ITALY.

The History of Pizza

As far back as the year 1000, the Roman soldiers tasted PICEA and thought it lacked FOCUS (the Latin word for hearth). On a hearth, along with oil, herbs and cheese ... pizza was born. The root word in Latin is PICEA, which describes the blackening of the crust caused by the fire underneath. The modern precursor to what we call pizza occurred in pre-Renaissance Naples. Poor housewives had only flour, olive oil, lard, cheese and herbs with which to feed their families, so combining them in a tasty and delicious manner became the goal. All of Italy proclaimed the Neapolitan pies to be the best. The most famous experiment of all was by a pizza maker named Raffaele Esposito, who received a royal summons to prepare a special pizza for Queen Margherita. You don't want to disappoint a Queen, you know what I'm saying? He decided to salute the colors of the Italian flag by adding white mozzarella to red tomato and green basil. It became so popular that it's still sold today. If you're a good and popular Queen like Margherita was, you can probably even get it free

Tower of Pizza

White marble campanile in Pisa, Italy, famous for the uneven settling of its foundation, which caused it to lean 5.5 degrees (about 15 ft [4.5 m]) from the perpendicular. Begun in 1173 as the third and final structure of the city's cathedral complex, it was designed to stand 185 ft (56 m) high. Work was suspended several times as engineers sought solutions; the tower, still leaning, was completed in the 14th century. Subsiding at the rate of 0.03 in (1.2 mm) a year, the structure was in danger of collapse, and in 1990 it was closed as engineers undertook a strengthening project that decreased the lean by 17 in (44 cm) to about 13.5 ft (4.1 m). The work was completed in May 2001.

Coat Of Arms.

A coat of arms or armorial bearings (often just arms for short), in European tradition, is a design belonging to a particular person (or group of people) and used by them in a wide variety of ways. Unlike seals and emblems, coats of arms have a formal description that is expressed as a blazon.

Flag of Italy.

The flag of Italy (often referred to in Italian as Il Tricolore) is a tricolour featuring three equally sized vertical bands of green, white and red, with the green at the hoist side.

Italy

• Year of EU entry: Founding member
• Political system: Republic
• Capital city: Rome
• Total area: 301 263 km²
• Population: 58.8 million
• Currency: euro
• Listen to the official EU language:
  Italian

Italy.

Italy is mainly mountainous, except for the Po plain in the Emilia-Romagna region, and runs from the Alps to the central Mediterranean Sea. It includes the islands of Sicily and Sardinia, Elba and about 70 other smaller ones. There are two small independent states within peninsular Italy: the Vatican City in Rome, and the Republic of San Marino.

Italy has a two-chamber parliament, consisting of the Senate (Senato della Repubblica) of upper house and the Chamber of Deputies (Camera dei Deputati). Elections take place every five years.