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Location of Italy within Europe

Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern and Western Europe. Located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, it consists of a peninsula surrounded by the Alps and several islands, notably Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia and two enclaves: Vatican City and San Marino. Its territory also includes Campione (an exclave surrounded by Switzerland) and the Pelagie Islands (an archipelago in the African Plate). It is the tenth-largest country by land area in the European continent, covering an area of 301,340 km2 (116,350 sq mi), and the third-most populous member state of the European Union, with a population of nearly 60 million. Its capital and largest city is Rome.

In antiquity, the Italian peninsula was home to numerous peoples; the Latin city of Rome in central Italy, founded as a Kingdom, became a Republic that conquered the Mediterranean world and ruled it for centuries as an Empire. With the spread of Christianity, Rome became the seat of the Catholic Church and of the Papacy. During the Early Middle Ages, Italy experienced the fall of the Western Roman Empire and inward migration from Germanic tribes. 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 in Florence during the 15th and 16th centuries and spread to the rest of Europe. Italian explorers also discovered new routes to the Far East and the New World, leading the European Age of Discovery. However, centuries of rivalry and infighting between the Italian city-states among other factors left the peninsula divided into numerous states until the late modern period. During the 17th and 18th centuries, the Italian economic and commercial importance significantly waned. (Full article...)

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Of the many eruptions of Mount Vesuvius, a major stratovolcano in southern Italy, the best-known is its eruption in 79 AD, which was one of the deadliest in history.

In autumn of 79 AD, Mount Vesuvius violently spewed forth a cloud of super-heated tephra and gases to a height of 33 km (21 mi), ejecting molten rock, pulverized pumice and hot ash at 1.5 million tons per second, ultimately releasing 100,000 times the thermal energy of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The event gives its name to the Vesuvian type of volcanic eruption, characterised by columns of hot gases and ash reaching the stratosphere, although the event also included pyroclastic flows associated with Pelean eruptions. (Full article...)
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Prodotto agroalimentare tradizionale (PAT) is an official approval for traditional Italian regional food products similar to the protected geographical status of the European Union. A list of approved products is published by the Ministry of Agricultural, Food and Forestry Policies. It lists only products that do not qualify for pan-European approval, and as such PAT is only applicable within Italy.

The denomination is attributed by each regional government, in collaboration with the Ministry of Agricultural, Food and Forestry Policies. (Full article...)

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