162-588: Freemasonry in Italy ( Italian : Massoneria ) dates to the first half of the eighteenth century. Its success largely depended on the lack of enthusiasm with which Papal bans on the order were enforced in the various states. After the end of the Napoleonic regime, Freemasonry was suppressed in most of the peninsula. The start of the unification process in 1859 saw a revival in Freemasonry. Giuseppe Garibaldi ,
324-674: A Federation in 1916. Le Droit Humain is the oldest Freemasonry for Men and Women in Italy. In 1914, at the fourteenth national congress of the Italian Socialist Party , held in Ancona , Mussolini managed to impose his motion for the incompatibility between party membership and Freemasonry, winning over that of the freemason Alfredo Poggi who was instead in favor. As Benito Mussolini rose to power, many of Italy's Freemasons became ardent fascists, and some helped organise Mussolini's March on Rome . However, in 1923 Freemasonry
486-598: A Supreme Council of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite . The Grand Orient of Naples amalgamated with the new body, and a new Grand Orient was born, recognised by Paris. Freemasonry briefly flourished, until the new state was broken up and Freemasonry was suppressed in 1814. During the period when Freemasonry was first established in Italy, Savoy and Piedmont were part of the Kingdom of Sardinia . In 1749 in Chambery ,
648-783: A baroque planned city in Caserta and planned to move the seat of government to the Palace of Caserta. Charles attempted to rebuild the relatively weak state with enlightened reforms directed particularly against the influence of the Roman Catholic Church. When this assertive monarch became King of Spain in 1759, he had to cede his former empire to his younger son Ferdinand IV , who founded the Bourbon-Sicily collateral line, because this crown could not be united with Naples-Sicily according to international treaties. This line
810-508: A cautious, yet authoritarian policy aiming at the prevention of the occurrence of yet another rebellion. Over half of the delegates elected to parliament in the liberal atmosphere of 1848 were arrested or fled the country. The administration, in their treatment of political prisoners, in their observation of 'suspicious elements', violated the rights of the individual guaranteed by the constitution. Conditions were so bad that they caused international attention; in 1856 Britain and France demanded
972-670: A charter from the Premier Grand Lodge of England as the Old British and Ligurian Lodge . Two came into existence under the Grand Orient of France when Liguria was annexed by Napoleon, but in 1814 the region was given to Sardinia and Freemasonry ceased to exist. In 1746 a lodge was founded in Venice , which became associated with Giacomo Casanova , Carlo Goldoni , and Francesco Griselini. It survived until 1755 when
1134-565: 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
1296-404: A leader of Italian unification , was an active Mason and a keen supporter of the craft. In the 1920s, Freemasonry was again suppressed under Italian fascism but revived again after the fall of Benito Mussolini . Into the 21st century, Italy contains a wide variety of Masonic observances, regular, liberal, male, female and mixed. The early history of Freemasonry in the Italian peninsula precedes
1458-471: 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
1620-657: 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
1782-709: A lodge named "Perfect Union", about which nothing else is known. No trace, likewise, can be found of the lodge patented in London in 1731 to be formed in Naples. In 1750, a Neapolitan lodge was established by a Greek, but after the publication, on 28 May 1751, of the Bull Providas Romanorum Pontificum issued by Pope Benedict XIV to reiterate the papal condemnation of 1738, Charles VII of Bourbon (who later became King Charles III of Spain ) issued an edict (10 July 1751) that prohibited Freemasonry in
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#17327729889941944-786: A lodge was founded on the basis of a license from the provincial grand master for Savoy and Piedmont issued by the Grand Lodge of London in 1739 to the Marquis de Bellegarde François Noyel. In 1752, the same lodge took the name of the Mother Grand Lodge, with the power to create other lodges in all the territories of the Kingdom of Sardinia and, in fact, in 1765 three of them were created, including one in Turin . The latter assumed such importance as to be accorded, in 1773, autonomy from
2106-477: A low water supply due to the lack of public investment in the construction of pipes, which also means that most private houses do not have toilets. Paved roads are rare, except in the area around Naples or on the main roads of the country, and they are often flooded and have many potholes. Moreover, most rural inhabitants often live in small old towns which, due to lack of social expenditure, become unhealthy, allowing many infectious diseases to spread rapidly. While
2268-569: A new and larger theatre to replace the old, dilapidated, and too-small Teatro San Bartolomeo of 1621. Which had served the city well, especially after Scarlatti had moved there in 1682 and had begun to create an important opera centre which existed well into the 1700s. Thus, the San Carlo was inaugurated on 4 November 1737, the king's name day , with the performance of Domenico Sarro 's opera Achille in Sciro and much admired for its architecture
2430-658: 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
2592-667: A process of unification of the grand bodies, which was completed in 1873 when the Supreme Council of Palermo amalgamated with the Grand Orient. On 21 April 1901, the Grand Orient opened its new headquarters in Palazzo Giustiniani in Rome . A disagreement over secularism in elementary schools led in 1908 to the secession of the Supreme Council of Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. The stated reason for dissension
