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180-484: Frederick II ( Italian : Federico ; German : Friedrich ; Latin : Fridericus ; 26 December 1194 – 13 December 1250) was King of Sicily from 1198, King of Germany from 1212, King of Italy and Holy Roman Emperor from 1220 and King of Jerusalem from 1225. He was the son of Emperor Henry VI of the Hohenstaufen dynasty (the second son of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa ) and Queen Constance I of Sicily of

360-544: A papal legate that Frederick was her son by Henry. It is probable that these public acts of affirmation on account of her age gave rise to some false rumours. In the spring of 1195, a few months after Henry VI had been crowned king of Sicily and not long after the birth of her son, Constance the empress continued her journey to Palermo . After the unexpected death of Tancred of Lecce (an illegitimate son of Roger, eldest son of Roger II of Sicily) Henry had hurried over to assume power and to have himself crowned king. Frederick

540-411: A General Council. Frederick and his allies, however, dashed Gregory's plan for a General Council when they intercepted a delegation of prelates traveling to Rome in a Genoese fleet at the crushing Battle of Giglio (1241) , capturing almost all of the high dignitaries and taking thousands of prisoners along with most of the fleet. The emperor proclaimed his victory to be divine judgment and a symbol against

720-607: A book called "The City of Lights". From 1300 and on, the Jewish community of Ancona grew steadily, most due to the city importance and it being a center of trade with the Levant . In that year, Jewish poet Immanuel the Roman tried to lower high taxation taken from the Jewish community of the city. Over the next 200 years, Jews from Germany, Spain, Sicily and Portugal immigrated to Ancona, due to persecutions in their homeland and thanks to

900-537: A brief siege , eleven days after his defeat at Castelfidardo . On 23 May 1915, Italy entered World War I and joined the Entente Powers . In 1915, following Italy's entry, the battleship division of the Austro-Hungarian Navy carried out extensive bombardments causing great damage to all installations and killing several dozen people. Ancona was one of the most important Italian ports on

1080-635: A chronicler of the time, wrote that Frederick: went to the Mediterranean sea, and embarked with a small retinue; but after pretending to make for the Holy Land for three days, he said that he was seized with a sudden illness [...] this conduct of the emperor redounded much to his disgrace, and to the injury of the whole business of the crusade. Frederick eventually sailed again from Brindisi in June 1228. The pope, still Gregory IX, regarded that action as

1260-581: A complete capitulation, and the Statutum in favorem principum ("Statute in favor of the princes"), issued at Worms, deprived the emperor of much of his sovereignty in Germany. Frederick summoned Henry to a meeting, which was held at Aquileia in 1232. Henry confirmed his submission, but Frederick was nevertheless compelled to confirm the Statutum at Cividale soon afterwards. The situation for Frederick

1440-494: A diplomatic match for his protege Frederick, to enable him successful future alliances. Eventually Constance of Aragon , a widow of the late King of Hungary and double his age was found. Otto of Brunswick had been crowned Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Innocent III in October 1209. In southern Italy, Otto became the champion of those noblemen and barons who feared Frederick's increasingly strong measures to check their power, such as

1620-565: 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

1800-500: A last unsuccessful attack in October, Frederick was forced to raise the siege. Frederick’s prestige suffered a blow and the “legend of the emperor’s invincibility” had been damaged. Regrouping as the year closed, it was not Frederick’s political nous which failed him but a combination of bad luck and his incorrect assessment of the military resources required to subjugate the last few holdouts against imperial authority in northern Italy. Gregory IX sensed vulnerability and Frederick received

1980-471: 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

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2160-657: 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

2340-535: A lordship of the Byzantine Empire , in the 7th and 8th centuries. In 840, Saracen raiders sacked and burned the city. After Charlemagne 's conquest of northern Italy, it became the capital of the Marca di Ancona , whence the name of the modern region derives. After 1000, Ancona became increasingly independent, eventually turning into an important maritime republic (together with Gaeta and Ragusa , it

2520-520: A major military expedition so readily, refused. He was unwilling to cross into Hungary, and although he went about unifying his magnates and other monarchs to potentially face a Mongol invasion, he specifically took his vow for the defense of the empire on "this side of the Alps". Frederick was aware of the danger the Mongols posed, and grimly assessed the situation, but also tried to use it as leverage over

2700-564: A papal incited rebellion flared in Apulia. In southern Italy, Frederick attacked and razed the papal enclaves of St Angelo and Benevento . In the meantime the Ghibelline city of Ferrara had fallen, and Frederick swept his way northwards capturing Ravenna and, after another long siege , Faenza . The people of Forlì , which had kept its Ghibelline stance even after the collapse of Hohenstaufen power, offered their loyal support during

2880-658: 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

3060-417: A population more than four times its size), located in the province of Ancona, Marches , of whom 47.6% were male and 52.4% were female. Minors (children ages 18 and younger) totalled 15.54 percent of the population compared to pensioners who number 24.06 percent. This compares with the Italian average of 18.06 percent (minors) and 19.94 percent (pensioners). The average age of Ancona residents is 48, compared to

3240-558: A provocation, since, as an excommunicate, Frederick was technically not capable of conducting a crusade, and he excommunicated the emperor a second time. Frederick reached Acre in September. Many of the local nobility, the Templars, and Hospitallers were therefore reluctant to offer overt support. Since the crusading army was already a small force, Frederick negotiated along the lines of a previous agreement he had intended to broker with

3420-417: 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

3600-512: 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

3780-538: A seaport closer to the Gothic Line in order to shorten their lines of communication for the advance into northern Italy . Jews according to documents began living in Ancona in 967 AD, even though there is evidence they lived there even before. It has been claimed that in 1270, a Jewish resident of Ancona, Jacob of Ancona , travelled to China , four years before Marco Polo , and documented his impressions in

