1.
Vallata dello Stilaro
–
The Vallata dello Stilaro is a valley in the Province of Reggio Calabria of Southern Italy. It takes its name from river that flow in the area, the principal settlements present in the valley are Bivongi, Monasterace, Pazzano and Stilo. The Ecomuseo delle ferriere e fonderie di Calabria, preserves and promotes the natural, artistic, Kaulon trades with inland indigenous people that mined minerals. They coined money with local silver, for its sources Kaulon was desired by Locri and Kroton colonies. In the first half of the 4th century BC, the Stilaro river was the site of an important battle between Dionisio I and Lega italiota made up by a group of colonies of Magna Grecia. After that, the region was conquered by Romans, who mined copper and created a colonial penalty for damnata ad metalla and deforesting the valley for wood. The Casale of Stilo grew in importance and incorporated Pazzano, Stignano, Guardavalle, Riace, on 15 July 982 AD, there was a battle between Ottone II and a Byzantine/Arab alliance which won. In this Norman period the valley turn to Catholicism, and the Hermit of Monte Stella is turned in a dedicated to Mary. A statue was located in the cave, at the end of 16th century there was an increase in mining at the Complesso siderurgico dellAssi. During the Kingdom of Italy, in 1875 two railways came to the area, in 1881,200,000 ducati was spent to build a new route to link the Ionian Sea with the Tyrrhenian Sea that cross the Valley of Stilaro and Serre mountains. In 1922 and 1923 two small power plants were built in Bivongi. On 9 July 1940, during the Second World War, near Punta Stilo the Battle of Punta Stilo between the Italian and British navy took place, in 2012 was announced the discovery of a pretended paleolithic settlement in Boario locality at Stilo. Locride Stilaro Ecomuseo delle ferriere e fonderie di Calabria Media related to Vallata dello Stilaro Allaro at Wikimedia Commons Video Vallata dello Stilaro
Vallata dello Stilaro
–
Vallata dello Stilaro Landscape from Monte Consolino
Vallata dello Stilaro
–
View of the valley.
Vallata dello Stilaro
–
Madonna della Stella at Eremo di Monte Stella
Vallata dello Stilaro
–
Norman castle at Stilo
2.
Rubia tinctorum
–
Rubia tinctorum, the common madder or dyers madder, is a herbaceous perennial plant species belonging to the bedstraw and coffee family Rubiaceae. The common madder can grow up to 1.5 m in height, the evergreen leaves are approximately 5–10 cm long and 2–3 cm broad, produced in whorls of 4–7 starlike around the central stem. It climbs with tiny hooks at the leaves and stems, the flowers are small, with five pale yellow petals, in dense racemes, and appear from June to August, followed by small red to black berries. The roots can be over a long, up to 12 mm thick. It prefers loamy soils with a constant level of moisture, Madder is used as food plants for the larvae of some Lepidoptera species including the Hummingbird Hawk Moth. It has been used since ancient times as a red dye for leather, wool, cotton. For dye production, the roots are harvested in the first year, the outer brown layer gives the common variety of the dye, the lower yellow layer the refined variety. The dye is fixed to the cloth with help of a mordant, Madder can be fermented for dyeing as well. In France, the remains were used to produce a spirit as well, the roots contain the acid ruberthyrin. By drying, fermenting or a treatment with acids, this is changed to sugar, alizarin and purpurin, purpurin is normally not coloured, but is red when dissolved in alkaline solutions. Mixed with clay and treated with alum and ammonia, it gives a brilliant red colourant, the pulverised roots can be dissolved in sulfuric acid, which leaves a dye called garance after drying. Another method of increasing the yield consisted of dissolving the roots in sulfuric acid after they had used for dyeing. This produces a dye called garanceux, by treating the pulverized roots with alcohol, colorin was produced. It contained 40–50 times the amount of alizarin of the roots, the chemical name for the pigment is alizarin, of the anthraquinone-group, and was used to make the alizarine ink in 1855 by the Professor Leonhardi of Dresden, Germany. In 1869, the German chemists Graebe and Liebermann synthesised artificial alizarin, which was produced industrially from 1871 onwards, in the 20th century, madder was only grown in some areas of France. The plants roots contain several compounds, such as 1, 3-Dihydroxyanthraquinone,1, 4-Dihydroxyanthraquinone,1,2, 4-Trihydroxyanthraquinone and 1. This last compound gives it its red colour to a textile dye known as Rose madder and it was also used as a colourant, especially for paint, that is referred to as Madder lake. The substance was derived from another species, Rubia cordifolia
Rubia tinctorum
–
Rubia tinctorum
Rubia tinctorum
Rubia tinctorum
–
Naturally dyed skeins made with madder root, Colonial Williamsburg, VA
3.
Calabria
–
Calabria, known in antiquity as Bruttium and formerly as Italia, is a region in Southern Italy and forms the traditionally conceptualized toe of the Italian Peninsula which resembles a boot. The capital city of Calabria is Catanzaro and its most populated city, and the seat of the Regional Council of Calabria, is Reggio Calabria in the Province of Reggio Calabria. The region is bordered to the north by the Basilicata Region, to the west by the Tyrrhenian Sea, the region covers 15,080 km2 and has a population of just under 2 million. The demonym of Calabria in English is Calabrian, in ancient times Calabria was referred to as Italy. The Romans later extended the name to cover Southern Italy and then the entire peninsula, the region is a long and narrow peninsula which stretches from north to south for 248 km, with a maximum width of 110 km. Some 42% of Calabrias area, corresponding to 15,080 km2, is mountainous, 49% is hilly and it is surrounded by the Ionian and Tyrrhenian seas. It is separated from Sicily by the Strait of Messina, where the narrowest point between Capo Peloro in Sicily and Punta Pezzo in Calabria is only 3.2 km, three mountain ranges are present, Pollino, La Sila and Aspromonte. All three mountain ranges are unique with their own flora and fauna, the Pollino Mountains in the north of the region are rugged and form a natural barrier separating Calabria from the rest of Italy. Parts of the area are heavily wooded, while others are vast and these mountains are home to a rare Bosnian Pine variety, and are included in the Pollino National Park. The highest point is Botte Donato, which reaches 1,928 metres, the area boasts numerous lakes and dense coniferous forests. La Sila also has some of the tallest trees in Italy which are called the Giants of the Sila, the Sila National Park is also known to have the purest air in Europe. The Aspromonte massif forms the southernmost tip of the Italian peninsula bordered by the sea on three sides and this unique mountainous structure reaches its highest point at Montalto, at 1,995 metres, and is full of wide, man-made terraces that slope down towards the sea. In general, most of the terrain in Calabria has been agricultural for centuries. The lowest slopes are rich in vineyards and citrus fruit orchards, the Diamante citron is one of the citrus fruits. Moving upwards, olives and chestnut trees appear while in the regions there are often dense forests of oak, pine, beech. Calabrias climate is influenced by the sea and mountains, mountain areas have a typical mountainous climate with frequent snow during winter. Erratic behavior of the Tyrrhenian Sea can bring heavy rainfall on the slopes of the region, while hot air from Africa makes the east coast of Calabria dry. The mountains that run along the region also influence the climate, the east coast is much warmer and has wider temperature ranges than the west coast
Calabria
–
View of Calabria from satellite
Calabria
–
Cliff at
Tropea
Calabria
–
Pollino National Park
Calabria
–
La Sila National Park
4.
Italian language
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By most measures, Italian, together with Sardinian, is the closest to Latin of the Romance languages. Italian is a language in Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City. Italian is spoken by minorities in places such as France, Montenegro, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Crimea and Tunisia and by large expatriate communities in the Americas. Many speakers are native bilinguals of both standardized Italian and other regional languages, Italian is the fourth most studied language in the world. Italian is a major European language, being one of the languages of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe. It is the third most widely spoken first language in the European Union with 65 million native speakers, including Italian speakers in non-EU European countries and on other continents, the total number of speakers is around 85 million. Italian is the working language of the Holy See, serving as the lingua franca in the Roman Catholic hierarchy as well as the official language of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. Italian is known as the language of music because of its use in musical terminology and its influence is also widespread in the arts and in the luxury goods market. Italian has been reported as the fourth or fifth most frequently taught foreign language in the world, Italian was adopted by the state after the Unification of Italy, having previously been a literary language based on Tuscan as spoken mostly by the upper class of Florentine society. Its development was influenced by other Italian languages and to some minor extent. Its vowels are the second-closest to Latin after Sardinian, unlike most other Romance languages, Italian retains Latins contrast between short and long consonants. As in most Romance languages, stress is distinctive, however, Italian as a language used in Italy and some surrounding regions has a longer history. What would come to be thought of as Italian was first formalized in the early 14th century through the works of Tuscan writer Dante Alighieri, written in his native Florentine. Dante is still credited with standardizing the Italian language, and thus the dialect of Florence became the basis for what would become the language of Italy. Italian was also one of the recognised languages in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Italy has always had a dialect for each city, because the cities. 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. Even in the case of Northern Italian languages, however, scholars are not to overstate the effects of outsiders on the natural indigenous developments of the languages
Italian language
–
Dante Alighieri (above) and
Petrarch (below) were influential in establishing their
Tuscan dialect as the most prominent literary language in all of
Italy in the
Late Middle Ages
Italian language
–
The geographic distribution of the Italian language in the world: large Italian-speaking communities are shown in green; light blue indicates areas where the Italian language was used officially during the Italian colonial period.