2754-417: 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
2916-694: A result of the War of the Sicilian Vespers (1282–1302), the King of Sicily lost the Island of Sicily (also called Trinacria) to the Crown of Aragon , but remained ruler over the peninsular part of the realm. Although his territory became known unofficially as the Kingdom of Naples , he and his successors never gave up the title King of Sicily and still officially referred to their realm as the Kingdom of Sicily. At
3078-575: 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
3240-649: A result. Two lodges were formed in Livorno in 1763 and 1765 under the Antient Grand Lodge of England , and the Premier Grand Lodge of England produced two more in the same city in 1771. Lodges were also formed when French troops were quartered in Leghorn in 1796–97, but all were closed by the Grand Duke in 1800. Lodges were again formed in Florence and Leghorn in 1807-09 after annexation by France, but
3402-614: 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: Kingdom of the Two Sicilies The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies ( Italian : Regno delle Due Sicilie ) was a kingdom in Southern Italy from 1816 to 1861 under
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#17327729889943564-479: 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
3726-513: 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
3888-427: 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
4050-691: 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
4212-759: 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
4374-534: 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
4536-460: 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
4698-504: 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
4860-410: 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
5022-648: 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
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5184-549: 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
5346-509: 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,
5508-991: 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 ),
5670-579: The 1830 revolution . In 1829 he had created the Royal Order of Merit (Royal Order of Francis I of the Two Sicilies). His successor Ferdinand II declared a political amnesty and undertook steps to stimulate the economy, including reduction of taxation. Eventually the city of Naples would be equipped with street lighting and in 1839 the railroad from Naples to Portici was put into operation, measures that were visible signs of progress. However, as to
5832-667: The French period and which had been outlawed in 1816. In 1820 a revolution planned by Carbonari and their supporters, aimed at obtaining a written constitution (the Spanish constitution of 1812), did not work out as planned. Nevertheless, King Ferdinand felt compelled to grant the constitution sought by the liberals (13 July). That same month, a revolution broke out in Palermo , Sicily, but was quickly suppressed. Rebels from Naples occupied Benevento and Pontecorvo , two enclaves belonging to
5994-702: 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
6156-852: 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
6318-420: The Inquilani (small-farmers) and the Contadini (peasantry), along with 65,225 listed as shepherds . Wheat, wine, olive oil and cotton were the chief products with an annual production, as recorded in 1844, of 67 million liters of olive oil largely produced in Apulia and Calabria and loaded for export at Gallipoli along with 191 million liters of wine that were for the most part consumed domestically. On
6480-399: 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
6642-698: 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
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6804-454: The Kingdom of Naples ruled by the Angevins. In the Peace of Caltabellotta 1302 , the Aragonese king Frederick III of Sicily and the Angevin king Charles II of Naples recognized each other's rule, but the ancient name "Trinacria" was chosen for the island, while the title "King of Sicily" remained associated with Neapolitan rule, so that there were now two kingdoms called Sicily. A brief "reunification" took place from Sicily, when in 1442
6966-440: The Kingdom of Naples , which was officially also known as the Kingdom of Sicily. Since both kingdoms were named Sicily, they were collectively known as the "Two Sicilies" ( Utraque Sicilia , literally "both Sicilies"), and the unified kingdom adopted this name. The king of the Two Sicilies was overthrown by Giuseppe Garibaldi in 1860, after which the people voted in a plebiscite to join the Kingdom of Sardinia . The annexation of
7128-481: The Kingdom of Naples . He changed his mind the next year, entrusting his son's education to a Mason and a priest. In 1764 a national Grand Lodge was established, and Freemasonry seemed firmly established in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies . However, in 1775 Tannuci, a minister of Ferdinand IV, persuaded him to ban Freemasonry again. Using Agents provocateurs Tannuci induced some masons to meet illegally, which allowed him to make arrests. Queen Caroline then intervened on
7290-609: The Lipari Islands . Italian Freemasonry continued in exile, with Italian masons contributing to the Republican cause in the Spanish Civil War . Freemasonry did not return to Italy until the fall of Fascism towards the end of the Second World War. On 4 December 1943, in the house of Salvatore Farina in Rome, members of the Grand Lodge of Italy reconstituted the Supreme Council of the Scottish Rite, electing Carlo de Cantellis as Sovereign Grand Commander. There followed years of schism and confusion, as different groups attempted to revive their own brand of Freemasonry. The Grand Orient of Italy