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3960-400: 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: Ancona Ancona ( / æ ŋ ˈ k oʊ n ə / , also US : / æ n ˈ -, ɑː n ˈ -/ ; Italian: [aŋˈkoːna] )

4140-476: A short while. The boycott was led by Dona Gracia Mendes Nasi . Though emancipated by Napoleon I for several years, in 1843 Pope Gregory XVI revived an old decree, forbidding Jews from living outside the ghetto , wearing identification sign on their clothes and other religious and financial restrictions. Public opinion did not approve of these restrictions, and they were cancelled a short while after. The Jews of Ancona received full emancipation in 1848 with

4320-479: 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

4500-530: A small following. He agreed with the pope on a future separation between the Sicilian and Imperial titles, and named his wife Constance as regent. Passing through Lombardy and Engadin , he reached Konstanz in September 1212, preceding Otto by a few hours. Frederick was crowned king on 9 December 1212 in Mainz . Frederick's authority in Germany remained tenuous, and he was recognized only in southern Germany. In

4680-672: A strong position at his death, his line did not long survive, and the House of Hohenstaufen came to an end. Furthermore, the Holy Roman Empire entered a long period of decline during the Great Interregnum . His complex political and cultural legacy has attracted fierce debates and fascination until this day. Born in Jesi , near Ancona , Italy, on 26 December 1194, Frederick was the son of Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor . He

4860-513: 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

5040-694: A very important destination for merchants from the Ottoman Empire during the 16th century. The Greeks formed the largest of the communities of foreign merchants. They were refugees from former Byzantine or Venetian territories that were occupied by the Ottomans in the late 15th and 16th centuries. The first Greek community was established in Ancona early in the 16th century. Ancona entered the Kingdom of Italy when Christophe Léon Louis Juchault de Lamoricière surrendered here on 29 September 1860 following

5220-427: 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

5400-691: Is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from the Vulgar Latin of 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

5580-528: Is a city and a seaport in the Marche region of Central Italy , with a population of around 101,997 as of 2015 . Ancona is the capital of the province of Ancona and of the region. The city is located 280 km (170 mi) northeast of Rome, on the Adriatic Sea , between the slopes of the two extremities of the promontory of Monte Conero , Monte Astagno and Monte Guasco. The hilly nature around Ancona

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5760-627: Is a strong contrast to the flatter coastline in areas further north. Ancona is one of the main ports on the Adriatic Sea, especially for passenger traffic, and is the main economic and demographic centre of the region. Before the Greek colonization, the territory was occupied by separated communities of the Picentes tribes. Ancona took a more urban shape by Greek settlers from Syracuse in about 387 BC, who gave it its name: Ancona stems from

5940-759: 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

6120-534: 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

6300-791: Is housed in the Palazzo Ferretti, built in the late Renaissance by Pellegrino Tibaldi ; it preserves frescoes by Federico Zuccari . The Museum is divided into several sections: The Municipal Art Gallery ( Pinacoteca Civica Francesco Podesti ) is housed in the Palazzo Bosdari, reconstructed between 1558 and 1561 by Pellegrino Tibaldi . Works in the gallery include: Other artists present include Francesco Podesti , Ciro Ferri and Arcangelo di Cola . Modern artists featured are Anselmo Bucci , Massimo Campigli , Bruno Cassinari , Enzo Cucchi , Carlo Levi , Aligi Sassu , Orfeo Tamburi and others. The Port has regular ferry links to

6480-460: 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

6660-504: 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 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

6840-462: 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

7020-657: Is one of the biggest Jewish cemeteries in Europe and tombstones are dated to 1552 and on. It can still be visited and it resides within the Parco del Cardeto . The climate of Ancona is humid subtropical (Cfa in the Köppen climate classification ) and the city lies on the border between mediterranean and more continental regions. Precipitations are regular throughout the year. Winters are cool (January mean temp. 5 °C or 41 °F), with frequent rain and fog. Temperatures can reach −10 °C (14 °F) or even lower values outside

7200-466: Is one of those not appearing on the Italian naval flag ), often clashing against the nearby power of Venice . An oligarchic republic, Ancona was ruled by six Elders, elected by the three terzieri into which the city was divided: S. Pietro, Porto and Capodimonte. It had a coin of its own, the agontano , and a series of laws known as Statuti del mare e del Terzenale and Statuti della Dogana . Ancona

7380-458: Is the main railway station of the city and is served by regional and long-distance trains. The other stations are Ancona Marittima , Ancona Torrette, Ancona Stadio, Palombina and Varano. The A14 motorway serves the city with the exits "Ancona Nord" ( An. North ) and "Ancona Sud" ( An. South ). The Ancona trolleybus system has been in operation since 1949. Ancona is also served by an urban and suburban bus network operated by Conerobus. Ancona

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7560-648: Is the main working language of the Holy See , serving as the lingua franca (common language) in the Roman Catholic hierarchy as well as 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

7740-549: 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

7920-509: 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,

8100-991: 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 ),

8280-469: The Americas : 0.93%, East Asia : 0.83%, and North Africa : 0.80%. Ancona Cathedral , dedicated to Judas Cyriacus , was consecrated at the beginning of the 11th century and completed in 1189. Some writers suppose that the original church was in the form of a basilica and belonged to the 7th century. An early restoration was completed in 1234. It is a fine Romanesque building in grey stone, built in

8460-522: The Antichrist ). For his many-sided activities and dynamic personality Frederick II has been called the greatest of all the medieval German emperors. In the Kingdom of Sicily and much of Italy, Frederick built upon the work of his Norman predecessors and forged an early absolutist state bound together by an efficient secular bureaucracy. He was known by the appellation stupor mundi or the “wonder of

