http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Saffron-Risotto-with-Marrow-236965
http://www.food.com/recipe/spinaci-alla-fiorentina-spinach-florentine-style-356086
http://www.food.com/recipe/spinaci-alla-fiorentina-spinach-florentine-style-356086
Interesting
Facts
-Italy is said to have more masterpieces per square mile than any other country in the world.
-Almost four-fifths of
Italy is either mountainous or hilly
-The capital of Italy is Rome (also known as the Eternal City)
and is almost 3,000 years old. It has been the capital since 1871 and is home to
the Dome of St. Peter's, the Sistine Chapel, the Coliseum, and the famous Trevi
Fountain.
-The University of Rome
is one of the world’s oldest universities and was founded by the Catholic
Church in A.D. 1303. Often called La Sapienza (“knowledge”), the
University of Rome is also Europe’s largest university with 150,000 students.
-There are two
independent states within Italy: the Republic of San Marino (25 square miles)
and the Vatican City (just 108.7 acres).
-Italy’s San Marino is
the world’s oldest republic (A.D. 301), has fewer than 30,000 citizens, and
holds the world’s oldest continuous constitution. Its citizens are called the
Sammarinese.
-Vatican City is the only nation in the world that can lock its
own gates at night. It has its own phone company, radio, T.V. stations, money,
and stamps. It even has its own army, the historic Swiss Guard.
-At its height in A.D. 117, the Roman Empire stretched from
Portugal in the West to Syria in the east, and from Britain in the North to the
North African deserts across the Mediterranean. It covered 2.3 million miles
(two-thirds the size of the U.S.) and had a population of 120 million people.
During the Middle Ages, Rome had perhaps no more than 13,000 residents..
-Two Italians in particular contributed to the
eighteenth-century's Enlightenment: Cesare Beccaria (1738-1794), whose essays
on Crime and Punishment led
to broad reforms in the treatment of prisoners and criminals, and Giambattista
Vico (1668-1774), a philosopher, rhetorician, and historian who is often
thought to have ushered in a modern philosophy of history
-The highest peak in
Europe is in Italy. Monte Bianco (White Mountain) is 15,771 feet high and is
part of the Alps.
-Though Italy’s economy
lagged behind the rest of Europe during the first half of the twentieth
century, currently it is the world’s seventh largest economy.
-In northern Italy,
last names tend to end in “i”, while those from the south often end in “o.” The
most common Italian surname is Russo.
-Italian is a Romance
language descended from Vulgar Latin, the dialect spoken by the people living
during the last years of the Roman Empire. Italian has more Latin words than
any other Romance languages, and its grammatical system remains similar to
Latin. Latin is still the official language of the Vatican City in Rome.
-Italian Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simon (1475-1564)
was once thought to have painted in somber shades, but after his frescos on the
Sistine Chapel were cleaned, it was discovered that he actually painted in
bright colors, such as purples, greens, and pinks. Centuries of dirt and smoke
from candles had toned down the bright colors. Some art historians argued that
the restorers went too far in their cleaning efforts and removed the dark
shadows Miche langelo intended.
-Known as the “Three
Fountains,” Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), Francesco Petrarch (1304-1374), and
Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375) are arguably the three most famous Italian authors
of all time. Dante’s Divine Comedy (Divina Commedia) had
tremendous influence on Italian literature, and he is considered the father of
the Italian language.
-The pre-dinner passeggiata
(evening stroll) is one of Italy’s most enduring leisure activities where
Italians stroll about the streets to see and be seen.
-When European Jews
were being persecuted during WWII, it was not unusual for some to hide in
Italy’s ancient catacombs.
-Begun in 1560 for
Cosimo l de’ Medici, the Uffizi Gallery in Florence is one of the oldest
museums in the world and contains famous works by Michelangelo, Botticelli, and
da Vinci.
-Approximately 85% of
Italians are Roman Catholics, with Protestants, Jews, and a growing Muslim
community making up the minority.
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-Soccer is Italy’s most
popular sport, and the famous San Siro Stadium in Milan holds 85,000 people.
Italy has won the World Cup four times (1934, 1938, 1982, and 2006), making the
country’s team second only to Brazil's in number of wins.
-The first violin appeared in
Italy in the 1500s, probably from the workshop of Andrea Amati (1505-1578) in
Cremona. The city later became the home of Antonio Stradivari (1644-1737), the
most famous of violin-makers.
-The world’s first operas
were composed in Italy at the end of the sixteenth
century. Opera reached the height of popularity in the nineteenth century, when
the works of Gioacchino Rossini (1792-1868), Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924), and
Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901) became hugely popular. The late tenor Luciano
Pavarotti (1935-2007) is a national celebrity, and Claudio Monteverdi (c.
1567-1643) is regarded as the father of the modern opera.
-The Arabs brought
dried pasta to Italy in the thirteenth century (though fresh pasta was made
before then). It was commonly eaten with honey and sugar; tomato sauce was not
added until the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The old-fashioned way of
eating pasta was with the fingers, arm held high and head tilted back. Pasta
traditionally was made by the mother of the household, who passed the precious
technique to her daughters. There are currently more than 500 different types
of pasta eaten in Italy today.
-The language of music
is Italian. The word “scale” comes from scala, meaning “step.” And andante
, allegro
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