7452-423: The Papal States . At the Congress of Troppau (Nov. 19th), the Holy Alliance ( Metternich being the driving force) decided to intervene. On 23 February 1821, in front of 50,000 Austrian troops paraded outside his capital, King Ferdinand cancelled the constitution. An attempt at Neapolitan resistance to the Austrians by regular forces under General Guglielmo Pepe , as well as by irregular rebel forces (Carbonari),
7614-423: 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
7776-425: The Teatro di San Carlo in Naples on 30 May 1826. The kingdom had a large population, its capital Naples being the biggest city in Italy, at least three times as large as any other contemporary Italian state . At its peak, the kingdom had a military 100,000 soldiers strong, and a large bureaucracy . Naples was the largest city in the kingdom and the third largest city in Europe. The second largest city, Palermo,
7938-406: 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
8100-444: The "San Giovanni di Scozia" in Palermo and in 1764 the "Saint Jean d'Ecosse du Secret et de l'Harmonie" in Malta . In Liguria between 1745 and 1749 there were at least two lodges in Bordighera and Genoa , connected with the presence of French troops defending the Republic. Towards the end of the century, two other lodges were formed in Genoa. In 1780 one arose adhering to the Rectified Scottish Rite and another, in 1782, obtained
8262-406: 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
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#17327729889948424-458: 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
8586-441: The 1920s, often assisted by Freemasons who wished to destroy any record of their own participation. Sometime before August 1732, Lord Charles Sackville , then Earl of Middlesex, later the second Duke of Dorset, founded a lodge in Florence which later attracted Italian noblemen and intellectuals. It also attracted the interest of the Inquisition, and its Italian secretary, Tommaso Crudeli , was imprisoned and tortured, later dying as
8748-438: 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
8910-429: The Aragonese-Sicilian king Alfonso V also brought the Kingdom of Naples under his rule. With Alfonso's death, this southern Italian personal union dissolved again, since the Aragonese heir to the throne, John II (1458–1479), was only recognized in Sicily, but not in Naples, where Ferdinand (Ferrante, 1458–1494) , an illegitimate son of Alfonso V, seized power in 1458. However, his descendants lost Naples in 1495, first to
9072-460: The Duchy of Apulia . In 1131 this became the Kingdom of Sicily. Through further conquests, Roger II was able to expand his sphere of influence over all of Lower Italy as far as the Papal States . The previously Norman Kingdom of Sicily fell to the Staufer Henry VI , who had married Constance of Sicily in 1186, the daughter of the Norman King Roger II of Sicily and aunt and heiress of the last Norman King William II . Competing counter kings from
9234-418: The Fonderia Ferdinandea was a large foundry where cast iron was produced. The Reali ferriere ed Officine di Mongiana was an iron foundry and weapons factory. Founded in 1770, it employed 1600 workers in 1860 and closed in 1880. In Sicily (near Catania and Agrigento ), sulfur was mined to make gunpowder . The Sicilian mines were able to satisfy most of the global demand for sulfur. Silk cloth production
9396-438: The French king Charles VIII , who claimed the old Anjou throne rights for himself, and at the end of the wars triggered by this in 1501/04 to King Ferdinand V of Aragon and Sicily (1479–1516). Due to the dynastic union in 1494 between the Habsburgs and the houses of Aragon and Castile, Naples and Sicily also fell to Charles V in 1516. With the extinction of the Spanish Habsburgs in 1700, Naples and Sicily were caught up in
9558-445: The Grand Lodge at Chambery. In Piedmont, a lodge was also present in Novi Ligure . After French domination, the regions were handed back to Sardinia in 1814, and Freemasonry repressed. The Risorgimento , or unification of Italy, is generally taken to have commenced with the acquisition of most of Northern Italy by Victor Emmanuel II of Sardinia, and unfolded over several years as diplomacy and Giuseppe Garibaldi 's conquests extended
9720-585: The Grand Orient continued to grow, it was only recognised in Belgium and France. In 1863, internal dissension led to all but one of the Grand officers resigning, and their places being taken by Scottish Rite masons. The new arrangement merely led to a re-alignment of the divisions in Italian Freemasonry. Between 1864 and 1867 there were four Grand Bodies in Italy, By 1867 the Grand Orient was based in Florence, and had about 150 lodges. Two Scottish Rite Councils existed in Palermo and one in Milan. Garibaldi personally intervened. His Masonic congress in Naples in 1867 started
9882-419: The Grand Orient. The Grand Lodge, under Giovanni Ghinazzi, continued in its own tradition and continued to prosper. A major scandal affecting the Grand Orient arose in the 1980s from the exposure of illegal activity in a lodge called Propaganda Due (P2) . The lodge was originally formed in 1877 as Propaganda massonica . Its purpose was to ensure privacy for masons of national importance, both within and outside
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#173277298899410044-419: The Habsburgs in 1720 for the Sardinia . Since then, people have spoken of "Naples-Sicily". Until 1735, the Kingdoms of Naples and Sicily were now ruled by Austria. In the War of the Polish Succession the Austrians were harassed here by Spanish troops who supported the claims of the Duke of Parma and Spanish Infante Charles to Naples and Sicily and were victorious at Bitonto in 1734. Infante Charles of