8640-627: The Assizes of Capua (1220, issued soon after his coronation in Rome) but came to fruition in his promulgation of the Constitutions of Melfi (1231, also known as Liber Augustalis ), a collection of laws for his realm that was remarkable for its time and was a source of inspiration for a long time after. It made the Kingdom of Sicily an absolutist monarchy ; it also set a precedent for the primacy of written law. With relatively small modifications,

8820-705: The Ayyubid sultan, Al-Kamil . The treaty , signed in February 1229, resulted in the restitution of Jerusalem, Nazareth , Bethlehem , and a small coastal strip to the Kingdom of Jerusalem, though there are disagreements as to the extent of the territory returned. The treaty also stipulated that the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque were to remain under Muslim control and that the city of Jerusalem would remain without fortifications. Virtually all other crusaders, including

9000-702: 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

9180-585: The Greek language . When it became a Roman town is uncertain. It was occupied as a naval station in the Illyrian War of 178 BC. Julius Caesar took possession of it immediately after crossing the Rubicon . Its harbour was of considerable importance in imperial times, as the nearest to Dalmatia , and was enlarged by Trajan , who constructed the north quay with his architect Apollodorus of Damascus . At

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9360-465: The Grisons ), Corsica , and Vatican City . It has official minority status in Croatia , Slovenian Istria , and 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

9540-441: The Guelphs . Unlike other cities of northern Italy, Ancona never became a signoria . The sole exception was the rule of the Malatesta , who took the city in 1348, taking advantage of the black death and of a fire that had destroyed many of the city's important buildings. The Malatesta were ousted in 1383. In 1532, Ancona definitively lost its freedom and became part of the Papal States , under Pope Clement VII . The symbol of

9720-443: The Hauteville dynasty . He was one of the most powerful figures of the Middle Ages and ruled a vast area, beginning with Sicily and stretching through Italy all the way north to Germany. As the Crusades progressed, he acquired control of Jerusalem and styled himself its king. Viewing himself as a direct successor to the Roman emperors of antiquity, he was Emperor of the Romans from his papal coronation in 1220 until his death; he

9900-399: 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

10080-698: 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

10260-432: The Liber Augustalis remained the basis of Sicilian law until 1819. In 1223–1224, Frederick tried Bishop Aldoin of Cefalù for maladministration. The trial was nullified by the pope on procedural grounds. Worried by the independent rule the Muslim population developed since his departure in 1212, he deported the Muslim population of Sicily to Lucera on mainland Italy between 1220-1223. In Lucera he assumed, surveillance

10440-450: The Nicene Empire , and even a contingent sent by Muslim sultans in the east. From June, he besieged Brescia. After savage fighting in which the emperor himself was nearly captured, Frederick was surprised at the city’s continued defiance in the face of his large army and sent emissaries to negotiate its surrender. The Brescians rejected the emperor’s terms and the siege continued into September when torrential rains prevented any assault. After

10620-411: The Palazzo Benincasa , the Loggia dei Mercanti , the Franciscan church of San Francesco alle Scale and Sant'Agostino , Augustinian church with statues portraying St. Monica, St. Nicola da Tolentino, St. Simplicianus and Blessed Agostino Trionfi; in the 18th century it was enlarged by Luigi Vanvitelli and turned into a palace after 1860. The National Archaeological Museum of the Marche Region

10800-501: The Papal States . The emperor ordered Enzo to destroy the Republic of Venice , which had sent some ships against Sicily. In December of that year Frederick entered Tuscany and spent Christmas in Pisa. In January 1240, Frederick triumphantly entered Foligno followed by Viterbo , whence he aimed to finally conquer Rome to restore the ancient splendours of the Empire. Frederick's plan to attack Rome at that time, however, did not come to fruition as he chose to leave for southern Italy where

10980-423: 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

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11160-441: The Schatzkammer of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. In any case, Gerald of Lausanne , the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem , did not attend the ceremony; indeed, the next day the Bishop of Caesarea arrived to place the city under interdict on the patriarch's orders. Frederick's further attempts to rule over the Kingdom of Jerusalem were met by resistance on the part of the barons, led by John of Ibelin, Lord of Beirut . In

11340-488: The Second Coming for 1260, at which time Frederick would then confiscate the riches of Rome and distribute them among the poor, the "only true Christians". During Frederick's stay in the Holy Land, his regent, Rainald of Spoleto , had attacked the March of Ancona and the Duchy of Spoleto . Gregory IX recruited an army under John of Brienne and, in 1229, invaded southern Italy. His troops overcame an initial resistance at Montecassino and reached into Campania as far as

11520-501: The Sicilian School of poetry. His magnificent Sicilian imperial-royal court in Palermo and, more particularly, Foggia , beginning around 1220, saw the first use of a literary form of an Italo-Romance language, Sicilian. The poetry that emanated from the school had a significant influence on literature and on what was to become the modern Italian language . He was also the first monarch to formally outlaw trial by ordeal , which had come to be viewed as superstitious. Though still in

11700-411: The Sixth Crusade . Frequently at war with the papacy, which was hemmed in between Frederick's lands in northern Italy and his Kingdom of Sicily (the Regno ) to the south, he was " excommunicated four times between 1227 and his own death in 1250", and was often vilified in pro-papal chronicles of the time and after. Pope Gregory IX went so far as to declare him preambulus Antichristi (predecessor of

11880-406: 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

12060-406: 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

12240-458: 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

12420-438: 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

12600-426: The Adriatic Sea during the Great War . During World War II , the city was taken by the Polish 2nd Corps against Nazi German forces, as Free Polish forces were serving as part of the British Army. Poles were tasked with capture of the city on 16 June 1944 and accomplished the task a month later on 18 July 1944 in what is known as the battle of Ancona . The attack was part of an Allied operation to gain access to

