Italy is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. With 60.2 million inhabitants, it is the fifth most populous country in Europe, and the twenty-third most populous in the world. The land known as Italy today has been the cradle of European cultures and peoples, such as the Romans. Italy's capital, Rome, was for centuries the political centre of Western civilization, as the capital of the Roman Empire. Through much of its post-Roman history, Italy was fragmented into numerous kingdoms and city-states, but was unified in 1861. Italy was a founding member of the European Community (EC) in 1957, which became the European Union in 1993.
Early in the 19th century, the palazzo, by then a great treasure house, was used as a power base by Napoleon, and much later served for a brief period as the principal royal palace of the newly united Italy. In the early 20th century, the palazzo together with its contents was given to the Italian people by King Victor Emmanuel III; subsequently its doors were opened to the public as one of Florence's largest art galleries. Today, housing several minor additions in addition to those of the Medici family, it is fully open to the public.
...that Poliphilo, the main character in the Renaissance book Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, was said to have felt "extreme delight," "incredible joy," and "frenetic pleasure and cupidinous frenzy" when he saw the buildings depicted in the book?
The book explores imagination and the imaginable through the descriptions of cities by the narrator, Marco Polo. The book is framed as a conversation between the aging and busy emperor Kublai Khan, who constantly has merchants coming to describe the state of his empire, and Polo. The majority of the book consists of Polo's descriptions (1-3 pages each) of the 55 cities. Short dialogues between the two characters are interspersed every five to ten cities and are used to discuss various ideas presented by the cities on a wide range of topics including linguistics and human nature.
Alfredo Berlinghieri (de Niro) and Olmo Dalco (Depardieu) are born on the same day in 1900, but belong to opposite ends of the social spectrum. Alfredo is the son of a rich landowner, while Olmo is a misbegotten peasant son. As Alfredo is somewhat rebellious and despises the falseness of his family, in particular his father, he befriends Olmo, who is brought up as a socialist.
After World War I, their friendship continues, but slowly the rise of the fascists as embodied by the sadistic Attila (Donald Sutherland) separates them. Alfredo chooses the side of Fascism, while Olmo fights for the communists.