History of Italy in the context of "Osci"

Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern and Western Europe. It consists of a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land border, as well as nearly 800 islands, notably Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares land borders with France to the west; Switzerland and Austria to the north; Slovenia to the east; and the two enclaves of Vatican City and San Marino. It is the tenth-largest country in Europe by area, covering 301,340 km (116,350 sq mi), and the third-most populous member state of the European Union, with nearly 59 million inhabitants. Italy's capital and largest city is Rome; other major cities include Milan, Naples, Turin, Palermo, Bologna, Florence, Genoa, and Venice.

The history of Italy goes back to numerous Italic peoples – notably including the ancient Romans, who conquered the Mediterranean world during the Roman Republic and ruled it for centuries during the Roman Empire. With the spread of Christianity, Rome became the seat of the Catholic Church and the Papacy. Barbarian invasions and other factors led to the decline and fall of the Western Roman Empire between late antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. By the 11th century, Italian city-states and maritime republics expanded, bringing renewed prosperity through commerce and laying the groundwork for modern capitalism. The Italian Renaissance flourished during the 15th and 16th centuries and spread to the rest of Europe. Italian explorers discovered new routes to the Far East and the New World, contributing significantly to the Age of Discovery.

Origines ([ɔˈriːɡɪneːs], "Origins") is the title of a lost work on Roman and Italian history by Cato the Elder, composed in the early-2nd century BC.

The Italian Renaissance (Italian: Rinascimento [rinaʃʃiˈmento]) was a period in Italian history during the 15th and 16th centuries. The period and place are known for the initial development of the broader Renaissance culture that spread from Italy to the rest of Europe (and also to extra-European territories ruled by colonial powers or where Christian missionaries and/or traders were active). The period was one of transition: it sits between the Middle Ages and the modern era. Proponents of a "long Renaissance" argue that it started around the year 1300 and lasted until about 1600. In some fields, a Proto-Renaissance, beginning around 1250, is typically accepted. The French word renaissance (corresponding to rinascimento in Italian) means 'rebirth', and defines the period as one of cultural revival and renewed interest in classical antiquity after the centuries during what Renaissance humanists labelled as the "Dark Ages". The Italian Renaissance historian Giorgio Vasari used the term rinascita ('rebirth') in his Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects in 1550, but the concept became widespread only in the 19th century, after the work of scholars such as Jules Michelet and Jacob Burckhardt.

The Renaissance began in Tuscany in Central Italy and centered in the city of Florence. The Florentine Republic, one of the several city-states of the peninsula, rose to economic and political prominence by providing credit to European monarchs and by laying the groundwork for developments in capitalism and banking. Renaissance culture later spread to Venice, the heart of a Mediterranean empire controlling trade routes with the east since its participation in the Crusades and following the journeys of Marco Polo between 1271 and 1295. Thus Italy renewed contact with the remains of ancient Greek culture, which provided humanist scholars with new texts. Finally the Renaissance had a significant effect on the Papal States and on Rome, largely rebuilt by humanist and Renaissance popes, such as Julius II and Leo X, who frequently became involved in Italian politics, in arbitrating disputes between competing colonial powers and in opposing the Protestant Reformation, which started c. 1517.

The history of the Italian Republic concerns the events relating to the history of Italy that have occurred since 1946, when Italy became a republic after the 1946 Italian institutional referendum. The Italian republican history is generally divided into two phases, the First and Second Republic.

After the fall of the Fascist regime in Italy and the end of World War II, Italian politics and society were dominated by Christian Democracy (DC), a broad-based Christian political party, from 1946 to 1994. From the late 1940s until 1991, the opposition was led by the Italian Communist Party (PCI). Christian Democracy governed uninterrupted during this period, dominating every cabinet and providing nearly every prime minister. It governed primarily with the support of an array of minor parties from the centre-left to the centre-right, including the Italian Socialist Party (PSI), Italian Democratic Socialist Party (PSDI), Italian Republican Party (PRI), and Italian Liberal Party (PLI), and even far-right parties like the Italian Social Movement (MSI). The Communist Party was excluded entirely from government, with the partial exception of the short-lived Historic Compromise, in which the PCI provided external support to a DC minority government from 1976 to 1979.

Italians (Italian: italiani, pronounced [itaˈljaːni]) are an ethnic group and nation native to the Italian geographical region. Italians share a common culture, history, ancestry and language. Their ancestors, differing regionally, include all the various ancient peoples of Italy and among them the Romans, who helped create and evolve the Italian identity.The Latin equivalent of the term Italian had been in use for natives of the geographical region since antiquity. Ethnic Italians (a group which includes people of Italian descent without Italian citizenship) can be distinguished from Italian nationals, who are citizens of Italy regardless of ancestry or nation of residence.

The majority of Italian nationals are native speakers of the country's official language, Italian, a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from the Vulgar Latin. However, some of them also speak a regional or minority language native to Italy, the existence of which predates the national language. (According to UNESCO, there are approximately 30 languages native to Italy, although many are often misleadingly referred to as "Italian dialects".)

Antonio Francesco Gramsci (UK: /ˈɡræmʃi/ GRAM-shee, US: /ˈɡrɑːmʃi/ GRAHM-shee; Italian: [anˈtɔːnjo franˈtʃesko ˈɡramʃi] ; 22 January 1891 – 27 April 1937) was an Italian Marxist philosopher and politician. He was a founding member and one-time leader of the Italian Communist Party. A vocal critic of Benito Mussolini and fascism, he was imprisoned in 1926, and remained in prison until shortly before his death in 1937.

During his imprisonment, Gramsci wrote more than 30 notebooks and 3,000 pages of history and analysis. His Prison Notebooks are considered a highly original contribution to 20th-century political theory. Gramsci drew insights from varying sources—not only other Marxists but also thinkers such as Niccolò Machiavelli, Vilfredo Pareto, Charles Darwin, Sigmund Freud, Friedrich Nietzsche, Pierre Joseph Proudhon, Georges Sorel, and Benedetto Croce. The notebooks cover a wide range of topics, including the history of Italy and Italian nationalism, the French Revolution, fascism, Taylorism and Fordism, civil society, the state, historical materialism, folklore, religion, and high and popular culture.

Town privileges or borough rights were important features of European towns during most of the second millennium. The city law customary in Central Europe probably dates back to Italian models, which in turn were oriented towards the traditions of the self-administration of Roman cities.

Judicially, a borough (or burgh) was distinguished from the countryside by means of a charter from the ruling monarch that defined its privileges and laws. Common privileges involved trade (marketplace, the storing of goods, etc.) and the establishment of guilds. Some of these privileges were permanent and could imply that the town obtained the right to be called a borough, hence the term "borough rights" (German: Stadtrecht; Dutch: stadsrechten). Some degree of self-government, representation by diet, and tax-relief could also be granted. Multiple tiers existed; for example, in Sweden, the basic royal charter establishing a borough enabled trade, but not foreign trade, which required a higher-tier charter granting staple right.