Italian pointer: see Spinone Italiano.

Italian literature, writings in the Italian language, as distinct from earlier works in Latin and French.

The Thirteenth Century

The first Italian vernacular literature began to take shape in the 13th cent. with the imitation of Provençal lyric poetry at the court of Frederick II in Sicily. The Sicilians are credited with inventing the sonnet, which became the most widely used form of Italian poetry and later flourished throughout Europe. The Sicilian style was dominant in the north until c.1260, when Guido Guinizelli, a Bolognese poet and jurist, moved from the Provençal conception of courtly love to a more mystical and philosophical spirituality.

The poets who took Guinizelli as their model originated the "sweet new style" (dolce stil novo)—so named by Dante Alighieri in canto 24 of his Purgatorio. The group included Guido Cavalcanti, Cino da Pistoia, Lapo Gianni, Dino Frescobaldi, and Dante himself, whose youthful La vita nuova, part prose and part poetry, recounts the poet's love for Beatrice in terms of the transcendental view of love typical of the stil novo. Dante's other works, of which the Divine Comedy is a masterpiece of world literature, go beyond the themes and manner of stil novo and embrace the whole of contemporary knowledge and experience. Dante invented the difficult terza rima (iambic tercets) for his epic journey through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise.

The 13th cent. also produced folk poetry, doctrinal poetry, imitations of the chansons de geste in various dialects, and a magnificent flowering of religious poetry in the laudi of Jacopone da Todi and in the Hymn to Created Things of St. Francis of Assisi. Laudi in dialogue form represent the beginning of dramatic literature, the sacre rappresentazioni. Prose works included translations from the Latin and French as well as collections of tales, anecdotes, and witty sayings.

The Fourteenth Century

The two great writers of the 14th cent., Petrarch and Boccaccio, sought out and imitated the works of antiquity and cultivated their own artistic personalities. Petrarch achieved fame through his collection of poems, the Canzoniere, in which he gave Provençal and stil novo themes a peculiarly intimate and personal expression. Petrarch's poetry served as the model for European lyricism until the Romantic period and later. Equally influential was Boccaccio's Decameron, a collection of 100 novellas within a framework, which founded the short-story genre. Giovanni Sercambi and Franco Sacchetti in the 14th cent. and Matteo Bandello and Agnolo Firenzuola in the 16th cent. were among the numerous writers who continued the tradition of vivid, realistic, and often licentious storytelling in prose.

The Renaissance

The Tuscan vernacular that had been established by Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio was inhibited by a strong return to Latin in the 15th cent. among humanist writers and philosophers. Coluccio Salutati, Lorenzo Valla, Marsilio Ficino, and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola were among the writers and scholars who sought to return to the fonts of classical antiquity for inspiration and guidance in matters of language, literary style, moral instruction, and simply a new vision of the relation of humanity to its surroundings and to God. When the vernacular began to be used again in the late 15th cent., poetic language and tastes had been refined by the values of humanist learning.

In the circle of Lorenzo de'Medici, Tuscan vernacular was used in popular, Petrarchan, and pastoral poetry and in a return to medieval subject matter. Luigi Pulci's grotesque Morgante (c.1480) recounts the adventures of Orlando (Charlemagne's Roland) and other paladins with great comic verve. Boiardo's Orlando innamorato (3 parts, 1483-1494) adds Breton subject matter to the Carolingian and introduces motifs from classical mythology and contemporary society. The great masterpiece of Italian Renaissance poetry is Ariosto's Orlando furioso (1516, rev. 1521 and 1532), in which varied and improbable adventures are worked into an aesthetic whole. The great lyric poet Tasso in Gerusalemme liberata (1581) wrote a Christian epic, making use of the same form (ottava rima), with attention to the Aristotelian canons of unity.

Other Renaissance genres brought to a high level of perfection by outstanding writers were the pastoral poem (Poliziano, Tasso, and Guarini); the pastoral romance (Sannazaro); the Petrarchan lyric (Bembo, Michelangelo, Gaspara Stampa); imitations of classical tragedy (Trissino) and classical comedy (Ariosto, Machiavelli, Aretino); dialogues in the Platonic manner (Castiglione's The Courtier); treatises on a variety of topics (Leonardo's Della pittura; Alberti's Della famiglia; Bembo's Prose della volgar lingua, which established the principle of linguistic purism for Italian literature; and Machiavelli's The Prince); biographical and autobiographical writings (Vasari, Machiavelli, and Cellini); and history (Guicciardini and Machiavelli).

The Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries

In the early 17th cent. philosophic and scientific prose (Campanella, Galileo) continued and surpassed the achievements of Giordano Bruno. But the new literary style, secentismo, or marinismo (from Giambattista Marino), aimed at dazzling the reader by the opulent use of rhetorical devices. At the end of the century the Arcadians began a movement to restore simplicity and classical restraint to poetry, as in Metastasio's heroic melodramas. The mock-heroic epic (Tassoni), the opera, and commedia dell'arte were other genres cultivated in the 17th cent.

The renewal of Italian culture in the 18th cent. produced major works of journalism (Gaspare Gozzi, Giuseppe Baretti, and the Milanese Caffè), philosophical and historical erudition (Vico, Muratori, and Tiraboschi), and translations from classical antiquity and from contemporary European writers. The outstanding Italian representatives of the Enlightenment were Carlo Goldoni, whose comedies of character drew upon contemporary life, Vittorio Alfieri, whose classical tragedies exalted freedom, and Giuseppe Parini, whose satirical poetry attacked the social abuses of the privileged.

The Napoleonic Era and the Risorgimento

The Napoleonic period was both classical and romantic. The poetry of Vincenzo Monti typifies the first direction, and the work of Ugo Foscolo belongs to the second. A distinguishing feature of Italian romanticism was its political involvement in the struggle for Italian independence, the Risorgimento. Poems, historical novels, and political works, such as Giuseppe Mazzini's, attest to this.

Alessandro Manzoni's literary conversion included the rejection of classical mythology in favor of Christian subject matter, and of classical tragedy for romantic drama. His historical novel, I promessi sposi (1827), which introduced the genre to Italy, combined social and psychological realism with Roman Catholic doctrine and established a new Italian linguistic norm and prose style. Giacomo Leopardi rejected the program of romanticism but wrote lyric poetry in which the romantic themes of despair predominate.

The Late Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

In the second half of the 19th cent. Francesco De Sanctis, literary critic and historian, laid the theoretical and aesthetic foundations of modern Italian criticism, later elaborated by the philosopher Benedetto Croce. Giosuè Carducci brought to poetry a virility and classicism long absent. But Pascoli and D'Annunzio had a more lasting influence. Gabriele D'Annunzio, poet, novelist, and dramatist, employed sensuous, musical, and precious language. Giovanni Pascoli is Italy's great symbolist poet of the subconscious. The naturalistic, the irrational, and the decadent are also revealed in the work of the playwright and novelist Luigi Pirandello. Pirandello's prose roots are in Sicilian verismo, the impersonal, objective regionalism of Fiovanni Verga's works.

Major 20th-century novelists of note include Italo Svevo, Alberto Moravia, Giuseppe di Lampedusa, Elio Vittorini, Cesare Pavese, Italo Calvino, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Carlo Gadda, Leonardo Sciascia, and Natalia Ginzburg. Their work is variously marked by psychological analysis, social consciousness, and formal and linguistic experimentation. The outstanding poets are Giuseppe Ungaretti, Eugenio Montale, Umberto Saba, and Salvatore Quasimodo.

Italian language, member of the Romance group of the Italic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages (see Romance languages). The official language of Italy and San Marino, and one of the official languages of Switzerland, Italian is spoken by about 58 million people in Italy, 30,000 in San Marino, 840,000 in Switzerland, another 1 million in other European countries, and approximately 5 million in North and South America. Historically, Italian is a daughter language of Latin (see Latin language). Northern Italian dialects are the Gallo-Italian—including Piedmontese, Ligurian, Lombard, and Emilian—and Venetian. Further south, the major dialects are Tuscan and various others from Umbria to Sicily. Sardinian, spoken on the island of Sardinia, is sufficiently distinct from other dialects to be considered by some a Romance language in its own right. The Rhaeto-Romance forms, similar to the dialects of northern Italy, are spoken in the border region between Italy and Switzerland. It is not known exactly when Italian could be distinguished from its parent tongue; however, no text in Italian is recorded before the 10th cent. A.D.