12780-425: The Crusade to continually stall in anticipation of his ever-delayed arrival. The crusade ended in failure with the loss of Damietta in 1221. Frederick was blamed by both Pope Honorius III and the general Christian populace for this calamitous defeat. In 1225, after agreeing with Pope Honorius to launch a Crusade before 1228, Frederick summoned an imperial Diet at Cremona , the main pro-imperial city in Lombardy :

12960-554: The Emperor was initially happy with his election. Innocent, however, was to become his fiercest enemy. Negotiations began in the summer of 1243, but the situation changed as Viterbo rebelled, instigated by the intriguing local cardinal Ranieri Capocci . Frederick could not afford to lose his main stronghold near Rome, so he besieged Viterbo . Innocent IV convinced the rebels to sign a peace but, after Frederick withdrew his garrison, Ranieri had them slaughtered on 13 November. Frederick

13140-409: The Greek word Ἀγκών ( Ankṓn ), meaning "elbow"; the harbour to the east of the town was originally protected only by the promontory on the north, shaped like an elbow. Greek merchants established a Tyrian purple dye factory here. In Roman times it kept its own coinage with the punning device of the bent arm holding a palm branch , and the head of Aphrodite on the reverse, and continued the use of

13320-511: The Holy Roman Empire seemed now the target of the Mongols, Frederick II sent letters to Henry III of England and Louis IX of France in order to organise a crusade against the Mongol Empire. A full-scale invasion never occurred, as the Mongols spent the next year pillaging Hungary before withdrawing. After the Mongols withdrew from Hungary back to Russia, Frederick turned his attention back towards Italian matters. The danger represented by

13500-474: The Italian average of 42. In the five years between 2002 and 2007, the population of Ancona grew by 1.48 percent, while Italy as a whole grew by 3.56 percent. The current birth rate of Ancona is 8.14 births per 1,000 inhabitants compared to the Italian average of 9.45 births. As of 2006 , 92.77% of the population was Italian. The largest immigrant group came from other European nations (particularly those from Albania , Romania and Ukraine ): 3.14%, followed by

13680-417: 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

13860-489: 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,

14040-577: The King of Germany, he did not travel to Egypt with the armies of the Fifth Crusade in 1217. He sent forces to Egypt under the command of Louis I, Duke of Bavaria , but constant expectation of his arrival caused papal legate Pelagius to reject Ayyubid sultan Al-Kamil 's offer to restore the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem to the crusaders in exchange for their withdrawal from Egypt and caused

14220-419: The Kingdom of Sicily or on Crusade until 1235, when he made his last journey to Germany. He returned to Italy in 1237 and stayed there for the remaining thirteen years of his life, represented in Germany by his son Conrad . In the Kingdom of Sicily, he built on the reform of the laws begun at the Assizes of Ariano in 1140 by his grandfather Roger II . His initiative in this direction was visible as early as

14400-511: The League when in June 1226 Louis VIII of France laid siege to Avignon , an imperial city. The barons of the French army sent a letter to Frederick defending their action as a military necessity, and a few days after the start of the siege Henry (VII) ratified an alliance with France that had been signed in 1223. Problems of stability within the empire delayed Frederick's departure on crusade. It

14580-527: The Lombard cities to block the Alpine passes. In May 1235, Frederick went to Germany, taking with him no anrmy, only a sumptuous entourage as a display of his power and wealth. News of his arrival spread quickly and the rebellion disintegrated. As soon as July, he was able to force his son to renounce the crown and all his lands at Worms, where Henry was tried and imprisoned. Henry remained a prisoner in Apulia for

14760-556: 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

14940-464: The Mongols preoccupied themselves with the lands east of the Danube, attempting to smash all Hungarian resistance. He subsequently ordered his vassals to strengthen their defenses, adopt a defensive posture, and gather large numbers of crossbowmen. A chronicler reports that Frederick received a demand of submission from Batu Khan at some time, which he ignored. Frederick II apparently kept up to date on

15120-572: The Mongols' activities, as a letter from the emperor dated June 1241 comments that the Mongols were now using looted Hungarian armor. On 20 June in Faenza , the emperor issued the Encyclica contra Tartaros , an encyclical letter announcing the fall of Kiev , the invasion of Hungary and the threat to Germany, and requesting each Christian nation to devote its proper quota of men and arms to the defense of Christendom. According to Matthew of Paris's copy of

15300-531: The Papacy to frame himself as the protector of Christendom. While he called them traitorous pagans, Frederick expressed an admiration for Mongol military prowess after hearing of their deeds, in particular their able commanders and fierce discipline and obedience, judging the latter to be the greatest source of their success. He called a levy throughout Germany while the Mongols were busy raiding Hungary. In mid-1241, Frederick dispersed his army back to their holdfasts as

15480-678: The Staufer supporters in Germany, she had her son renounce the title King of the Romans. She probably agreed with Philip that Frederick's prospects in Germany were hopeless. The decision strengthened Frederick's position in Sicily as this satisfied both Philip of Swabia and the Pope, who did not like the idea of a ruler who had authority in both Sicily and the North Alpine realm. Constance of Sicily

15660-653: The Templars and Hospitallers, condemned this deal as a political ploy on the part of Frederick to regain his kingdom while betraying the cause of the Crusaders. Al-Kamil, who was nervous about possible war with his relatives who ruled Syria and Mesopotamia , wished to avoid further trouble from the Christians, at least until his domestic rivals were subdued. The crusade ended in a truce and in Frederick's coronation as King of Jerusalem on 18 March 1229, although this