10206-399: The House of Bourbon ruled both Sicily from 1735 to 1759, until he became King of Spain. He was the first king of Naples and Sicily in over 230 years to live and rule there personally. The center of power was and remained Naples, which was magnificently expanded by the new Bourbon kings, while Sicily retained a secondary and semi-colonial status. North of Naples, Charles began the construction of
10368-456: The Inquisition two years later, the same day that Cagliostro was captured. Freemasonry flourished in Rome after the French invasion of 1809, but suppression returned with the Pope in 1814. Although the Grand Orient of Turin managed to establish a lodge in 1861, it was not until 1870 and the incorporation of the Papal States into the Kingdom of Italy that Freemasonry was again permitted. A masonic seal dated to 1728 in Naples appears to belong to
10530-417: 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
10692-439: 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,
10854-423: The Italian unification, the railway development was highly limited. In the year 1859, the kingdom had only 99 kilometers of rail, compared to the 850 kilometers of Piedmont . Other achievements included the first volcano observatory in the world, l'Osservatorio Vesuviano (1841). The rails for the first Italian railways were built in Mongiana , Calabria , as well. All the rails of the old railways that went from
11016-412: The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies completed the first phase of Italian unification, and the new Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed in 1861. The Two Sicilies were heavily agricultural, like other Italian states. The name "Two Sicilies" originated from the partition of the medieval Kingdom of Sicily . Until 1285, the island of Sicily and the Mezzogiorno were constituent parts of the Kingdom of Sicily. As
11178-440: The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies was most efficiently conducted by sea. The kingdom possessed the largest merchant fleet in the Mediterranean. Urban road conditions, compared to Northern Italy, did not comply with the best European standards; by 1839, the main streets of Naples were gas-lit. Efforts were made to tackle the tough mountainous terrain; Ferdinand II built the cliff-top road along the Sorrentine peninsula. Road conditions in
11340-497: 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
11502-490: The Norman ruling family were finally eliminated by military force. When Henry VI died unexpectedly in 1197 at the age of 32, Constance took over the rule of the Sicilian kingdom as regent for her son. He had been elected German King as Frederick II in 1196 at the age of two, but was no longer recognized as such after the death of his father. In 1212, at the instigation of the Pope Innocent III , he finally became German king, initially as an anti-king to Otto IV , and in 1220 he
11664-446: The San Carlo was now the biggest opera house in the world. On 13 February 1816 a fire broke out during a dress-rehearsal for a ballet performance and quickly spread to destroy a part of the building. On the orders of King Ferdinand I, who used the services of Antonio Niccolini , to rebuild the opera house within ten months as a traditional horseshoe-shaped auditorium with 1,444 seats, and a proscenium, 33.5m wide and 30m high. The stage
11826-532: The San Carlo. An offer in 1822 from Domenico Barbaja , the impresario of the San Carlo , which followed the composer's ninth opera, led to Gaetano Donizetti 's move to Naples and his residency there which lasted until the production of Caterina Cornaro in January 1844. In all, Naples presented 51 of Donizetti's operas. Also Vincenzo Bellini 's first professionally staged opera had its first performance at
11988-472: The Swiss Guard, took the initiative and ordered the suppression of the revolution in Naples (15 May) and by July the mainland was again under royal control and by September, also Messina . Palermo, the revolutionaries' capital and last stronghold, fell to the government some months later on 15 May 1849. The Kingdom of Two Sicilies, over the course of 1848–1849, had been able to suppress the revolution and
12150-703: The Two Sicilies was the land forces of the Kingdom, it was created by the settlement of the Bourbon dynasty in Southern Italy following the events of the War of the Polish Succession . The army collapsed during the Expedition of the Thousand . The Real Marina was the naval forces of the Kingdom. It was the most important of the pre-unification Italian navies. A major problem in the Kingdom
12312-527: The administration of Kings Joseph and Joachim Murat , such as the Code Civil , the penal and commercial code, were kept (and extended to Sicily). In the mainland parts of the Kingdom, the power and influence of both nobility and clergy had been greatly reduced, though at the expense of law and order. Brigandage and the forceful occupation of lands were problems the restored Kingdom inherited from its predecessors. The Vienna Congress had granted Austria
12474-526: The attempt of Sicilian secession with their own forces, hired Swiss Guards included. The war declared on Austria in April 1848, under pressure of public sentiment, had been an event on paper only. In 1849 King Ferdinand II was 39 years old. He had begun as a reformer; the early death of his wife (1836), the frequency of political unrest, the extent and range of political expectations on the side of various groups that made up public opinion, had caused him to pursue
12636-473: The bourgeoisie, at times revolutionary, had been Neapolitan respectively Sicilian rather than Italian in its tendency; Sicily in 1848–1849 had striven for a higher degree of independence from Naples rather than for a unified Italy. As public sentiment for Italian unification was rather low in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, the country did not feature as an object of acquisition in the earlier plans of Piemont-Sardinia's prime minister Cavour . Only when Austria
12798-444: 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