Italian language
Italian language
–
Pietro Bembo was an influential figure in the development of the Italian language from the Tuscan dialect, as a literary medium, codifying the language for standard modern usage
5.
Neapolitan language
–
Neapolitan is the language of much of southern continental Italy, including the city of Naples. It is not named after the city but rather the Kingdom of Naples, on October 14,2008, a law by the Region of Campania stated that Neapolitan was to be protected. Neapolitan was originally derived from Latin, but later influenced by the Spanish, French, Neapolitan has had a significant influence on the intonation of Rioplatense Spanish, of the Buenos Aires region of Argentina, and the whole of Uruguay. In western Abruzzo and Lazio the dialects give way to Central Italian dialects such as Romanesco, in central Calabria and southern Apulia, the dialects give way to the Sicilian language. However, in the United States traditional Neapolitan has had contact with English. English words are used in place of Neapolitan words, especially among second-generation speakers. There are notable differences among the dialects, but they are all generally mutually intelligible. The Italian language and Neapolitan are of variable mutual comprehensibility, depending on factors both affective and linguistic, there are notable grammatical differences such as nouns in the neuter form and unique plural formation, and historical phonological developments that often obscure the cognacy of lexical items. Its evolution has been similar to that of Italian and other Romance languages from their roots in Vulgar Latin. It may reflect a pre-Latin Oscan influence in the pronunciation of the d sound as an r sound, another purported Oscan influence is historical assimilation of the consonant cluster /nd/ as /nn/, pronounced, along with the development of /mb/ as /mm/, also consistently reflected in spelling. Other effects of the Oscan substratum are postulated too, although claims are highly controversial. In addition, the language was affected by the Greek language. There have never been any successful attempts to standardize the language, Neapolitan has enjoyed a rich literary, musical and theatrical history. The language has no status within Italy and is not taught in schools. There are also ongoing legislative attempts at the level to have it recognized as an official minority language of Italy. It is however a recognized ISO639 Joint Advisory Committee language with the code of nap. For comparison, The Lords Prayer is reproduced in the Neapolitan spoken in Naples and in a northern Calabrian dialect, in contrast with a variety of southern Calabrian, Italian and Latin. The Neapolitan alphabet, like the Italian alphabet, is almost the same as the English alphabet except that it consists of only 22 letters and it does not contain k, w, x, or y even though these letters might be found in some foreign words
Neapolitan language
–
Neapolitan dialects
Neapolitan language
–
Giambattista Basile (1566–1632), author of a
collection of fairy tales in Neapolitan that includes the earliest known versions of
Rapunzel and
Cinderella
6.
Sicilian language
–
Sicilian is a Romance language spoken on the island of Sicily and its satellite islands. It is also spoken in southern and central Calabria, in the parts of Apulia, Salento, and Campania, on the Italian peninsula. The Ethnologue describes Sicilian as being distinct enough from Standard Italian to be considered a language and is recognized as a minority language by UNESCO. Some assert that Sicilian represents the oldest Romance language derived from Vulgar Latin, Sicilian has the oldest literary tradition of the Italic languages. Sicilian is currently spoken by the majority of the inhabitants of Sicily, the latter are found in the countries which attracted large numbers of Sicilian immigrants during the course of the past century or so, especially the United States, Canada, Australia and Argentina. In the past two or three decades, large numbers of Sicilians were also attracted to the zones of northern Italy and indeed the rest of the European Union. It is not used as an official language anywhere, even within Sicily, there is currently no central body, in Sicily or elsewhere, that regulates the language in any way. However, since its inception in 1951, the Centro di studi filologici e linguistici siciliani in Palermo has been researching and publishing information on the Sicilian language. The autonomous regional parliament of Sicily has legislated to encourage the teaching of Sicilian at all schools, further, the Sicilian language would be protected and promoted under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. However, Italy has signed this treaty, but the Italian Parliament has not ratified it, the term Calabro-Sicilian refers to the fact that a form of Sicilian, or a dialect closely related to Sicilian, is spoken in central and southern Calabria. Sicilianu is the name of the language in Sicily itself, the term Siculu describes one of the larger prehistoric groups living in Sicily before the arrival of Greeks in the 8th century BC. It can also be used as an adjective to qualify, or further elaborate on, the very earliest influences, visible in Sicilian to this day, exhibit both prehistoric Mediterranean elements and prehistoric Indo-European elements, and occasionally a blending of both. Ruffino 2001 Before the Roman conquest, Sicily was occupied by populations considered indigenous, including Sicels, Sicani, Elymians, the Greek language influence remains strongly visible, while the influences from the other groups are less obvious. What can be stated with certainty is that there remain pre-Indo-European words in Sicilian of an ancient Mediterranean origin, of the three main prehistoric groups, only the Sicels were Indo-European, and their speech is likely to have been closely related to that of the Romans. The following table, listing words for twins, illustrates the difficulty linguists face in tackling the various sub-strata of the Sicilian language, a similar qualifier can be applied to many of the words that appear in this article. For instance, by the time the Romans had occupied Sicily during the 3rd century BC, the words with a prehistoric Mediterranean derivation often refer to plants native to the Mediterranean region or to other natural features. g. of a fruit timpa crag, cliff. The Sicels are a source of such words, but there is also the possibility of a cross-over between ancient Mediterranean words and introduced Indo-European forms. Some examples of Sicilian words with an ancient Indo-European origin, dudda mulberry, the latter would bring with them the Vulgar Latin from that region, a language not too different from that to be found in central Italy at the time
Sicilian language
–
Sicilian
7.
Calabrian Greek
–
The Calabrian dialect of Greek, or Greek-Bovesian, is the variety of Italiot Greek used by the ethnic Griko people in Calabria, as opposed to the Italiot Greek dialect spoken in the Grecìa Salentina. Both are remnants of the Ancient and Byzantine Greek colonization of the region and they are frequently lumped together as Italiot Greek, Grecanic or Griko, but they have different histories. Calabrian Greek is mentioned in the Red Book of UNESCO on endangered languages, in addition, Euromosaic analyses and recognizes it as being an endangered and minority language in the European Union. It is mentioned by Ethnologue as a dialect of Modern Greek in the sense of a vernacular language of the Hellenic family. However, Calabrian Greek has never experienced a growth period during its history. It has only used in basic day-to-day communications without ever playing a significant role in the fields of administration. The use of Calabrian Greek can trace its roots to the fact that Calabria was once a territory of the Byzantine empire from 965AD until it was conquered by the Normans in 1071AD. Byzantine rule brought with it Greek language and culture and the territory was referred to as Catepanate of Italy, during the Angevin Age the Greek dialect was widely spoken in a large area between Seminara, Taurianova, the Mésimas valley and the plateau of Poro. A brief historical analysis illustrates quite readily the progressive disappearance of the Greek dialect in different Calabrian areas from the 16th century onwards, around the mid-16th century, it had disappeared from the fields of Petrace, particularly from the high valley of Diverso and Tasi. During the 17th century the spread to some valleys in the western side of Aspromonte near the Straits of Messina, such as the Catona. During the fascist period in Italy, linguistic minorities were strongly discouraged from using their mother tongues, in Bova, many people now learn Modern Greek rather than Calabrian Greek. Calabrian Greek has a lot in common with Modern Standard Greek, the evidence is based on archaisms in this language, including the presence of words from Doric Greek but no longer used in Greece. There are also quite a few distinctive characteristics in comparison with Standard Modern Greek, for example, in many cases, the final -s in most words has been lost. Moreover, a future tense does not exist in this dialect, an important peculiarity is that it uses the Latin alphabet, not the Greek alphabet. The literature is scarce and consists of books of poetry, local history or calendars, unfortunately, the dialect has suffered by the lack of a linguistic authority and the absence of a body of literature, with the language used predominantly in rural or pastoral environments. In the late 1970s, the association Jalò tu Vúa initiated a group to set up methodological standards to teach Calabrian Greek. The commune of Bova published it as pamphlet in 1979 with the title La Glossa di Bova and it is important to highlight the presence of Calabrians in Humanism and in the Renaissance. Indeed, the Greek scholars of that period came from Calabria
Calabrian Greek
–
Location map of the Italiot-speaking areas Grecìa Salentina and
Bovesia
8.