15840-736: The Volturno–Irpino. Frederick arrived at Brindisi in June 1229. He quickly recovered the lost territories, and tried and condemned the rebel barons, but avoided crossing the borders of the Papal States. The war came to an end with the Treaty of San Germano in July 1230. On 28 August, in a public ceremony in Ceprano , the papal legates Thomas of Capua and Giovanni Colonna absolved Frederick and lifted his excommunication. The emperor personally met Gregory IX at Anagni , making some concessions to

16020-543: The allodial Guelphic possessions to Frederick, who in return enfeoffed Otto with the same lands and additional former imperial possessions as the newly established Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg , ending the unclear status of the German Guelphs, who had been left without title and rank after 1180, and encouraging their cooperation. With peace north of the Alps, Frederick raised an army from the German princes to suppress

16200-675: The beginning of it stands the marble triumphal arch , the Arch of Trajan with a single archway, and without bas-reliefs , erected in his honour in 115 by the Senate and Roman people. Ancona was attacked successively by the Goths and Lombards between the 3rd and 5th centuries, but recovered its strength and importance. It was one of the cities of the Pentapolis of the Exarchate of Ravenna ,

16380-676: The burden of local government in Germany. It was a testament to Frederick’s considerable political strength, his increased prestige during the early 1230s, and sheer overpowering might that he succeeded in securing their support and rebound them to Hohenstaufen power. In Germany the Hohenstaufen and the Guelphs reconciled in 1235. Otto the Child , the grandson of Henry the Lion , had been deposed as Duke of Bavaria and Saxony in 1180, conveying

16560-479: The capture of the rival city: as a sign of gratitude, they were granted an augmentation of the communal coat-of-arms with the Hohenstaufen eagle, together with other privileges. This episode shows how the independent cities used the rivalry between Empire and Pope as a means to obtain maximum advantage for themselves. At this time, Gregory considered yielding. A truce occurred and peace negotiations began. Direct peace negotiations ultimately failed and Gregory called for

16740-444: 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

16920-524: The church in Sicily. He also issued the Constitutions of Melfi (August 1231) to solve the political and administrative problems of the country, which had dramatically been shown by the recent war. While he may have temporarily made his peace with the pope, Frederick found the German princes another matter. Frederick's son Henry VII (who was born 1211 in Sicily, son of Frederick's first wife Constance of Aragon ) had caused their discontent with an aggressive policy against their privileges. This forced Henry to

17100-502: The city centre during the most intense cold waves. Snow is not unusual with air masses coming from Northern Europe or from the Balkans and Russia, and can be heavy at times (also due to the " Adriatic Sea effect "), especially in the hills surrounding the city centre. Summers are usually warm and humid (July mean temp. 22.5 °C or 72.5 °F). Highs sometimes can reach values around 35 and 40 °C (95 and 104 °F), especially if

17280-399: The city, he was convinced that only complete military subjection could finally ensure imperial dominance. Frederick’s demand of total surrender spurred further resistance from Milan, Brescia , Bologna , and Piacenza . In the spring of 1238 Frederick summoned a vast international army to aid in his campaign against the remaining insurgent cities, gathering troops from England, France, Hungary,

17460-524: The civilian population. Mongol probing attacks materialised on the Holy Roman Empire's border states: a force was repulsed in a skirmish near Kłodzko, 300–700 Mongol troops were killed in a battle near Vienna to 100 Austrian losses (according to the Duke of Austria), and a Mongol raiding party was destroyed by Austrian knights in the district of Theben after being backed to the border of the River March. As

17640-653: 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

17820-425: The commune of Rome) and an elephant. Now at the zenith of his power, Frederick’s political preeminence across all Europe was seemingly unassailable. Frederick rejected any suit for conditional peace from his Lombard enemies, even from Milan , his most implacable foe among the cities, which had sent a great sum of money. Perhaps from sober political calculation in light of years of Milanese opposition or simply hatred of

18000-573: 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

18180-463: 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

18360-446: 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

18540-579: 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

18720-577: The death of his father Henry VI in 1197, Frederick was in Italy, traveling towards Germany, when the bad news reached his guardian, Conrad of Spoleto . Frederick was hastily brought back to his mother Constance in Palermo, Sicily, where he was crowned King of Sicily on 17 May 1198, at just three years of age. Originally his title had been Romanorum et Sicilie rex (King of the Romans and Sicily), but in 1198, after Constance (who kept using title of Empress) found out that Philip of Swabia had been recognized by

18900-464: 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

19080-534: 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

19260-487: The dismissal of the pro-noble Walter of Palearia. The new emperor invaded Italy, where he reached Calabria without meeting much resistance. In response, Innocent sided against Otto, and in September 1211 at the Diet of Nuremberg Frederick was elected in absentia as German King by a rebellious faction backed by the pope. Innocent also excommunicated Otto, who was forced to return to Germany. Frederick sailed to Gaeta with

19440-478: 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

19620-418: The election of Pope Pius IX . In 1938, 1177 lived in Ancona; 53 Jews were sent away to Germany, 15 of them survived and returned to the town after World War II . The majority of the Jewish community stayed in town or emigrated due to high ransoms paid to the fascist regime. In 2004, about 200 Jews lived in Ancona. Two synagogues and two cemeteries still exist in the city. The ancient Monte-Cardeto cemetery

19800-525: The election of a new pope. In 1241–1242, the forces of the Mongol Empire decisively defeated the armies of Hungary and Poland and devastated their countryside and all their unfortified settlements. King Béla IV of Hungary appealed to Frederick for aid, but Frederick, being in dispute with the Hungarian king for some time (as Bela had sided with the Papacy against him) and not wanting to commit to

19980-598: The emperor who made the harbour. Most of its original bronze ornaments have disappeared. The archway is flanked by pairs of fluted Corinthian columns on pedestals. A pediment bears inscriptions. The format is that of the Arch of Titus in Rome, but made taller, so that the bronze figures surmounting it, of Trajan, his wife Plotina and sister Marciana, would figure as a landmark for ships approaching Rome's greatest Adriatic port. There are also several buildings by Giorgio da Sebenico , combining Gothic and Renaissance elements:

20160-570: The encyclical, Frederick indicated he had accepted Hungarian submission as emperor. Another letter written by Frederick, found in the Regesta Imperii, dated to 20 June 1241, and intended for all his vassals in Swabia, Austria, and Bohemia, included a number of specific military instructions. His forces were to avoid engaging the Mongols in field battles, hoard all food stocks in every fortress and stronghold, and arm all possible levies as well as

20340-518: The encyclical, it was addressed to the Catholic nations— France , Spain , Wales , Ireland , England , Swabia , Denmark , Italy , Burgundy , Apulia , Crete , Cyprus , Sicily , Scotland and Norway —each addressed according to its own national stereotype. Richard of San Germano states that copies were sent to all the princes of the West and quotes the start of the letter to the French king. In

20520-462: 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

20700-433: 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

20880-599: The following cities with the following operators: Ancona is served by Ancona Airport ( IATA : AOI, ICAO : LIPY), in Falconara Marittima and named after Raffaello Sanzio . European Coastal Airlines , a former seaplane operator from Croatia, established trans-Adriatic flights between Croatia and Italy in November 2015, and offered four weekly flights from Ancona Falconara Airport to Split (59 minutes) and Rijeka (49 minutes). The Ancona railway station

21060-423: The form of a Greek cross, and other elements of Byzantine art. It has a dodecagonal dome over the centre slightly altered by Margaritone d'Arezzo in 1270. The façade has a Gothic portal, ascribed to Giorgio da Como (1228), which was intended to have a lateral arch on each side. The interior, which has a crypt under each transept, in the main preserves its original character. It has ten columns which are attributed to

21240-476: 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

21420-501: The general populace. Thomas of Split comments that there was a frenzy of fortifying castles and cities throughout the Holy Roman Empire, including Italy. Either following the Emperor's instructions or on their own initiative, Frederick II, Duke of Austria paid to have his border castles strengthened at his own expense. King Wenceslaus I of Bohemia had every castle strengthened and provisioned, as well as providing soldiers and armaments to monasteries in order to turn them into refuges for

21600-654: The illegality of his persecution by Gregory. Frederick then directed his army toward Rome and the Pope, burning and destroying Umbria as he advanced. Then just as the Emperor's forces were ready to attack Rome, Gregory died on 22 August 1241. Frederick then attempted to show that the war was not directed against the Church of Rome but against the Pope by withdrawing his troops and freeing from prison in Capua two cardinals he had captured at Giglio, Otto of Tonengo and James of Pecorara . Frederick then traveled to Sicily to wait for

21780-489: 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

21960-577: 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 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

22140-640: 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

22320-498: 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

22500-534: 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

22680-514: 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

22860-589: The main arguments for holding the Diet would be to continue the struggle against heresy, to organize the crusade and, above all, to restore the imperial power in northern Italy, which had long been usurped by the numerous communes located there. Those assembled responded with the reformation of the Lombard League , which had already defeated his grandfather Frederick Barbarossa in the 12th century, and again Milan

23040-442: The mid-1230s, Frederick's viceroy was forced to leave Acre, and in 1244, following a siege , Jerusalem itself was lost again to a new Muslim offensive. Whilst Frederick's seeming bloodless recovery of Jerusalem for the cross brought him great prestige in some European circles, his decision to complete the crusade while excommunicated provoked Church hostility. Although in 1230 the Pope lifted Frederick's excommunication, this decision

23220-412: 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

23400-542: The new papal authority was the massive Citadel. Pope Pius IV commanded the execution and burning of Converso merchants in Ancona for returning to Judaism. Later, Ancona, along with Rome and Avignon in southern France , was one of the three cities in the Papal States where Jews were permitted to remain after Pope Pius V ordered their banishment in 1569. They lived in the ghetto that had been established in Ancona in 1555. In 1733, Pope Clement XII extended

23580-690: The news of his excommunication by the pope in the first months of 1239 while his court was in Padua . The emperor responded by expelling the Franciscans and the Dominicans from Lombardy, taking hostages from important northern Italian families, and electing his son Enzo as Legate General and Imperial vicar of Lombardy. Enzo soon annexed the Romagna , Marche , and the Duchy of Spoleto , nominally part of

23760-408: 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

23940-630: 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

24120-584: 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:

24300-458: 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

24480-598: The pope and the imperial diplomats, Frederick invaded Lombardy from Verona . In November 1237 he won the decisive battle in Cortenuova over the Lombard League, displaying his capability as a battlefield leader, able to maneuver and prevail in difficult situations. Frederick celebrated the victory with a triumph in Cremona in the manner of an ancient Roman emperor , with the captured carroccio (later sent to

24660-406: 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

24840-487: The presence of the Mongols in Europe was debated again at the First Council of Lyon in 1245, but Frederick II was excommunicated by that very diet in the context of his struggle with the Papacy and ultimately abandoned the possibility of a crusade against the Mongol Empire. A new pope, Innocent IV , was elected on 25 June 1243. He was a member of a noble Imperial family and had some relatives in Frederick's camp, so

25020-491: The pro-Jewish attitude taken towards Ancona Jews due to their importance in the trade and banking business, making Ancona a trade center. In 1555, pope Paul IV forced the Crypto-Jewish community of the city to convert to Christianity , as part of his Papal Bull of 1555 . While some did, others refused to do so and thus were hanged and then burnt in the town square. In response, Jewish merchants boycotted Ancona for