12960-653: 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
13122-716: The control of the House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies , a cadet branch of the Bourbons . The kingdom was the largest sovereign state by population and land area in Italy before the Italian unification , comprising Sicily and most of the area of today's Mezzogiorno ( southern Italy ) and covering all of the Italian Peninsula south of the Papal States . The kingdom was formed when the Kingdom of Sicily merged with
13284-573: 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
13446-463: 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
13608-446: 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
13770-525: 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
13932-464: 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
14094-534: 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
14256-478: 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
14418-617: The end of French rule in 1814 meant the end of Freemasonry until Tuscany became part of the Italian State in 1859. The Gormogons arrived in Rome before the Freemasons, setting up a lodge in 1724 which may have survived until 1735. The purpose of the lodge may have been the advocacy of Jacobitism . Freemasonry arrived in 1733 in the form of an English-speaking lodge (often called the Jacobite Lodge of Rome ) which admitted
14580-462: 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
14742-523: The exiled George Seton, 5th Earl of Winton . In 1737, the lodge officers were arrested by the Inquisition, and the lodge closed down. The first Papal Bull against Freemasonry was issued the following year, making it illegal in the Papal States . Foreign masons, however, continued to meet in secret, issuing a medal honouring Martin Folkes in 1742. A permanent lodge was established in 1787, but erased by
14904-433: 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
15066-635: The fortified port of Gaeta , where he surrendered and abdicated in February 1861 after the Siege of Gaeta . At the encounter of Teano , Garibaldi met King Victor Emmanuel , transferring to him the conquered kingdom, the Two Sicilies were annexed into the Kingdom of Sardinia , which became the Kingdom of Italy in 1861. The Real Teatro di San Carlo was commissioned by the Bourbon King Charles VII of Naples who wanted to grant Naples
15228-476: 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
15390-679: The interior and hinterland areas of the kingdom made internal trade difficult. The kingdom achieved several scientific and technological accomplishments, such as the first steamboat in the Mediterranean Sea (1818), built in the shipyard of Stanislao Filosa at the Vigliena dock, near Naples, the first railway in the Italian peninsula (1839), which connected Naples to Portici , and the first iron-suspension bridge (the Real Ferdinando Bridge ) in Italy. However, until
15552-786: The intervention of the Inquisition led to the arrest of Casanova and the dissolution of the lodge. New lodges were founded in 1772, with warrants from the Premier Grand Lodge of England , in Venice and Verona , on the initiative of the Secretary of the Senate, Peter Gratarol, which remained active until 1777. The Rite of Strict Observance established a chapter in Padua in 1781, which opened another in Vicenza shortly afterwards. All Freemasonry
15714-489: 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
15876-419: The island of Sicily, in 1839, due to less arable lands, the output was much smaller than on the mainland yet approximately 115,000 acres of vineyards and about 260,000 acres of orchards , mainly fig, orange and citrus, were cultivated. One of the most important industrial complexes in the kingdom was the shipyard of Castellammare di Stabia , which employed 1800 workers. The engineering factory of Pietrarsa
16038-401: The kingdom however had no obligation for school attendance nor a recognizable school system. Clerics could inspect schools and had a veto power over appointments of teachers who were for the most part from the clergy anyhow. In 1859, for a population of 9 million inhabitants, there were only 2,010 primary schools with 67,428 pupils and 3,171 teachers. At the time of unification the literacy rate
16200-510: 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
16362-640: 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
16524-498: 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
16686-534: 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
16848-567: 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
17010-517: The lodge was subversive, and a " criminal organization ". The lodge was legally dissolved on 25 January 1982. The P2 scandal seriously damaged the image of Freemasonry in Italy, damaging all the various Italian Masonic movements, and not just the Grand Orient of Italy, of which P2 was a part. In 1993, in the aftermath of a further judicial inquiry, the so-called Cordova investigation (after the Public Prosecutor of Palmi, Agostino Cordova),
17172-601: The mason's behalf, convincing her husband to revoke the edict and dismiss Tannuci. In 1781 the ban was renewed, and its revocation two years later came with such restrictions that Freemasonry in the Two Sicilies died out. Flourishing briefly during the French occupation from 1804 to 1814, the ban was again imposed on their expulsion. Freemasonry in the Two Sicilies had a fitful, clandestine existence, last recorded in Palermo in 1848. Two Masonic lodges were founded in Sicily : in 1762
17334-569: The masses of Lazzaroni , the poorest class. After visiting Naples in 1850, Gladstone began to support Neapolitan opponents of the Bourbon rulers: his "support" consisted of a couple of letters that he sent from Naples to the Parliament in London, describing the "awful conditions" of the Kingdom of Southern Italy and claiming that "it is the negation of God erected to a system of government". Gladstone's letters provoked sensitive reactions in