Occitan language
–
Occitan, also known as lenga dòc by its native speakers, is a Romance language. It is spoken in southern France, Italys Occitan Valleys, Monaco, and Spains Val dAran, collectively, Occitan is also spoken in the linguistic enclave of Guardia Piemontese. However, there is controversy about the unity of the language, others include Catalan in this family, as the distance between this language and some Occitan dialects is similar to the distance among different Occitan dialects. In fact, Catalan was considered an Occitan dialect until the end of the 19th century, today, Occitan is an official language in Catalonia, where a subdialect of Gascon known as Aranese is spoken in the Val dAran. Since September 2010, the Parliament of Catalonia has considered Aranese Occitan to be the preferred language for use in the Val dAran. Unlike other Romance languages such as French or Spanish, there is no written standard language called Occitan. Instead, there are competing norms for writing Occitan, some of which attempt to be pan-dialectal, There are also significant lexical differences, where some dialects have words cognate with French, and others have Catalan and Spanish cognates. Nonetheless, there is a significant amount of mutual intelligibility, the long-term survival of Occitan is in grave doubt. According to the UNESCO Red Book of Endangered Languages, four of the six dialects of Occitan are considered severely endangered. The name Occitan comes from lenga dòc, òc being the Occitan word for yes and this was not, of course, the only defining characteristic of each group. The word òc came from Vulgar Latin hoc, while oïl originated from Latin hoc illud, Old Catalan, and now the Catalan of Northern Catalonia also have hoc. Other Romance languages derive their word for yes from the Latin sic, thus, etc. such as Spanish sí, Eastern Lombard sé, Sicilian and Italian sì, or Portuguese sim. French uses si to answer yes in response to questions that are asked in the negative sense, the name Occitan is sometimes considered a neologism, however, it was attested around 1300 as occitanus, a crossing of oc and aquitanus. For many centuries, the Occitan dialects were referred to as Limousin or Provençal, after Frédéric Mistrals Félibrige movement in the 19th century, Provençal achieved the greatest literary recognition and so became the most popular term for Occitan. The term first came into fashion in Italy, currently, linguists use the terms Provençal and Limousin strictly to refer to specific varieties within Occitania, keeping the name Occitan for the language as a whole. Many non-specialists, however, continue to refer to the language as Provençal, NO·L LI TOLRÀ NO·L LI DEVEDARÀ NI NO LEN DECEBRÀ. Nec societatem non AURÀ, si per castellum recuperare NON O FA, et si recuperare potuerit in potestate Froterio et Raimundo LO TORNARÀ, carolingian litanies, both written and sung in Latin, were answered to in Old Occitan by the audience. Occitan was the vehicle for the poetry of the medieval troubadours and trobairises, At that time
Occitan language
–
Main cities of Occitania, written in the Occitan language
Occitan language
–
Occitan
Occitan language
–
"Speak French, Be Clean" written across the wall of a Southern French school
Occitan language
–
This bilingual street sign in
Toulouse, like many such signs found in historical parts of the city, is maintained primarily for its antique charm; it is typical of what little remains of the lenga d'òc in southern French cities.
9.
Romance languages
–
Today, around 800 million people are native speakers worldwide, mainly in Europe, Africa and the Americas, but also elsewhere. Additionally, the major Romance languages have many speakers and are in widespread use as lingua francas. This is especially the case for French, which is in use throughout Central and West Africa, Madagascar, Mauritius. The five most widely spoken Romance languages by number of speakers are Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian. Because of the difficulty of imposing boundaries on a continuum, various counts of the modern Romance languages are given, for example, Dalby lists 23 based on mutual intelligibility. Between 350 BC and 150 AD, the expansion of the Empire, together with its administrative and educational policies, Latin also exerted a strong influence in southeastern Britain, the Roman province of Africa, western Germany and the Balkans north of the Jireček Line. Despite other influences, the phonology, morphology, and lexicon of all Romance languages consist mainly of evolved forms of Vulgar Latin, however, some notable differences occur between todays Romance languages and their Roman ancestor. With only one or two exceptions, Romance languages have lost the system of Latin and, as a result, have SVO sentence structure. From this adverb the noun romance originated, which applied initially to anything written romanice, the word romance with the modern sense of romance novel or love affair has the same origin. In the medieval literature of Western Europe, serious writing was usually in Latin, while popular tales, often focusing on love, were composed in the vernacular, for example, the Portuguese word fresta is descended from Latin fenestra window, but now means skylight and slit. Cognates may exist but have become rare, such as finiestra in Spanish, the Spanish and Portuguese terms defenestrar meaning to throw through a window and fenestrado meaning replete with windows also have the same root, but are later borrowings from Latin. Galician has both fiestra and the frequently used ventá and xanela. As an alternative to lei, Italian has the pronoun ella, a cognate of the words for she. Sardinian balcone comes from Old Italian and is similar to other Romance languages such as French balcon, Portuguese balcão, Romanian balcon, Spanish balcón, Catalan balcó and Corsican balconi. Documentary evidence is limited about Vulgar Latin for the purposes of research. Many of its speakers were soldiers, slaves, displaced peoples, other scholars argue that the distinctions are more rightly viewed as indicative of sociolinguistic and register differences normally found within any language. Both were mutually intelligible as one and the language, which was true until the second half of the 7th century. Central Europe and the Balkans were occupied by the Germanic and Slavic tribes, as well as by the Huns, over the course of the fourth to eighth centuries, Vulgar Latin, by this time highly dialectalized, broke up into discrete languages that were no longer mutually intelligible
Romance languages
10.
Italy
–
Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a unitary parliamentary republic in Europe. Located in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea, Italy shares open land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, San Marino, Italy covers an area of 301,338 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal and Mediterranean climate. Due to its shape, it is referred to in Italy as lo Stivale. With 61 million inhabitants, it is the fourth most populous EU member state, the Italic tribe known as the Latins formed the Roman Kingdom, which eventually became a republic that conquered and assimilated other nearby civilisations. The legacy of the Roman Empire is widespread and can be observed in the distribution of civilian law, republican governments, Christianity. The Renaissance began in Italy and spread to the rest of Europe, bringing a renewed interest in humanism, science, exploration, Italian culture flourished at this time, producing famous scholars, artists and polymaths such as Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Michelangelo and Machiavelli. The weakened sovereigns soon fell victim to conquest by European powers such as France, Spain and Austria. Despite being one of the victors in World War I, Italy entered a period of economic crisis and social turmoil. The subsequent participation in World War II on the Axis side ended in defeat, economic destruction. Today, Italy has the third largest economy in the Eurozone and it has a very high level of human development and is ranked sixth in the world for life expectancy. The country plays a prominent role in regional and global economic, military, cultural and diplomatic affairs, as a reflection of its cultural wealth, Italy is home to 51 World Heritage Sites, the most in the world, and is the fifth most visited country. The assumptions on the etymology of the name Italia are very numerous, according to one of the more common explanations, the term Italia, from Latin, Italia, was borrowed through Greek from the Oscan Víteliú, meaning land of young cattle. The bull was a symbol of the southern Italic tribes and was often depicted goring the Roman wolf as a defiant symbol of free Italy during the Social War. Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus states this account together with the legend that Italy was named after Italus, mentioned also by Aristotle and Thucydides. The name Italia originally applied only to a part of what is now Southern Italy – according to Antiochus of Syracuse, but by his time Oenotria and Italy had become synonymous, and the name also applied to most of Lucania as well. The Greeks gradually came to apply the name Italia to a larger region, excavations throughout Italy revealed a Neanderthal presence dating back to the Palaeolithic period, some 200,000 years ago, modern Humans arrived about 40,000 years ago. Other ancient Italian peoples of undetermined language families but of possible origins include the Rhaetian people and Cammuni. Also the Phoenicians established colonies on the coasts of Sardinia and Sicily, the Roman legacy has deeply influenced the Western civilisation, shaping most of the modern world
Italy
–
The
Colosseum in Rome, built c. 70 – 80 AD, is considered one of the greatest works of
architecture and
engineering of ancient history.
Italy
–
Flag
Italy
–
The
Iron Crown of Lombardy, for centuries symbol of the
Kings of Italy.
Italy
–
Castel del Monte, built by German Emperor
Frederick II,
UNESCO World Heritage site
11.
Dialect continuum
–
That happens, for example, across large parts of India or the Maghreb. Historically, it happened in various parts of Europe such as between Portugal, southern Belgium and southern Italy, and between Flanders and Austria. Leonard Bloomfield used the dialect area. It is analogous to a species in evolutionary biology. Dialect continua typically occur in long-settled agrarian populations, as innovations spread from their various points of origin as waves, in this situation, hierarchical classifications of varieties are impractical. Instead, dialectologists map variation of language features across a dialect continuum. The influential Atlas linguistique de la France pioneered the use of a trained fieldworker and these atlases typically consist of display maps, each showing local forms of a particular item at the survey locations. Secondary studies may include maps, showing the areal distribution of various variants. A common tool in these maps is an isogloss, a line separating areas where different variants of a particular feature predominate, in a dialect continuum, isoglosses for different features are typically spread out, reflecting the gradual transition between varieties. A bundle of coinciding isoglosses indicate a stronger dialect boundary, as might occur at geographical obstacles or long-standing political boundaries, in other cases, intersecting isoglosses and more complex patterns are found. Standard varieties may be developed and codified from one or more locations in a continuum, in such cases the local variety is said to be dependent on, or heteronomous with respect to, the standard variety. The Scandinavian languages, Danish, Norwegian and Swedish, are cited as examples. Conversely, a defined in this way may include local varieties that are mutually unintelligible. The choice of standard is determined by a political boundary. As a results, speakers on either side of the boundary may use almost identical varieties, but treat them as dependent on different standards, the choice may be a matter of national, regional or religious identity, and may be controversial. In the Yugoslav republic of Macedonia, a standard was developed from local varieties within a continuum with Serbia to the north, the standard was deliberately based on varieties from the west of the republic that were most different from standard Bulgarian. Now known as Macedonian, it is the standard of the independent Republic of Macedonia. Europe provides several examples of dialect continua, the largest of which involve the Germanic, Romance and Slavic branches of the Indo-European language family
Dialect continuum
–
The Romance dialect continuum; Western (dark green) and Eastern (light green) Romance linguistic areas. The
La Spezia-Rimini Line marked in red
12.
