that aspects of the level are like "spirals" or a "snail house", with walls wrapping around themselves and their layers interconnected with slopes and stairways. Elverdam explained that regardless of which direction

12480-402: The player takes, they could go in any direction but should never find themselves lost. Since the pathways are designed in such a way that players can keep a constant movement ahead all the time, they will eventually emerge at the other end of the "cheese" to either find a way to progress their current objective or another opportunity with a different solution. In this way, there are no dead ends in

12600-406: The population of Italy could speak Standard Italian. He reports that in 1951 that percentage had risen to 87%. The ability to speak Italian did not necessarily mean it was in everyday use, and most people (63.5%) still usually spoke their native dialects. In addition, other factors such as mass emigration, industrialization, and urbanization, and internal migrations after World War II , contributed to

12720-469: The proliferation of Standard Italian. The Italians who emigrated during the Italian diaspora beginning in 1861 were often of the uneducated lower class, and thus the emigration had the effect of increasing the percentage of literates, who often knew and understood the importance of Standard Italian, back home in Italy. A large percentage of those who had emigrated also eventually returned to Italy, often more educated than when they had left. Although use of

12840-528: The pronunciation of stressed "e", and of "s" between vowels in many words: e.g. va bene "all right" is pronounced [vabˈbɛːne] by a Roman (and by any standard Italian speaker), [vaˈbeːne] by a Milanese (and by any speaker whose native dialect lies to the north of the La Spezia–Rimini Line ); a casa "at home" is [akˈkaːsa] for Roman, [akˈkaːsa] or [akˈkaːza] for standard, [aˈkaːza] for Milanese and generally northern. In contrast to

12960-415: The publication of Agnolo Monosini 's Latin tome Floris italicae linguae libri novem in 1604 followed by the first Italian dictionary in 1612. An important event that helped the diffusion of Italian was the conquest and occupation of Italy by Napoleon in the early 19th century (who was himself of Italian-Corsican descent). This conquest propelled the unification of Italy some decades after and pushed

13080-487: The referendum that allowed France to annex Savoy and Nice, and a group of his followers (among the Italian Savoyards ) took refuge in Italy in the following years. Corsica passed from the Republic of Genoa to France in 1769 after the Treaty of Versailles . Italian was the official language of Corsica until 1859. Giuseppe Garibaldi called for the inclusion of the " Corsican Italians " within Italy when Rome

13200-473: The teachings of the Roman Catholic Church began to be understood from new perspectives as humanists —individuals who placed emphasis on the human body and its full potential—began to shift focus from the church to human beings themselves. The continual advancements in technology play a crucial role in the diffusion of languages. After the invention of the printing press in the 15th century,

13320-413: The team felt reassured by the positive reception towards their design choices for the levels of the World of Assassination trilogy, and encouraged a willingness to experiment with some of the other levels like Episode 5: Colorado and Episode 6: Hokkaido . Sapienza has routinely been placed very highly in retrospective rankings of all 21 levels in the World of Assassination trilogy and rankings of all

13440-418: The thematic change, the original underground gangster hideout envisioned by IO was repurposed as a secret laboratory where research and maintenance of the virus is conducted. The changes pleased Elverdam as it present a cohesive theme with 47's mission of stopping a biological weapon, though Christensen was disappointed on a personal level as he wanted to develop a full-fledged "mafia fantasy'. Elverdam noted that

13560-469: The title Divina , were read throughout the peninsula and his written dialect became the "canonical standard" that all educated Italians could understand. Dante is still credited with standardizing the Italian language. In addition to the widespread exposure gained through literature, the Florentine dialect also gained prestige due to the political and cultural significance of Florence at the time and

13680-542: The total population of the country. In Australia, Italian is the second most spoken foreign language after Chinese, with 1.4% of the population speaking it as their home language. The main Italian-language newspapers published outside Italy are the L'Osservatore Romano ( Vatican City ), the L'Informazione di San Marino ( San Marino ), the Corriere del Ticino and the laRegione Ticino ( Switzerland ),

13800-419: The underground laboratory as well as the assassinations of Caruso and his colleague Francesca De Santis. Players have the option to follow story threads called "Opportunities" which benefit players in numerous ways, such as disguising 47 to allow him to hide in plain sight, triggering events to lure out his targets, or staging incidents that kill the targets without alerting others to his presence or involvement in

13920-561: Was also introduced to Somalia through colonialism and was the sole official language of administration and education during the colonial period but fell out of use after government, educational and economic infrastructure were destroyed in the Somali Civil War . Italian is also spoken by large immigrant and expatriate communities in the Americas and Australia. Although over 17 million Americans are of Italian descent , only

14040-525: Was annexed to the Kingdom of Italy , but King Victor Emmanuel II did not agree to it. Italian is generally understood in Corsica by the population resident therein who speak Corsican , which is an Italo-Romance idiom similar to Tuscan. Francization occurred in Nice case, and caused a near-disappearance of the Italian language as many of the Italian speakers in these areas migrated to Italy. In Corsica, on

14160-443: Was mirrored by a decline in the use of the dialects. An increase in literacy was one of the main driving factors (one can assume that only literates were capable of learning Standard Italian, whereas those who were illiterate had access only to their native dialect). The percentage of literates rose from 25% in 1861 to 60% in 1911, and then on to 78.1% in 1951. Tullio De Mauro , an Italian linguist, has asserted that in 1861 only 2.5% of

14280-658: Was replaced by the French. This was due to the annexation of the surrounding County of Nice to France following the Treaty of Turin (1860) . It formerly had official status in Montenegro (because of the Venetian Albania ), parts of Slovenia and Croatia (because of the Venetian Istria and Venetian Dalmatia ), parts of Greece (because of the Venetian rule in the Ionian Islands and by

14400-522: Was the personal choice of Fraser Brown, also from PC Gamer , for the best video game level of the 2010s decade. Brown found Sapienza to be "particularly special" due to the variety of activities contained within Episode 2 alone, which could have been divided into at least three other levels within another video game title. He believed that Sapienza, a "frankly ridiculous murder sandbox", indicated that IO learned from their mistakes with Absolution , even if

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