17496-487: The mining, refining, and transportation of sulfur, combined with the failure of this lucrative export to transform Sicily's backward and impoverished economy, led to the 'Sulfur Crisis' of 1840. This was precipitated when King Ferdinand II granted a monopoly of the sulfur industry to a French company, in violation of an 1816 trade agreement with Britain. A peaceful solution was eventually negotiated by France. With all of its major cities boasting ports, transport and trade in
17658-410: The municipal administration has few economic means to remedy the situation, the gentlemen often have whole sections of streets paved in front of the entrance of their home. The peninsula was divided into fifteen departments and Sicily was divided into seven departments. In 1860, when the Two Sicilies were conquered by the Kingdom of Sardinia , the departments became provinces of Italy , according to
17820-412: 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
17982-538: The new European superpower France . The Treaty of Casalanza restored Ferdinand IV of Bourbon to the throne of Naples and the island of Sicily (where the constitution of 1812 virtually had disempowered him) was returned to him. In 1816 he annulled the constitution and Sicily became fully reintegrated into the new state, which was now officially called the Regno delle Due Sicilie (Kingdom of Two Sicilies). Ferdinand IV became Ferdinand I. A number of accomplishments under
18144-480: The new kingdom. The resurgence of Freemasonry dates from the same year, as a new lodge was formed in Turin, followed by other cities, including Rome. Twenty-two of these lodges met on 26 December 1861 and proclaimed the Grand Orient of Italy on 1 January 1862. The diplomat Costantino Nigra was elected Grand Master, and Garibaldi was named as honorary Past Grand Master. The new Grand Orient only claimed jurisdiction over
18306-408: 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
18468-797: The office of Provincial Grand Master for the Austrian Lombardy. In 1776 a lodge was added in Cremona . In 1797, most of Northern Italy east of Piedmont and north of the Papal States became the Cisalpine Republic . In 1801 it became the Italian Republic and in 1805 the Kingdom of Italy, with Napoleon as King. The Grand Orient of France formed the new state's first lodge in Milan in 1801, and in 1805 Milan also hosted
18630-630: 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
18792-511: The organization. Refounded after World War II (hence P2 ), it was under the direct control of the Grand Master of the Grand Orient until the advent of Licio Gelli . After Gelli's appointment as master in 1975, he was able to gather together in secret at least a thousand prominent individuals, mainly politicians and State administrators, and the publication of his subversive program of socio-political and institutional structure caused one of
18954-584: 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:
19116-458: 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
19278-406: 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
19440-601: The population of the countryside rose at a faster rate than that of the city of Naples herself, a rather odd phenomenon in a time when much of Europe experienced the Industrial Revolution. As registered in the 1827 census, for the Neapolitan (continental) part of the kingdom, 1,475,314 of the male population were listed as husbandmen which traditionally consisted of three classes the Borgesi (yeomanry),
19602-469: 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
19764-528: 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
19926-415: 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
20088-823: The railroad, the Church still objected to the construction of tunnels, because of their 'obscenity'. In 1836 the kingdom was struck by a cholera epidemic which killed 65,000 in Sicily alone. In the following years the Neapolitan countryside saw sporadic local insurrections. In the 1840s, clandestine political pamphlets circulated, evading censorship. Moreover, in September 1847 an uprising saw insurrectionists crossing from mainland Calabria over to Sicily before government forces were able to suppress them. On 12 January 1848, an open rebellion began in Palermo and demands were made for
20250-487: 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
20412-510: The reintroduction of the 1812 constitution. King Ferdinand II appointed a liberal prime minister, broke off diplomatic relations with Austria and even declared war on the latter (7 April). Although revolutionaries who had risen in several mainland cities outside Naples shortly after the Sicilians approved of the new measures (April 1848), Sicily continued with her revolution. Faced with these differing reactions to his moves, King Ferdinand, using
20574-419: The release of the political prisoners. When this was rejected, both countries broke off diplomatic relations. The Kingdom pursued an economic policy of protectionism ; the country's economy was mainly based on agriculture , the cities, especially Naples – with over 400,000 inhabitants, Italy's largest – "a center of consumption rather than of production" (Santore p. 163) and home to poverty most expressed by
20736-461: The right to station troops in the kingdom, and Austria, as well as Russia and Prussia , insisted that no written constitution was to be granted to the kingdom. In October 1815, Joachim Murat landed in Calabria , in an attempt to regain his kingdom. The government responded to acts of collaboration or of terrorism with severe repression and by June 1816 Murat's attempt had failed and the situation
20898-485: The royal opera houses, including the San Carlo. During this period he wrote ten operas which were Elisabetta, regina d'Inghilterra (1815), La gazzetta , Otello, ossia il Moro di Venezia (1816), Armida (1817), Mosè in Egitto , Ricciardo e Zoraide (1818), Ermione , Bianca e Falliero , Eduardo e Cristina , La donna del lago (1819), Maometto II (1820), and Zelmira (1822), many premiered at