Amantea
–
Amantea is a town and comune in the province of Cosenza in the Calabria region of southern Italy. It is a tourist centre on the southern Tyrrhenian Sea coast, amantea appears as a centre of its own in the 7th century, although traces of human presence from pre-historical times onwards have been found in the area. In 839 the Arabs captured it, being ousted by the Byzantines in 889, later it was under Norman domination. In 1269 the Amanteani rebelled against the Angevines in the name of Conradin of Hohenstaufen, the town is mostly famous for the long resistance of its inhabitants against the French troops under Joseph Bonaparte who, in 1806–1807, attempted to conquer its castle. Seven large gunboats, four scampavias, and an armed pinnace protected the convoy, first built by the Byzantines, it was strengthened by the Arabs. The current cylindrical tower is however to the Norman-Hohenstaufen age and it was long besieged by Charles of Anjous troops in 1269. It was nearly destroyed during the French siege in 1806-1807 and it is now a public structure, but is abandoned. The Marquis De Luca lived in the palace until 1977, following a period of severe neglect and decay, the building was then purchased and restored by the current owner, Prof. Fausto Perri. U Turriune at Campora San Giovanni, archaeological findings in the area of Campora San Giovanni
Amantea
–
View of Amantea on the sea with the Palazzo delle Clarisse.
13.
Philologist
–
Philology is the study of language in written historical sources, it is a combination of literary criticism, history, and linguistics. It is more defined as the study of literary texts and written records, the establishment of their authenticity and their original form. A person who pursues this kind of study is known as a philologist, in older usage, especially British, philology is more general, covering comparative and historical linguistics. Indo-European studies involves the comparative philology of all Indo-European languages, Philology, with its focus on historical development, is contrasted with linguistics due to Ferdinand de Saussures insistence on the importance of synchronic analysis. The contrast continued with the emergence of structuralism and Chomskyan linguistics alongside its emphasis on syntax, the term changed little with the Latin philologia, and later entered the English language in the 16th century, from the Middle French philologie, in the sense of love of literature. The adjective φιλόλογος meant fond of discussion or argument, talkative, in Hellenistic Greek also implying an excessive preference of argument over the love of true wisdom, as an allegory of literary erudition, Philologia appears in 5th-century post-classical literature, an idea revived in Late Medieval literature. The meaning of love of learning and literature was narrowed to the study of the development of languages in 19th-century usage of the term. Most continental European countries still maintain the term to designate departments, colleges, position titles, J. R. R. Tolkien opposed the nationalist reaction against philological practices, claiming that the philological instinct was universal as is the use of language. Based on the critique of Friedrich Nietzsche, US scholars since the 1980s have viewed philology as responsible for a narrowly scientistic study of language. The comparative linguistics branch of philology studies the relationship between languages, similarities between Sanskrit and European languages were first noted in the early 16th century and led to speculation of a common ancestor language from which all these descended. Philology also includes the study of texts and their history and it includes elements of textual criticism, trying to reconstruct an authors original text based on variant copies of manuscripts. Since that time, the principles of textual criticism have been improved and applied to other widely distributed texts such as the Bible. Scholars have tried to reconstruct the original readings of the Bible from the manuscript variants and this method was applied to Classical Studies and to medieval texts as a way to reconstruct the authors original work. A related study method known as higher criticism studies the authorship, date, as these philological issues are often inseparable from issues of interpretation, there is no clear-cut boundary between philology and hermeneutics. When text has a significant political or religious influence, scholars have difficulty reaching objective conclusions, some scholars avoid all critical methods of textual philology, especially in historical linguistics, where it is important to study the actual recorded materials. Supporters of New Philology insist on a diplomatic approach, a faithful rendering of the text exactly as found in the manuscript. Another branch of philology, cognitive philology, studies written and oral texts and this science compares the results of textual science with the results of experimental research of both psychology and artificial intelligence production systems. In the case of Bronze Age literature, philology includes the prior decipherment of the language under study and this has notably been the case with the Egyptian, Sumerian, Assyrian, Hittite, Ugaritic and Luwian languages
Philologist
–
Cover of Indo-European philology historical and comparative by
William Burley Lockwood
14.
Province of Reggio Calabria
–
The Province of Reggio Calabria is a province in the Calabria region of Italy. It is the southernmost province in mainland Italy and is separated from the island of Sicily by the Strait of Messina, the Aspromonte massif dominates the western part, and with its long coastline, the province is a popular tourist destination during the summer. The capital is the city of Reggio and it will be effectively replaced by the Metropolitan City of Reggio Calabria starting from 2018. The province of Reggio Calabria is located at the southern tip of mainland Italy. To the west lies the Tyrrhenian Sea and to the south, the land borders are short, to the northeast lies the province of Catanzaro and to the northwest, the province of Vibo Valentia. Across the Strait of Messina, some 3 kilometres to the southwest, the province can be divided into three types of terrain. Near the west it is mountainous, with the Aspromonte massif being formed of overlapping terraces of gneiss, the highest point is 1,956 m and this area is part of the Aspromonte National Park. From the mountains flow many, often seasonal, creeks and rivers, the largest being the Amendolea, the Ancient Greeks built a town Rhegion at the site of present-day Reggio, a strategic site beside the Strait of Messina. The towns Museo Nazionale houses two statues, the Riace bronzes, recovered from the sea at Riace some 50 miles to the east. By the third century BC, the Greeks were conquered by tribes from the north and they established their sovereignty over present day Calabria and founded new cities, including their own capital Consentia, now known as Cosenza. After their victory in the Pyrrhic War, Rome occupied Calabria, the town of Reggio and other parts of the province, as well as Messina and neighbouring parts of Sicily, were devastated by the 1908 Messina earthquake. This was followed by a series of tsunamis that wreaked further damage, in the 1950s there was a mass migration of rural people from Reggio Calabria and other provinces in southern Italy to the cities of Rome, Milan and particularly Turin in the north. They were driven by poverty, the soils of the region. Between 1969 and 1973, southern Italy suffered from urban unrest due to the lack of employment possibilities and poor living conditions, in 1970, Catanzaro was chosen as the location for a new regional government. Catanzaro and Reggio Calabria were among the poorest cities in southern Italy, strikes and demonstrations occurred and went on for more than a year, and were sometimes put down brutally by the police. The railway service from Sicily was disrupted, the airport, post offices and TV station were occupied at different times, three people were killed, more than two hundred wounded and over four hundred were charged with public-order offences. The Italian government responded to this by confirming Catanzaro as the regional capital but arranging for the regional assembly to be held at Reggio. A new port and steel works were announced at Gioia Tauro, to employment in the area, but before the steel works was completed, the price of steel collapsed
Province of Reggio Calabria
–
A village on the Aspromonte massif
Province of Reggio Calabria
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Map highlighting the location of the province of Reggio Calabria in Italy
15.
Province of Vibo Valentia
–
Its capital is the city of Vibo Valentia and its vehicle licence plate code is VV. The province has an area of 1,139 square kilometres, and a population of 168,894. There are 50 comuni in the province, see list of communes of the Province of Vibo Valentia. It was first settled by Italic tribe the Sicels and Vibo Valentia was established as a city in the 6th or 7th century, known as Hipponion by the Greeks of Messina, following this, the city was later recolonised by people from town Locri in the region of Calabria. In around 400 CE it was attacked repeatedly before being destroyed by the Muslims, frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor had the town rebuilt in the 13th century, and in 1284 it passed to the Ruffo family. Ferdinand I of Naples had a constructed in Pizzo Calabro in 1486. In June 2010 a dormant volcano was discovered off the coast of the province on the line that led to the 1905 Calabria earthquake. It is a province and is situated on the Tyrrhenian Sea
Province of Vibo Valentia
–
Briatico
Province of Vibo Valentia
–
Map highlighting the location of the province of Vibo Valentia in Italy
Province of Vibo Valentia
–
Parghelia
Province of Vibo Valentia
–
Tropea
16.