The idiom of Florence, one of the Tuscan dialects of Italian, became dominant from the end of the 13th cent. to the middle of the 14th cent., largely owing to the growing prestige of the city of Florence and the literary works written in the Florentine dialect during that period. These literary works included Dante's Divine Comedy and the vernacular writings of Petrarch and Boccaccio. Thus, although Italian had—and still has—a great many dialects, it was the culturally important idiom of Florence that in time gave rise to modern standard Italian. The dialect of the Italian capital, Rome, also has influenced modern standard Italian. The Roman alphabet is used for Italian. The employment of diacritics is limited to the grave (̀) and acute (´) accents, which sometimes serve to make clear where the stress of a word is to fall (as in caffè="coffee"); they also serve to distinguish between homonyms (as with ne = "of it" or "of them," but né … né = "neither … nor"). The pronunciation of the language follows the spelling very closely. Italian is often described both as the language of art and music and as the language best suited to singing. Since the Renaissance its general cultural importance has been considerable.

Italian greyhound, breed of sleek, active toy dog that stands from 13 to 15 in. (32-38 cm) high at the shoulder and weighs from 7 to 11 lb (3-5 kg). Its short, thin coat is glossy and may be any shade of red, fawn, blue, cream, or white. Although the belief that it was raised as a pet in ancient Rome and Pompeii is difficult to document, it is certain that it was a distinct breed and a favorite of the court in southern Europe by the Middle Ages. It was introduced into England more than three centuries ago, where it was brought to refinement. Although a relatively rare breed today, the Italian greyhound's striking appearance and extremely tractable disposition make it a desirable house pet. See dog.

Italian art, works of art produced in the geographic region that now constitutes the nation of Italy. Italian art has engendered great public interest and involvement, resulting in the consistent production of monumental and spectacular works. In addition, Italian art has nearly always been closely allied with the intellectual and/or religious currents of its day while retaining its own remarkable past as a continual source of inspiration.

For a discussion of early works in the area see Etruscan art and Roman art. See also Italian architecture.

The Medieval Period

Throughout the Middle Ages, Italian art consisted primarily of architectural decorations (frescoes and mosaics). Byzantine art (see Byzantine art and architecture) in Italy was a highly formal and refined decoration with a standardized calligraphy and an admirable use of color and gold. Until the 13th cent., art in Italy was almost entirely regional, affected by external European and Eastern currents. After c.1250 the art of the various regions developed characteristics in common, so that a certain unity as well as great originality is observable.

The Beginnings of Italian Renaissance Art

Major painters, including Guido of Siena, Cimabue, and Duccio di Buoninsegna, while retaining many of the Byzantine conventions, introduced a new naturalism and a more direct appeal to human emotion. The same spirit is seen in the powerful sculpture of Nicola Pisano. He made use of elements from classical antiquity, as did Pietro Cavallini in his fresco paintings in Rome.

But it is with Giotto di Bondone, a contemporary of Dante, that the new painting first takes on life and warmth. His style, perfected c.1300, determined the future course of art in Italy. His immediate followers, Taddeo Gaddi, Bernardo Daddi, Giottino, and others spread his teachings and technique. Simultaneously, art flourished in 14th-century Siena, following the example set by Duccio and developing a more Gothic manner. Among the superb artists of the Sienese school were the painters Simone Martini and the brothers Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti and the sculptors Giovanni Pisano and Arnolfo di Cambio.

The Black Death (1348) severely curtailed artistic productivity for the next two generations. Apocalyptic frescoes were created during this time by Andrea Orcagna in Florence and by Francesco Traini in Pisa. The pessimistic content of this art was superseded in the early 15th cent. by an elegant manner known as the International style (see Gothic architecture and art), manifest in the works of Lorenzo Monaco, Gentile da Fabriano, Masolino da Panicale, and to a certain extent Pisanello.

The Quattrocento

In the second decade of the 15th cent. Italy—primarily Florence—took the lead in the formation of an art that was to affect Europe profoundly for more than 500 years (see Renaissance art and architecture). Political stability was established in several regions, and powerful ruling families produced the patrons of art that made the artistic flowering possible. Donatello, Brunelleschi, and Alberti were among the first to look consciously toward classical antiquity as a model for their work. They, with Masaccio, whose style recalls Giotto's monumentality, began to devise the optical system of perspective. They also set a high artistic standard that was emulated by succeeding generations.