21060-564: The same time, the Aragonese rulers of the Island of Sicily also called their realm the Kingdom of Sicily. Thus, there were two kingdoms called Sicily: hence, when they were reunited, the result was named the Kingdom of Two Sicilies. From 1061 onwards, Norman warriors conquered the island of Sicily, which had been ruled by the Saracens since 827. The conqueror Roger I became Count of Sicily and Calabria . His son Roger II also inherited
21222-643: The south to as far as Bologna were built in Mongiana. The kingdom was home to three universities namely those in Naples founded in 1224, Catania founded in 1434 and Palermo founded in 1806. Also in Naples, established by Matteo Ripa in 1732, was the Collegio dei Cinesi today the University of Naples "L'Orientale" teaching Sinology and Oriental studies . Despite these institutions of higher learning
21384-473: 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,
21546-738: The then Grand Master of the Grand Orient of Italy, Giuliano Di Bernardo ( it ), elected to distance himself from the organisation, founding the Regular Grand Lodge of Italy ( it ), which immediately gained (and still retains) the recognition of the United Grand Lodge of England . The feast of Italian Freemasonry is celebrated on 20 September each year, on occasion of the anniversary of the breach of Porta Pia . Italian language Italian ( italiano , pronounced [itaˈljaːno] , or lingua italiana , pronounced [ˈliŋɡwa itaˈljaːna] )
21708-535: The three basic degrees of craft masonry. However, four other bodies had already arisen claiming to govern the Ancient and Accepted Scottish rite (of 33 degrees) for their part of Italy. These were at Palermo (where Garibaldi had been elected Grand Master), Naples, Turin and Livorno. Opposition to the Grand Orient centred on Naples, while the Grand Orient refused to recognise any of the Scottish Rite bodies. While
21870-469: 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
22032-542: 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 ),
22194-529: The turmoil of the War of the Spanish Succession . After initial rule by the Bourbons , who now ruled in Spain , Central Italy was occupied by Austria in 1707/08, whose Habsburg line also laid claim to the kingdom. The peace treaties of 1713/14 ( Utrecht / Rastatt ) left the Kingdom of Naples with Austria , but assigned the Kingdom of Sicily to Victor Amadeus of Savoy , who exchanged it with
22356-434: The unification of the country in 1859–60, and must be dealt with as it occurs in separate states. A minute of 1845 records a lodge called Fidelitas being founded at Girifalco in Calabria in 1723. In spite of the lack of earlier records, this is often cited as the first Masonic Lodge in Italy. Lack of documentation is a major problem in tracing the history of Italian Freemasonry. Many documents were burned by Fascists in
22518-504: The whole of Europe and helped to cause its diplomatic isolation before the invasion and annexation of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies by the Kingdom of Sardinia , with the following foundation of modern Italy . Administratively, Naples and Sicily remained separate units; in 1858 the Neapolitan Postal Service issued her first postage stamps; that of Sicily followed in 1859. Until 1849, the political movement among
22680-659: 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
22842-429: The worst political scandals in the history of the Italian Republic. On 31 October 1981, seven months after the discovery of the lists of affiliates of P2, the central court of the Grand Orient of Italy, presided over by the new grandmaster Armando Corona, expelled Gelli to avoid further scandals. They stated that P2 had been suspended in 1976. A Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry, chaired by Tina Anselmi , concluded that
23004-485: Was defeated in 1859 and the unification of Northern Italy (except Venetia) was accomplished in 1860, did Giuseppe Garibaldi , at the head of the Expedition of the Thousand , launch his invasion of Sicily, with the connivance of Cavour (once in Sicily, many rallied to his colours); after a successful campaign in Sicily, he crossed over to the mainland and won the battle of the Volturno with half of his army being local volunteers. King Francis II (since 1859) withdrew to
23166-436: Was 34.5m deep. Niccolini embellished in the inner of the bas-relief depicting "Time and the Hour". Stendhal attended the second night of the inauguration and wrote: "There is nothing in all Europe, I won't say comparable to this theatre, but which gives the slightest idea of what it is like..., it dazzles the eyes, it enraptures the soul...". From 1815 to 1822, Gioachino Rossini was the house composer and artistic director of
23328-439: 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
23490-419: 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
23652-409: Was crowned emperor. Frederick II (Frederick I of Sicily) rarely stayed on German soil, but ruled his empire from southern Italy. In contrast to the (Lombard-Tuscan) Kingdom of Italy north of the Papal States , the Kingdom of Sicily never became part of the Holy Roman Empire . As a result of the escalating conflict between the Hohenstaufen dynasty and the papacy, the French prince Charles of Anjou
23814-461: Was declared incompatible with Fascism, and in spite of protestations of loyalty from the Grand Lodge, was banned outright in 1925. General Luigi Capello was expelled from the party in 1923 for refusing to leave his lodge, and the next year was accused of plotting to assassinate Mussolini. He was sentenced to 30 years' imprisonment. In the wake of the verdict, the Grand Master of the Grand Orient and 44 other masons were sent, without trial, into exile in