Province of Catanzaro
–
The province of Catanzaro is a province of the Calabria region of Italy. The city Catanzaro is both capital of the province and capital of the region of Calabria, the province contains a total of 80 municipalities. Its provincial president is Vincent Bruno and it contains the Isthmus of Catanzaro between SantEufemia and the Gulf of Squillace. It borders the provinces of Crotone, Cosenza, Reggio Calabria, and Vibo Valentia, after the last ice age, stone age hunter-gatherers lived in this area. By about 3,500 BC they had turned to farming, in the ninth and eighth centuries BC, Greeks began colonising the coastal regions of Calabria, calling the area Magna Graecia. They brought with them their Hellenic civilization and the olives, figs, by the third century BC, the Greeks were conquered by tribes from northern Italy, including a branch of the Samnites called the Bruttii. They established their sovereignty over present day Calabria and founded new cities, including their own capital Consentia, after their victory in the Pyrrhic War, the Romans occupied Calabria, and the region remained under their control until the fifth century AD. After the Visigoths overthrew the Romans, there followed a period for Calabria. However, by the middle of the century, the Byzantine Empire was in control of southern Italy. The city of Catanzaro was founded by the Byzantines during the tenth century, the city, atop a hill above the Gulf of Squilis, was named Katanrzarion or Catasarion as these derive from the Greek words for terrace and under, terrace farming took place in the province. The city was fortified in 1055 and a castle was constructed, the area of the plateau of La Sila towards the Ionian Sea was settled by immigrants from Albania in the period 1448–1535. They formed a minority and created the communities known as Sila Greca. The province of Catanzaro is one of the four provinces in the region of Calabria, to the south and east, the province has a coastline on the Ionian Sea, and to the northwest, a coastline on the Tyrrhenian Sea. The Province of Cosenza lies to the north and the Province of Crotone to the east, to the south west lie the provinces of Vibo Valentia and Reggio Calabria. The provincial capital as well as the capital of the region is the city of Catanzaro, the province occupies both sides of the Calabrian Apennines and has a total area of 5,200 square kilometres. Other parts of the province are mountainous, with steep sided valleys formed by short rivers. The River Ampollino on the boundary with the Province of Crotone is impounded to form the Ampollino Lake. The eastern part of the forms part of the high plateau of La Sila, about 1,200 m above sea level
Province of Catanzaro
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Map highlighting the location of the province of Catanzaro in Italy
17.
Province of Crotone
–
The province of Crotone is a province in the Calabria region of southern Italy. It was formed in 1992 out of a section of the province of Catanzaro, the provincial capital is the city of Crotone. It borders the provinces of Cosenza, Catanzaro, and also the Ionian Sea and it contains the mountain Pizzuta, the National Park of the Sila, Montagnella Park, and the Giglietto Valley. Crotone was founded in 710 BCE and it participated in the Second Punic War against the Roman Republic. The province contains 27 comuni, listed at comuni of the Province of Crotone, the area around Capo Colonna, the easternmost point of the province, revealed numerous archaeological remains of Stone Age settlements, with large quantities of Neolithic pottery being found. The Greeks settled on the coasts of Calabria during the 8th and 7th centuries BC, and it grew to become a town of 50,000 to 80,000 inhabitants around 500 BC. The wrestler Milo of Croton was born in Crotone during the sixth century BC, pythagoras moved to Croton in around 530 BC, and a medical school was also based in the region at around this time. It flourished as an important port and conquered the city Sybaris under the command of Milo, pyrrhus of Epirus then controlled the city until it fell under Roman Republic rule. The city Crotone participated in the Second Punic War, in which, it rebelled, the province of Crotone was formed in 1992 from land that had previously been part of the province of Catanzaro. The province of Crotone is one of the four provinces in the region of Calabria in southern Italy, to the northwest lies the Province of Cosenza and to the southwest lies the Province of Catanzaro. To the south and east, the province has a coastline on the Gulf of Taranto, in the upland areas chestnuts and olives are grown, and most of the province is a lowland agricultural area with orchards of citrus fruits and vineyards. The rivers are short and many dry up in summer, Crotone has a long history and many interesting features. The cathedral originates from the 9th to 11th centuries AD but has many changes to its architecture over the years. The 16th century castle of Charles V houses the local museum, near the town are the remains of the Greek temple of Hera Lacinia, at one time the most important temple in Magna Graecia. The historic town of Santa Severina dates back to the ninth century BC when the Enotri and it later became an important Byzantine trading centre. It is built on the top of a hill with the castle on the summit. The castle is one of the best-preserved Norman structures in the region and now houses the Archaeological Museum of Castles, on the other side of the castle stands the eleventh century Church of Santo Filomena, another fine Byzantine edifice. In medieval times, the village situated here came to be known as San Giovanni in Palagorio and it now has many interesting churches and chapels
Province of Crotone
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Map highlighting the location of the province of Crotone in Italy
18.
Crotone
–
Crotone listen is a city and comune in Calabria. Founded c.710 BC as the Achaean colony of Kroton, it was known as Cotrone from the Middle Ages until 1928, in 1992 it became the capital of the newly established Province of Crotone. As of January 2016, its population was 62,178, Crotons oekist was Myscellus who came from the city of Rhypes in Achaea in the northern Peloponnese. He established the city in c.710 BC and it became one of the most flourishing cities of Magna Graecia with a population between 50,000 and 80,000 around 500 BC. Its inhabitants were famous for their strength and for the simple sobriety of their lives. From 588 BC onwards, Croton produced many generations of victors in the Olympics and the other Panhellenic Games, according to Herodotus, the physicians of Croton were considered the foremost among the Greeks, among which Democedes son of Calliphon was the most prominent in the 6th century BC. Accordingly, he traveled around Greece and ended up working in the court of Polycrates, after the tyrant was murdered, Democedes was captured by the Persians and brought to King Darius, curing him of a dislocated ankle. Democedes fame was, according to Herodotus, the one who prompted the prestige of Crotons physicians, pythagoras founded his school, the Pythagoreans, at Croton c.530 BC. Among his pupils were the medical theorist Alcmaeon of Croton and the philosopher, mathematician. The Pythagoreans acquired considerable influence with the council of one thousand by which the city was ruled. Sybaris was the rival of Croton until 510 BC, when Croton sent an army of one hundred men, commanded by the wrestler Milo, against Sybaris. Shortly afterwards, however, an insurrection took place, by which the Pythagoreans were driven out and a democracy established. In 480 BC, Croton sent a ship in support of the Greeks at the Battle of Salamis and it was replaced by Heraclea as headquarters of the Italiote League. Dionysius, the tyrant of Syracuse, aiming at hegemony in Magna Graecia, captured Croton in 379 BC and held it for twelve years. Croton was then occupied by the Bruttii, with the exception of the citadel, in which the inhabitants had taken refuge, these soon after surrendered. In 295 BC, Croton fell to another Syracusan tyrant, Agathocles, when Pyrrhus invaded Italy, it was still a considerable city, with twelve miles of walls, but after the Pyrrhic War, half the town was deserted. What was left of its submitted to Rome in 277 BC. After the Battle of Cannae in the Second Punic War, Croton was betrayed to the Brutii by a leader named Aristomachus who defected to the Roman side
Crotone
–
Panorama of Crotone
Crotone
–
Coin of Croton, c. 480-460 BC.
Crotone
–
The Castle of Charles V.
19.
Isola di Capo Rizzuto
–
Isola di Capo Rizzuto is a comune in the province of Crotone, Calabria, Italy. The population of the town is around 15,000, despite the name Isola, the town is entirely on the mainland. There are several theories under which the name derives from Greek mythology or is a corruption of a Greek word, geographically the seaside district of the town of Capo Rizzuto is a peninsula. Elsewhere the main attraction, the powerful 16th-century fortification in the district of Le Castella. The finds are on display in the National Archaeological Museum in nearby Crotone, the town forms part of the Marine Protected Area Capo Rizzuto. Calabrian wine Media related to Isola di Capo Rizzuto at Wikimedia Commons
Isola di Capo Rizzuto
–
Palazzo Barracco, the town hall
20.
Cutro
–
Cutro is a town and comune in the province of Crotone, Calabria region, Italy. It is the place of birth of Vincenzo Iaquinta, World Cup-winning footballer who played for Serie A club Juventus, cutro was a Greek colony of Magna Graecia, with the name of Kyterion. It obtained the title of city in 1575 by the Spanish King Philip II, cutro was destroyed by an earthquake on March 8,1832. It remained the most populous centre of the region until the mid-20th century, giovanni Leonardo Di Bona Vincenzo Iaquinta Italian Wikipedia article
Cutro
–
The Chiesa Madre of Cutro.
21.