25200-469: 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

25380-528: 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

25560-415: 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

25740-411: The quay, and an inferior imitation of Trajan's arch was set up; he also erected a Lazaretto at the south end of the harbour, Luigi Vanvitelli being the architect-in-chief. The southern quay was built in 1880, and the harbour was protected by forts on the heights. From 1797 onwards, when the French took it, it frequently appears in history as an important fortress. Ancona, as well as Venice, became

25920-455: The rebel cities in Lombardy. Gregory tried to stop the invasion with diplomatic moves, but in vain. During his descent to Italy, Frederick had to divert his troops to quell a rebellion of Frederick II, Duke of Austria . At Vienna , in February 1237, he obtained the title of King of the Romans for his 9-year-old son Conrad . After the failure of the negotiations between the Lombard cities,

26100-524: The red silk mantle that had been crafted during the reign of Roger II. It bore an Arabic inscription indicating that the robe dated from the year 528 in the Muslim calendar, and incorporated a generic benediction, wishing its wearer "vast prosperity, great generosity and high splendor, fame and magnificent endowments, and the fulfillment of his wishes and hopes. May his days and nights go in pleasure without end or change." This coronation robe can be found today in

26280-487: 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

26460-522: The region of northern Germany, the center of Guelph power, Otto continued to hold the reins of royal and imperial power despite his excommunication. Otto's decisive military defeat at the Bouvines forced him to withdraw to the Guelph hereditary lands where, virtually without supporters, he died in 1218. The German princes, supported by Innocent III, again elected Frederick king of Germany in 1215, and he

26640-476: The rest of his life until he reportedly committed suicide. Frederick II skillfully turned the complex challenge of Henry’s rebellion into a chance to introduce “thorough and groundbreaking” reform of Germany and the way the empire was ruled. The Mainz Landfriede or Constitutio Pacis , decreed at the Imperial Diet of 1235, became one of the basic laws of the empire and provided that the princes should share

26820-400: The royal palace of Palermo until 1206. Frederick was subsequently under tutor Walter of Palearia , until, in 1208, he was declared of age. At that time he spoke five languages, Greek, Arabic, Latin, Provençal and Sicilian . His first task was to reassert his power over Sicily and southern Italy, where local barons and adventurers had usurped most of the authority. Pope Innocent was in search of

27000-720: The support of the church. He left behind a kingdom in the Levant torn between his agents and the local nobility, a civil war known as the War of the Lombards . The itinerant Joachimite preachers and many radical Franciscans , the Spirituals , supported Frederick. Against the interdict pronounced on his lands, the preachers condemned the Pope and continued to minister the sacraments and grant absolutions. Brother Arnold in Swabia proclaimed

27180-401: 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,

27360-422: The temple of Venus. The church was restored in the 1980s. The Arch of Trajan is a marble structure 18 metres (59 feet) high, but only 3 metres (9.8 feet) wide, standing on a high platform approached by a wide flight of steps, and is one of the finest surviving Roman monuments in the Marches . It was built in the year 114/115 as an entrance to the causeway atop the harbour wall and is named in honour of Trajan ,

27540-410: 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

27720-421: 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 ),

27900-567: The wind is blowing from the south or from the west ( föhn effect off the Apennine Mountains ). Thunderstorms are quite common, particularly in August and September, and can be intense with occasional flash floods, damaging winds and even large hail. Spring and autumn are both seasons with changeable weather, but generally mild. Extremes in temperature have been −15.4 °C (4.3 °F) (in 1967) and 40.8 °C (105.4 °F) (in 1968) / 40.5 °C (104.9 °F) (in 1983). In 2007, there were 101,480 people residing in Ancona (the greater area has

28080-430: 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 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

28260-408: The world” and enjoys a reputation as a brilliant Renaissance man avant la lettre and polymath : a visionary statesman, scientist, scholar, mathematician, architect, poet and composer. Frederick also reportedly spoke six languages: Latin, Sicilian , Middle High German , Old French , Greek, and Arabic. As an avid patron of science and the arts, he played a major role in promoting literature through

28440-467: Was Cencio , who would become Pope Honorius III. Markward of Annweiler , with the support of Henry's brother, Philip of Swabia , reclaimed the regency for himself and soon after invaded the Kingdom of Sicily. In 1200, with the help of Genoese ships , he landed in Sicily and one year later seized the young Frederick. He thus ruled Sicily until 1202, when he was succeeded by another German captain, William of Capparone , who kept Frederick under his control in

28620-423: Was also a claimant to the title of King of the Romans from 1212 and unopposed holder of that monarchy from 1215. As such, he was King of Germany , of Italy , and of Burgundy . At the age of three, he was crowned King of Sicily as a co-ruler with his mother, Constance, Queen of Sicily, the daughter of Roger II of Sicily . His other royal title was King of Jerusalem by virtue of marriage and his connection with

28800-439: 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

28980-441: Was also problematic in Lombardy, after all the emperor's attempts to restore the imperial authority in Lombardy with the help of Gregory IX (at the time, ousted from Rome by a revolt) turned to nothing in 1233. In the meantime Henry in Germany had returned to an anti-princes policy, against his father's will: Frederick thus obtained his excommunication from Gregory IX (July 1234). Henry tried to muster an opposition in Germany and asked

29160-419: 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

29340-465: Was better in order to control them and the Muslims acknowledged that they were left with their religious freedom. He also enlisted some in the army and six hundred as his personal bodyguards because, as Muslim soldiers, they had the advantage of immunity from papal excommunication. At the time he was elected King of the Romans, Frederick promised to go on crusade. He continually delayed, however, and, in spite of his renewal of this vow at his coronation as

29520-408: Was chosen as the league's leader. The Diet was cancelled, however, and the situation was stabilized only through a compromise reached by Honorius between Frederick and the league. During his sojourn in northern Italy, Frederick also invested the Teutonic Order with the territories in what would become East Prussia , starting what was later called the Northern Crusade . Frederick was distracted with