23976-466: Was elevated to the Sicilian throne by Pope Clement IV in 1265. Charles took power in 1266 through his victory over the Hohenstaufen king Manfred , who had initially administered Sicily as regent for his underage and absent nephew Conradin , but had then assumed the royal title himself. As the last Hohenstaufen to lay claim to the Sicilian throne and fight for it, Conradin was captured in 1268 and executed by his opponent in Naples. Unlike in Naples, which
24138-519: Was focused in San Leucio (near Caserta ). The region of Basilicata also had several mills in Potenza and San Chirico Raparo , where cotton , wool and silk were processed. Food processing was widespread, especially near Naples ( Torre Annunziata and Gragnano ). The kingdom maintained a large sulfur mining industry. In the increasingly industrialized Great Britain, with the repeal of tariffs on salt in 1824, demand for sulfur from Sicily surged. The growing British control and exploitation of
24300-415: Was just 14.4% in 1861. The situation of the time in terms of social expenditure and public hygiene is mainly known today thanks to the writings of the historian and journalist Raffaele De Cesare. It is well known that public hygiene conditions in the regions of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies are very poor and especially in the central and rural regions. Most small municipalities do not have sewers and have
24462-443: 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
24624-441: Was recognised by the United Grand Lodge of England on 13 September 1972 (the recognition was transferred to the Regular Grand Lodge of Italy in 1993, although many other regular Grand Lodges continue to recognise the Grand Orient). In 1973, attempts to unite the Grand Orient and the Grand Lodge failed due to the Grand Lodge's acceptance of female initiation. Nevertheless, 200 lodges of the Grand Lodge transferred their allegiance to
24786-406: 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
24948-465: Was smashed and on 24 March 1821 Austrian forces entered the city of Naples . Political repression then only intensified. Lawlessness in the countryside was aggravated by the problem of administrative corruption. A coup attempted in 1828 and aimed at forcing the promulgation of a constitution was suppressed by Neapolitan troops (the Austrian troops had left the previous year). King Francis I (1825–1830) died after having visited Paris , where he witnessed
25110-426: Was suppressed in 1785. The lodge founded in Milan in 1756 was quickly discovered by the Austrian authorities, which led to an edict (6 May 1757), whereby the governor, Francesco III d'Este, Duke of Modena , banned Masonic meetings throughout Lombardy. However, the lodge continued to exist and in 1783 joined the Grand Lodge of Vienna . The following year Earl Wilczeck, minister plenipotentiary imperial Milan, assumed
25272-400: Was the distribution of land property – most of it concentrated in the hands of a few families, the landed nobility . The villages housed a large rural proletariat , desperately poor and dependent on the landlords for work. The Kingdom's few cities had little industry, thus not providing the outlet excess rural population found in northern Italy, France or Germany. The figures above show that
25434-404: Was the focus of Angevin rule, French rule on Sicily was abolished after just a few years by the popular uprising of 1282, the Sicilian Vespers , which instead elevated Peter III of Aragon , a son-in-law of the Hohenstaufen king Manfred, to king of the island. The old Norman-Staufer kingdom was since then - despite mutual claims to power - effectively divided into the Aragonese Kingdom of Sicily and
25596-417: Was the increasing politicisation of the Grand Orient. On 21 March 1910, this body established the Grand Lodge of Italy , with Protestant pastor Saverio Fera, a former adherent of Garibaldi, as Grand Master. From its headquarters it became known as the Grand Lodge of Piazza del Gesù . In 1904 the first lodge of Le Droit Humain was installed in Rome by Annie Besant . The subsequent lodges were organized into
25758-474: Was the largest industrial plant in the Italian peninsula, producing tools, cannons , rails, and locomotives . The complex also included a school for train drivers and naval engineers, and, thanks to this school, the kingdom was able to replace the English personnel who had been necessary until then. The first steamboat with screw propulsion known in Italy was the Giglio delle Onde , with mail delivery and passenger transport purposes after 1847. In Calabria,
25920-432: Was the third largest in Italy. In the 1800s, the kingdom experienced large population growth, rising from approximately five to seven million. It held approximately 36% of Italy's population around 1850. Because the kingdom did not establish a statistical department until after 1848, most population statistics before that year are estimates and censuses that were thought by contemporaries to be inaccurate. The Army of
26082-428: Was under government control. However, the Neapolitan administration had changed from conciliatory to reactionary policies. The French novelist Henri de Stendhal , who visited Naples in 1817, called the kingdom "an absurd monarchy in the style of Philip II ". As open political activity was suppressed, liberals organized themselves in secret societies, such as the Carbonari , an organization whose origins date back into
26244-443: Was united with the Austrian Habsburgs through the marriage of Ferdinand IV and Maria Carolina of Austria , a daughter of Empress Maria Theresa , on 12 May 1768. Initially dominated by the dual influence of the great powers Spain and Austria, Naples-Sicily - particularly in the course of the French Revolutionary Wars from 1792 onwards - became increasingly dependent on the naval power Great Britain in order to defend itself against
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