Latin
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Latin is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. The Latin alphabet is derived from the Etruscan and Greek alphabets, Latin was originally spoken in Latium, in the Italian Peninsula. Through the power of the Roman Republic, it became the dominant language, Vulgar Latin developed into the Romance languages, such as Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Romanian. Latin, Italian and French have contributed many words to the English language, Latin and Ancient Greek roots are used in theology, biology, and medicine. By the late Roman Republic, Old Latin had been standardised into Classical Latin, Vulgar Latin was the colloquial form spoken during the same time and attested in inscriptions and the works of comic playwrights like Plautus and Terence. Late Latin is the language from the 3rd century. Later, Early Modern Latin and Modern Latin evolved, Latin was used as the language of international communication, scholarship, and science until well into the 18th century, when it began to be supplanted by vernaculars. Ecclesiastical Latin remains the language of the Holy See and the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church. Today, many students, scholars and members of the Catholic clergy speak Latin fluently and it is taught in primary, secondary and postsecondary educational institutions around the world. The language has been passed down through various forms, some inscriptions have been published in an internationally agreed, monumental, multivolume series, the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. Authors and publishers vary, but the format is about the same, volumes detailing inscriptions with a critical apparatus stating the provenance, the reading and interpretation of these inscriptions is the subject matter of the field of epigraphy. The works of several hundred ancient authors who wrote in Latin have survived in whole or in part and they are in part the subject matter of the field of classics. The Cat in the Hat, and a book of fairy tales, additional resources include phrasebooks and resources for rendering everyday phrases and concepts into Latin, such as Meissners Latin Phrasebook. The Latin influence in English has been significant at all stages of its insular development. From the 16th to the 18th centuries, English writers cobbled together huge numbers of new words from Latin and Greek words, dubbed inkhorn terms, as if they had spilled from a pot of ink. Many of these words were used once by the author and then forgotten, many of the most common polysyllabic English words are of Latin origin through the medium of Old French. Romance words make respectively 59%, 20% and 14% of English, German and those figures can rise dramatically when only non-compound and non-derived words are included. Accordingly, Romance words make roughly 35% of the vocabulary of Dutch, Roman engineering had the same effect on scientific terminology as a whole
Latin
–
Latin inscription, in the
Colosseum
Latin
–
Julius Caesar 's
Commentarii de Bello Gallico is one of the most famous classical Latin texts of the Golden Age of Latin. The unvarnished, journalistic style of this
patrician general has long been taught as a model of the urbane Latin officially spoken and written in the floruit of the
Roman republic.
Latin
–
A multi-volume Latin dictionary in the
University Library of Graz
Latin
–
Latin and Ancient Greek Language - Culture - Linguistics at
Duke University in 2014.
22.
Ancient Greek
–
Ancient Greek includes the forms of Greek used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around the 9th century BC to the 6th century AD. It is often divided into the Archaic period, Classical period. It is antedated in the second millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek, the language of the Hellenistic phase is known as Koine. Koine is regarded as a historical stage of its own, although in its earliest form it closely resembled Attic Greek. Prior to the Koine period, Greek of the classic and earlier periods included several regional dialects, Ancient Greek was the language of Homer and of fifth-century Athenian historians, playwrights, and philosophers. It has contributed many words to English vocabulary and has been a subject of study in educational institutions of the Western world since the Renaissance. This article primarily contains information about the Epic and Classical phases of the language, Ancient Greek was a pluricentric language, divided into many dialects. The main dialect groups are Attic and Ionic, Aeolic, Arcadocypriot, some dialects are found in standardized literary forms used in literature, while others are attested only in inscriptions. There are also several historical forms, homeric Greek is a literary form of Archaic Greek used in the epic poems, the Iliad and Odyssey, and in later poems by other authors. Homeric Greek had significant differences in grammar and pronunciation from Classical Attic, the origins, early form and development of the Hellenic language family are not well understood because of a lack of contemporaneous evidence. Several theories exist about what Hellenic dialect groups may have existed between the divergence of early Greek-like speech from the common Proto-Indo-European language and the Classical period and they have the same general outline, but differ in some of the detail. The invasion would not be Dorian unless the invaders had some relationship to the historical Dorians. The invasion is known to have displaced population to the later Attic-Ionic regions, the Greeks of this period believed there were three major divisions of all Greek people—Dorians, Aeolians, and Ionians, each with their own defining and distinctive dialects. Often non-west is called East Greek, Arcadocypriot apparently descended more closely from the Mycenaean Greek of the Bronze Age. Boeotian had come under a strong Northwest Greek influence, and can in some respects be considered a transitional dialect, thessalian likewise had come under Northwest Greek influence, though to a lesser degree. Most of the dialect sub-groups listed above had further subdivisions, generally equivalent to a city-state and its surrounding territory, Doric notably had several intermediate divisions as well, into Island Doric, Southern Peloponnesus Doric, and Northern Peloponnesus Doric. The Lesbian dialect was Aeolic Greek and this dialect slowly replaced most of the older dialects, although Doric dialect has survived in the Tsakonian language, which is spoken in the region of modern Sparta. Doric has also passed down its aorist terminations into most verbs of Demotic Greek, by about the 6th century AD, the Koine had slowly metamorphosized into Medieval Greek
Ancient Greek
–
Inscription about the construction of the statue of
Athena Parthenos in the
Parthenon, 440/439 BC
Ancient Greek
–
Ostracon bearing the name of
Cimon,
Stoa of Attalos
Ancient Greek
–
The words ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ as they are inscribed on the marble of the 1955
Leonidas Monument at
Thermopylae
23.
French language
–
French is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages, French has evolved from Gallo-Romance, the spoken Latin in Gaul, and more specifically in Northern Gaul. Its closest relatives are the other langues doïl—languages historically spoken in northern France and in southern Belgium, French was also influenced by native Celtic languages of Northern Roman Gaul like Gallia Belgica and by the Frankish language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders. Today, owing to Frances past overseas expansion, there are numerous French-based creole languages, a French-speaking person or nation may be referred to as Francophone in both English and French. French is a language in 29 countries, most of which are members of la francophonie. As of 2015, 40% of the population is in Europe, 35% in sub-Saharan Africa, 15% in North Africa and the Middle East, 8% in the Americas. French is the fourth-most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union, 1/5 of Europeans who do not have French as a mother tongue speak French as a second language. As a result of French and Belgian colonialism from the 17th and 18th century onward, French was introduced to new territories in the Americas, Africa, most second-language speakers reside in Francophone Africa, in particular Gabon, Algeria, Mauritius, Senegal and Ivory Coast. In 2015, French was estimated to have 77 to 110 million native speakers, approximately 274 million people are able to speak the language. The Organisation internationale de la Francophonie estimates 700 million by 2050, in 2011, Bloomberg Businessweek ranked French the third most useful language for business, after English and Standard Mandarin Chinese. Under the Constitution of France, French has been the language of the Republic since 1992. France mandates the use of French in official government publications, public education except in specific cases, French is one of the four official languages of Switzerland and is spoken in the western part of Switzerland called Romandie, of which Geneva is the largest city. French is the language of about 23% of the Swiss population. French is also a language of Luxembourg, Monaco, and Aosta Valley, while French dialects remain spoken by minorities on the Channel Islands. A plurality of the worlds French-speaking population lives in Africa and this number does not include the people living in non-Francophone African countries who have learned French as a foreign language. Due to the rise of French in Africa, the total French-speaking population worldwide is expected to reach 700 million people in 2050, French is the fastest growing language on the continent. French is mostly a language in Africa, but it has become a first language in some urban areas, such as the region of Abidjan, Ivory Coast and in Libreville. There is not a single African French, but multiple forms that diverged through contact with various indigenous African languages, sub-Saharan Africa is the region where the French language is most likely to expand, because of the expansion of education and rapid population growth
French language
–
The
"arrêt" signs (French for "stop") are used in
Canada while the international stop, which is also a valid French word, is used in France as well as other French-speaking countries and regions.
French language
–
Regions where French is the main language
French language
–
Town sign in
Standard Arabic and French at the entrance of
Rechmaya in
Lebanon.
French language
–
An obsolete 100
Lebanese pound note with the French language inscriptions "Banque du Liban" and "Cent livres".
24.
Spanish language
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Spanish —also called Castilian —is a Romance language that originated in the Castile region of Spain, with hundreds of millions of native speakers around the world. It is usually considered the worlds second-most spoken native language after Mandarin Chinese and it is one of the few languages to use inverted question and exclamation marks. Spanish is a part of the Ibero-Romance group of languages, which evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin in Iberia after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century. Beginning in the early 16th century, Spanish was taken to the colonies of the Spanish Empire, most notably to the Americas, as well as territories in Africa, Oceania, around 75% of modern Spanish is derived from Latin. Greek has also contributed substantially to Spanish vocabulary, especially through Latin, Spanish vocabulary has been in contact from an early date with Arabic, having developed during the Al-Andalus era in the Iberian Peninsula. With around 8% of its vocabulary being Arabic in origin, this language is the second most important influence after Latin and it has also been influenced by Basque as well as by neighboring Ibero-Romance languages. It also adopted words from languages such as Gothic language from the Visigoths in which many Spanish names and surnames have a Visigothic origin. Spanish is one of the six languages of the United Nations. It is the language in the world by the number of people who speak it as a mother tongue, after Mandarin Chinese. It is estimated more than 437 million people speak Spanish as a native language. Spanish is the official or national language in Spain, Equatorial Guinea, speakers in the Americas total some 418 million. In the European Union, Spanish is the tongue of 8% of the population. Spanish is the most popular second language learned in the United States, in 2011 it was estimated by the American Community Survey that of the 55 million Hispanic United States residents who are five years of age and over,38 million speak Spanish at home. The Spanish Constitution of 1978 uses the term castellano to define the language of the whole Spanish State in contrast to las demás lenguas españolas. Article III reads as follows, El castellano es la lengua española oficial del Estado, las demás lenguas españolas serán también oficiales en las respectivas Comunidades Autónomas. Castilian is the official Spanish language of the State, the other Spanish languages as well shall be official in their respective Autonomous Communities. The Spanish Royal Academy, on the hand, currently uses the term español in its publications. Two etymologies for español have been suggested, the Spanish Royal Academy Dictionary derives the term from the Provençal word espaignol, and that in turn from the Medieval Latin word Hispaniolus, from—or pertaining to—Hispania
Spanish language
–
A page of
Cantar de Mio Cid, the oldest preserved Spanish
epic poem, in medieval Spanish.