29700-611: Was crowned Holy Roman Emperor in Rome by Honorius III, on 22 November 1220. At the same time, Frederick's oldest son Henry took the title of King of the Romans. Unlike most Holy Roman emperors, Frederick spent few years in Germany. In 1218, he helped King Philip II of France and Odo III, Duke of Burgundy , to bring an end to the War of Succession in Champagne (France) by invading Lorraine , capturing and burning Nancy , capturing Theobald I, Duke of Lorraine and forcing him to withdraw his support from Erard of Brienne-Ramerupt . After his coronation in 1220, Frederick remained either in

29880-407: Was crowned king in Aachen in mid-July 1215 by one of the three German archbishops. Frederick then astonished the crowd by taking the cross and calling upon the nobles present to do the same. It was not until another five years had passed, and only after further negotiations between Frederick, Innocent III, and Honorius III – who succeeded to the papacy after Innocent's death in 1216 – that Frederick

30060-520: Was enraged but signed a peace treaty, which was soon broken. The new pope was opposed to Frederick. Together with many of the Cardinals, most of whom were newly appointed by himself, Innocent fled via Genoese galleys to Liguria , arriving on 7 July. His aim was to reach Lyon , where a new church council was being held since 24 June 1245. Italian language Italian ( italiano , pronounced [itaˈljaːno] , or lingua italiana , pronounced [ˈliŋɡwa itaˈljaːna] )

30240-561: Was entrusted to the care of the duchess of Spoleto, the wife of the Swabian noble Conrad I of Urslingen, who was named duke of Spoleto by Frederick Barbarossa. Frederick II stayed in Foligno, a place located in papal territory and so under papal jurisdiction, until the death of his father, on September 28 in 1197. In 1196 at Frankfurt am Main the infant Frederick was elected King of the Romans and thus heir to his father's imperial crown. His rights in Germany were to end up disputed by Henry's brother Philip of Swabia and Otto of Brunswick . At

30420-480: Was forced to return when he was struck down by an epidemic that had broken out. Even the master of the Teutonic Knights , Hermann of Salza , recommended that he return to the mainland to recuperate. On 29 September 1227, Frederick was excommunicated by Pope Gregory IX for failing to honor his crusading pledge. Many contemporary chroniclers doubted the sincerity of Frederick's illness, and their attitude may be explained by their pro-papal leanings. Roger of Wendover ,

30600-500: Was in her own right queen of Sicily, and she established herself as regent . Constance sided with the Pope who preferred that Sicily and the Germans were under separate governments. She renounced the authority over the Sicilian state church to the papal side, but only as Sicilian queen and not as empress, seemingly with the intention of keeping options open for Frederick. Upon Constance's death in 1198, Pope Innocent III succeeded as Frederick's guardian. Frederick's tutor during this period

30780-418: Was known as the puer Apuliae (son of Apulia ). His mother was Constance of Sicily . Frederick was baptised in Assisi , in the church of San Rufino . At birth, Frederick was named Constantine by his mother. This name, a masculine form of his mother's name, served to identify him closely with both his Norman heritage and his imperial heritage (through Constantine the Great , the first Christian emperor). It

30960-443: 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

31140-417: Was not the son of Henry and Constance but was presented to Henry as his own after a faked pregnancy. His real father was variously described as a butcher of Jesi, a physician, a miller or a falconer. Frederick's birth was also associated with a prophecy of Merlin . According to Andrea Dandolo , writing at some distance but probably recording contemporary gossip, Henry doubted reports of his wife's pregnancy and

31320-400: Was not until 1225, when, by proxy, Frederick had married Isabella II of Jerusalem , heiress to the Kingdom of Jerusalem , that his departure seemed assured. Frederick immediately saw to it that his new father-in-law John of Brienne , the current king of Jerusalem, was dispossessed and his rights transferred to the emperor. In August 1227, Frederick set out for the Holy Land from Brindisi but

31500-399: Was only convinced by consulting Joachim of Fiore , who confirmed that Frederick was his son by interpretation of Merlin's prophecy and the Erythraean Sibyl . A later legend claims that Constance gave birth in the public square of Jesi to silence doubters. Constance took unusual measures to prove her pregnancy and its legitimacy and Roger of Howden reports that she swore on the gospels before

31680-406: 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

31860-438: Was still his name at the time of his election as King of the Romans . He was only given his grandfathers' names, becoming Frederick Roger (or Roger Frederick), at his baptism when he was two years old. This dual name served the same purpose as Constantine: emphasising his dual heritage. Frederick's birth was accompanied by gossip and rumour on account of his mother's advanced age. According to Albert of Stade and Salimbene , he

32040-420: Was taken for a variety of reasons related to the political situation in Europe. Of Frederick's crusade, Philip of Novara , a chronicler of the period, said: "The emperor left Acre [after the conclusion of the truce]; hated, cursed, and vilified." Overall this crusade, arguably the first successful one since the First Crusade , was adversely affected by the manner in which Frederick carried out negotiations without

32220-403: Was technically improper. Frederick's wife Isabella, the heiress, had died, leaving their infant son Conrad as rightful king. There is also disagreement as to whether the "coronation" was a coronation at all, as a letter written by Frederick to Henry III of England suggests that the crown he placed on his own head was in fact the imperial crown of the Romans. At his coronation, he may have worn

32400-399: Was usually allied with the Republic of Ragusa and the Byzantine Empire . In 1137, 1167 and 1174 it was strong enough to push back the forces of the Holy Roman Empire . Anconitan ships took part in the Crusades, and their navigators included Cyriac of Ancona . In the struggle between the Popes and the Holy Roman Emperors that troubled Italy from the 12th century onwards, Ancona sided with

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