Spanish language
–
Spanish is sole official language at the national level
Spanish language
–
Antonio de Nebrija, author of
Gramática de la lengua castellana, the first grammar of modern European languages.
Spanish language
–
Miguel de Cervantes author of
Don Quixote, considered the first modern European novel.
25.
Norman language
–
Norman is a Romance language which can be classified as one of the Oïl languages along with Picard and Walloon. The name Norman-French is sometimes used to not only the Norman language. For the most part, the forms of Norman and modern French are intercomprehensible. Norman is spoken in mainland Normandy in France where it has no official status and it is taught in a few colleges near Cherbourg-Octeville. In the Channel Islands, the Norman language has developed separately, Jèrriais and Guernésiais are recognized as regional languages by the British and Irish governments within the framework of the British–Irish Council. Sercquiais is in fact a descendant of the 16th century Jèrriais used by the colonists from Jersey who settled the then uninhabited island. The last first language speakers of Auregnais, the dialect of Norman spoken on Alderney, died during the 20th century, the dialect of Herm also lapsed, at an unknown date. An isogloss termed the Joret line separates the northern and southern dialects of the Norman language, there are also dialectal differences between western and eastern dialects. Three different standardized spellings are used, continental Norman, Jèrriais and these represent the different developments and particular literary histories of the varieties of Norman. Norman may therefore be described as a pluricentric language, the Anglo-Norman dialect of Norman was a language of administration in England following the Norman conquest of England in 1066. This left a legacy of Law French in the language of English courts, in Ireland, Norman remained strongest in the area of south-east Ireland, where the Hiberno-Normans invaded in 1169. Norman is still in use for very formal legal purposes in the UK, such as when the monarch gives Royal Assent to an Act of Parliament using the phrase. The Norman conquest of southern Italy also brought the language to Sicily and the part of the Italian Peninsula. See, Norman French and French influence on Sicilian, literature in Norman ranges from early Anglo-Norman literature through the 19th-century Norman literary renaissance to modern writers. Today, the Norman language is strongest in the accessible areas of the former Duchy of Normandy, the Channel Islands and the Cotentin Peninsula in the west. In time, the communities converged, so that Normandy continued to form the name of the region while the original Normans became assimilated by the Gallo-Romance people, later when conquering England, the Norman rulers in England would eventually assimilate, thereby adopting the speech of the local English. However, in cases, the élites contributed elements of their own language to the newly enriched languages that developed in the territories. In Normandy, the new Norman language inherited vocabulary from Old Norse, the influence on phonology is more disputed, although it is argued that the retention of aspirated /h/ and /k/ in Norman is due to Norse influence
Norman language
–
A bar named in Norman
Norman language
–
Areas where the Norman language is strongest include Jersey, Guernsey, the Cotentin and the Pays de Caux.
26.
Normans
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The Normans were the people who, in the 10th and 11th centuries, gave their name to Normandy, a region in France. They were descended from Norse raiders and pirates from Denmark, Iceland and Norway who, under their leader Rollo, through generations of assimilation and mixing with the native Frankish and Gallo-Roman populations, their descendants gradually adopted the Carolingian-based cultures of West Francia. The distinct cultural and ethnic identity of the Normans emerged initially in the first half of the 10th century, the Norman dynasty had a major political, cultural and military impact on medieval Europe and even the Near East. The Normans were famed for their spirit and eventually for their Christian piety. They adopted the Gallo-Romance language of the Frankish land they settled, their becoming known as Norman, Normaund or Norman French. The Normans are noted both for their culture, such as their unique Romanesque architecture and musical traditions, and for their significant military accomplishments and their chief men were specially lavish through their desire of good report. They were, moreover, a race skillful in flattery, given to the study of eloquence, so that the boys were orators. They were enduring of toil, hunger, and cold whenever fortune laid it on them, given to hunting and hawking, delighting in the pleasure of horses, and of all the weapons and garb of war. The treaty offered Rollo and his men the French lands between the river Epte and the Atlantic coast in exchange for their protection against further Viking incursions. The area corresponded to the part of present-day Upper Normandy down to the river Seine. The territory was equivalent to the old province of Rouen. Before Rollos arrival, its populations did not differ from Picardy or the Île-de-France, the Norman language was forged by the adoption of the indigenous langue doïl branch of Romance by a Norse-speaking ruling class, and it developed into the regional language that survives today. The Normans thereafter adopted the growing feudal doctrines of the rest of France, the new Norman rulers were culturally and ethnically distinct from the old French aristocracy, most of whom traced their lineage to Franks of the Carolingian dynasty. Most Norman knights remained poor and land-hungry, and by 1066 Normandy had been exporting fighting horsemen for more than a generation, many Normans of Italy, France and England eventually served as avid Crusaders under the Italo-Norman prince Bohemund I and the Anglo-Norman king Richard the Lion-Heart. Opportunistic bands of Normans successfully established a foothold in Southern Italy, probably as the result of returning pilgrims stories, the Normans entered Southern Italy as warriors in 1017 at the latest. In 999, according to Amatus of Montecassino, Norman pilgrims returning from Jerusalem called in at the port of Salerno when a Saracen attack occurred. The Normans fought so valiantly that Prince Guaimar III begged them to stay, the Hauteville family achieved princely rank by proclaiming prince Guaimar IV of Salerno Duke of Apulia and Calabria. He promptly awarded their elected leader, William Iron Arm, with the title of count in his capital of Melfi
Normans
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Victorian interpretation of the Normans' national dress, 1000–1100
Normans
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10th-11th century History of the Normans, by
Dudo of Saint-Quentin
Normans
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The early Norman castle at
Adrano
Normans
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William the Conqueror invades England
27.
Capetian House of Anjou
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The Capetian House of Anjou, also known as the House of Anjou-Sicily and House of Anjou-Naples, was a royal house and cadet branch of the direct French House of Capet, part of the Capetian dynasty. It is one of three royal houses referred to as Angevin, meaning from Anjou in France. Founded by Charles I of Naples, a son of Louis VIII of France, later the War of the Sicilian Vespers forced him out of the island of Sicily, leaving him with just the southern half of the Italian Peninsula — the Kingdom of Naples. The house and its various branches would go on to much of the history of Southern and Central Europe during the Middle Ages. Historically, the House ruled Naples and Sicily, parts of Greece, Hungary, and Poland. A younger son of House of Capet king Louis VIII of France the Lion, Charles married the heiress of the County of Provence named Beatrice of Provence, she was a member of the House of Barcelona, this meant Charles holdings were growing as Count of Provence. The reason for Charles being offered the kingdom was because of a conflict between the Papacy and the Holy Roman Empire, the latter of whom were represented by the ruling House of Hohenstaufen. It was at the Battle of Benevento that the Guelph Capetians gained the Sicilian kingdom from the Ghibelline Swabians, in keeping with the political landscape of the period, Charles is described by scholars as shrewd, energetic and highly ambitious. The Byzantines had taken back the city of Constantinople in 1261, for a while Charles was preoccupied helping his French brother in the unsuccessful Eighth Crusade on Tunis. After this he once again focused on Constantinople, but his fleet was wrecked in a storm off the coast of Trapani. Charles had fully solidified his rule over Durazzo by 1272, creating a small Kingdom of Albania for himself, out of previously Despotate of Epirus territory, Charles was driven out of Sicily in 1282, but his successors ruled Naples until 1435. The line became extinct in the line with the death of King Ladislaus of Naples in 1414. The Kingdom of Albania, or Regnum Albaniae, was established by Charles of Anjou in the Albanian territory he conquered from the Despotate of Epirus in 1271 and he took the title of King of Albania in February 1272. The kingdom extended from the region of Durrës south along the coast to Butrint, a major attempt to advance further in direction of Constantinople, failed at the Siege of Berat. A Byzantine counteroffensive soon ensued, which drove the Angevins out of the interior by 1281, the Sicilian Vespers further weakened the position of Charles, and the Kingdom was soon reduced by the Epirotes to a small area around Durrës. The Angevins held out here, however, until 1368, when the city was captured by Karl Thopia, in 1392 Karl Thopias son surrendered the city and his domains to the Republic of Venice. The Late Medieval Balkans, A Critical Survey from the Late Twelfth Century to the Ottoman Conquest, ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press. A History of the Crusades, Volume III, The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries, madison, Wisconsin, University of Wisconsin Press
Capetian House of Anjou
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The seated
Charles I of Sicily is crowned by
Pope Clement IV.
Capetian House of Anjou
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Arms of the Capetian House of Anjou
Capetian House of Anjou
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Artistic depiction of the
Sicilian Vespers.
Capetian House of Anjou
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Charles I of Sicily
28.
Catalan language
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Catalan is a Romance language derived from Vulgar Latin and named after the medieval Principality of Catalonia, in northeastern modern Spain and adjoining parts of France. It is the national and only language of Andorra, and a co-official language of the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands. It also has status in the commune of Alghero, situated on the northwestern coast of the island of Sardinia. All these territories are often called Catalan Countries. 4% with Catalan and 47. 5% only Spanish, in order to integrate newcomers, the Generalitat de Catalunya spends part of its annual budget on the promotion of the use of Catalan in Catalonia and in other territories. Catalan evolved from Vulgar Latin in the Middle Ages around the eastern Pyrenees, during the Low Middle Ages it saw a golden age as the literary and dominant language of the Crown of Aragon, and was widely used all over the Mediterranean. The union of Aragon with the territories of Spain in 1479 marked the start of the decline of the language. In 1659 Spain ceded Northern Catalonia to France, and Catalan was banned in both states in the early 18th century, 19th-century Spain saw a Catalan literary revival, which culminated in the 1913 orthographic standardization, and the official status of the language during the Second Spanish Republic. However, the Francoist dictatorship banned the use of Catalan in schools and in the public administration, there is no parallel in Europe for such a large, bilingual, non-state speech community. Catalan dialects are relatively uniform, and are mutually intelligible and they are divided into two blocks, Eastern and Western, differing mostly in pronunciation. The terms Catalan and Valencian are two varieties of the same language, there are two institutions regulating the two standard varieties, the Institute of Catalan Studies in Catalonia and the Valencian Academy of the Language in the Valencian Community. Catalan shares many traits with its neighboring Romance languages, thus, the similarities are naturally most notable with eastern Occitan. Nouns have two genders, and two numbers, pronouns additionally can have a neuter gender, and some are also inflected for case and politeness, and can be combined in very complex ways. Verbs are split in several paradigms and are inflected for person, number, tense, aspect, mood, in terms of pronunciation, Catalan has many words ending in a wide variety of consonants and some consonant clusters, in contrast with many other Romance languages. The word Catalan derives from the territory of Catalonia, itself of disputed etymology, in English, the term referring to a person first appears in the mid 14th century as Catelaner, followed in the 15th century as Catellain. It is attested a language name since at least 1652, Catalan can be pronounced as /ˈkætəlæn/, /kætəˈlæn/ or /ˈkætələn/. The endonym is pronounced /kə. təˈɫa/ in the Eastern Catalan dialects, in the Valencian Community, the term valencià is frequently used instead. The names Catalan and Valencian are two names for the same language, see also status of Valencian below. By the 9th century, Catalan had evolved from Vulgar Latin on both sides of the end of the Pyrenees, as well as the territories of the Roman province of Hispania Tarraconensis to the south
Catalan language
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Homilies d'Organyà (12th century)
Catalan language
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Catalan
Catalan language
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Fragment of the Greuges de Guitard Isarn (ca. 1080–1095), one of the earliest texts written almost completely in Catalan, predating the famous
Homilies d'Organyà by a century
Catalan language
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Official Decree Prohibiting the Catalan Language in France
29.
Reggio Calabria
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Reggio di Calabria, commonly known as Reggio Calabria listen or simply Reggio in Southern Italy, is the biggest city and the most populated comune of Calabria, Southern Italy. It is the capital of the Metropolitan City of Reggio Calabria, Reggio is located on the toe of the Italian Peninsula and is separated from the island of Sicily by the Strait of Messina. It is situated on the slopes of the Aspromonte, a long, about 560,000 people live in the metropolitan area, recognised in 2015 by Italian Republic as a metropolitan city. The region has been subject to earthquakes and it is a major economic center for regional services and transport on the southern shores of the Mediterranean. Reggio, with Naples and Taranto, is home to one of the most important archaeological museums, Reggio is the seat, since 1907, of the Archeological Superintendence of Bruttium and Lucania. The city center, consisting primarily of Liberty buildings, has a development along the coast with parallel streets. The city was an Italian candidate to become the European Capital of Culture. in 2019, during its 3, 500-year history Reggio has often been renamed. Each name corresponds with the major historical phases, Recion. Erythrà, the pre-Greek settlement populated by the Italic people, Rhégion, the Greek city from the archaic age to the Magna Grecia age, from the 8th to the 3rd centuries BC. Febèa, a period under Dionysius II of Syracuse, in the 4th century BC. Regium, its first Latin name, during the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC, rhègium Julium, as a noble Roman city during the Imperial age. Rivàh, Arabic name under the domination by Emirate of Sicily. Rìsa, under the Normans, between the 11th and 12th centuries, regols, Aragonese name under the Crown of Aragon, in the late 13th century. Reggio or Regio, usual Italian name in the Middle and Modern age, règgio di Calàbria, post Italian Unification. The toponym of the city is derived from Chaldean word Rec or maybe from the Greek one régnȳmi referring to the Straits between Calabria and Sicily as a break in the land. The sculptor Léarchos was at Reggio at the end of the 15th century BC, the land around Reggio was first known as Saturnia, or Neptunia, and later Italia, which in Roman times became the name of the whole Italian peninsula. After Cumae, Reggio is one of the oldest Greek colonies in southern Italy, the colony was settled by the inhabitants of Chalcis in 730 or 743 BC on the site of the older settlement, Erythrà, meaning the Red one. This dated back to the 3rd millennium BC and was established by the Ausones
Reggio Calabria
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Collage of Reggio di Calabria. Clockwise from top of left to right: Piazza Italia, Lungomare Falcomatà,
Riace bronze statues in Magna Grecia National Museum, View of downtown Reggio, Messina Strait from Rotonda Square, seaside coast in Reggio.
Reggio Calabria
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Tetradrachm of Rhegion with the
Nemean Lion.
Reggio Calabria
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Reggio in a medieval engraving.
Reggio Calabria
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Effects of the
1908 earthquake.
30.
Messina
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Messina is the capital of the Italian Metropolitan City of Messina. It is located near the northeast corner of Sicily, at the Strait of Messina, opposite Villa San Giovanni on the mainland, according to Eurostat the FUA of the metropolitan area of Messina has, in 2014,277,584 inhabitants. The citys main resources are its seaports, cruise tourism, commerce, the city has been a Roman Catholic Archdiocese and Archimandrite seat since 1548 and is home to a locally important international fair. The city has the University of Messina, founded in 1548 by Ignatius of Loyola, Messina has a light rail system, Tranvia di Messina, that was opened on 3 April 2003. This line is 7.7 kilometres and links the central railway station with the city centre. The city is home to a significant Greek-speaking minority, rooted in its history, founded by Greek colonists in the 8th century BC, Messina was originally called Zancle, from the Greek ζάγκλον meaning scythe because of the shape of its natural harbour. A comune of its Metropolitan City, located at the entrance of the Strait of Messina, is to this day called Scaletta Zanclea. In the early 5th century BC, Anaxilas of Rhegium renamed it Messene in honour of the Greek city Messene, the city was sacked in 397 BC by the Carthaginians and then reconquered by Dionysius I of Syracuse. In 288 BC the Mamertines seized the city by treachery, killing all the men, the city became a base from which they ravaged the countryside, leading to a conflict with the expanding regional empire of Syracuse. Hiero II, tyrant of Syracuse, defeated the Mamertines near Mylae on the Longanus River, carthage assisted the Mamertines because of a long-standing conflict with Syracuse over dominance in Sicily. When Hiero attacked a second time in 264 BC, the Mamertines petitioned the Roman Republic for an alliance, although initially reluctant to assist lest it encourage other mercenary groups to mutiny, Rome was unwilling to see Carthaginian power spread further over Sicily and encroach on Italy. Rome therefore entered into an alliance with the Mamertines, in 264 BC, Roman troops were deployed to Sicily, the first time a Roman army acted outside the Italian Peninsula. At the end of the First Punic War it was a city allied with Rome. In Roman times Messina, then known as Messana, had an important pharos, Messana was the base of Sextus Pompeius, during his war against Octavian. In 1548 St. Ignatius founded there the first Jesuit college in the world, the Christian ships that won the Battle of Lepanto left from Messina, the Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes, who took part in the battle, recovered for some time in the Grand Hospital. The city reached the peak of its splendour in the early 17th century, under Spanish domination, in 1674 the city rebelled against the foreign garrison. A massive fortress was built by the occupants and Messina decayed steadily, in 1743,48,000 died of plague in the city. In 1783, an earthquake devastated much of the city, and it took decades to rebuild, in 1847 it was one of the first cities in Italy where Risorgimento riots broke out
Messina
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Frederick II age coins.
Messina
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An image of the
1908 Messina earthquake aftermath.
Messina
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Unexecuted
Beaux-Arts plan for the reconstruction of the port, 1909.