In the first half of the 15th cent. the sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti embellished the Florentine baptistery with his splendid bronze doors, winning the commission in competition against another great sculptor and architect, Filippo Brunelleschi. Other sculptors, such as Desiderio da Settignano, Antonio Rossellino, and Bertoldo di Giovanni, carried the tradition established by Donatello through to Michelangelo, while the workshop of the Della Robbias during the 15th cent. produced a great quantity of superb terra-cotta relief sculptures. The Tuscan painters, including Fra Angelico and Fra Filippo Lippi, created works of exquisite color. Paolo Uccello and Andrea del Castagno contributed refinements to the understanding of the laws of perspective.

Domenico Veneziano and Piero della Francesca were attracted to Florence, while Florentine artists such as Donatello and Fra Filippo Lippi ventured into N Italy. By the second half of the quattrocento, schools in N Italy began to flourish. Squarcione was the teacher of many painters, among them Carlo Crivelli and the powerful master Andrea Mantegna, who painted magnificent frescoes for churches and palaces in Padua and Mantua. His father-in-law, Jacopo Bellini, a superb draftsman, had two sons, Gentile and Giovanni Bellini, who continued his Venetian workshop. Gentile painted detailed and delightful scenes of Venice, as did Carpaccio. Giovanni Bellini initiated a century of Venetian greatness with the richness of color for which Venice became famous.

The Vivarini family produced paintings notable for a bright, translucent color. Antonello da Messina, a Sicilian who was briefly in Venice, was one of the first Italians to use the medium of oil painting, with remarkable effect. The impact of Mantegna's style was felt in Ferrara in the paintings of Cosimo Tura, Francesco del Cossa, and Ercole de' Roberti. In Siena during the 15th cent. the major artists included Sassetta, Giovanni di Paolo, Francesco di Giorgio, and the sculptor Vecchietta.

The last half of the quattrocento in Florence saw the rise of a group of painters celebrated for their lyrical style—Botticelli, Filippino Lippi, and Baldovinetti—as well as the more austere masters Signorelli and Antonio Pollaiuolo. Perugino and particularly Melozzo da Forlì were among the notable painters of Umbria. Benozzo Gozzoli and Ghirlandaio decorated Florence with exquisite narrative frescoes. The Florentine sculptor Verrocchio infused his works with a fresh vitality and sense of drama. But in the years around the turn of the 16th cent. the works of these artists were reduced in significance as the figures of the High Renaissance emerged.

The High Renaissance

Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and Raphael vied with one another in Florence and in Rome to create a perfect art. Raphael's idealized Madonnas and portraits and his Vatican frescoes exerted a tremendous influence over European artists. Whereas his works have come down to us fully realized, many of the complete artistic schemes of Michelangelo and Leonardo remain largely on paper.

Leonardo has left only a small group of magnificent easel paintings and one grand but deteriorated fresco, The Last Supper in Milan. His unparalleled, incredibly versatile genius is most clearly revealed in his notebooks, replete with extraordinary plans of all varieties. Michelangelo's magnificent ceiling and Last Judgment for the Sistine Chapel of the Vatican are the only monumental projects in painting, sculpture, or architecture that materialized according to his plans. Most of his sculptural masterpieces are fragments of vast designs that were never executed in their entirety.

Mannerism

In the early 16th cent. some of the grandeur of the High Renaissance artists was echoed in the works of Andrea del Sarto, Sebastiano del Piombo, and Fra Bartolommeo, but other followers of the great masters in Rome, in Florence, and elsewhere developed a complex, sometimes bizarre style in their own right known as mannerism. Among these were the painters Pontormo, Giulio Romano, Parmigianino, Il Rosso, Primaticcio, and later Bronzino and Vasari, as well as the sculptors Giovanni Bologna, Bandinelli, Ammanati, Buontalenti, and Benvenuto Cellini. By the second half of the 16th cent. the mannerist style had declined into a rather dry academism, seen in the works of the Zuccari family.

Venetian Painting

Venice was comparatively unaffected by the elegant, tortuous forms of mannerism. At the beginning of the 16th cent. two superlative Venetian masters, the mysterious, short-lived Giorgione and the long-lived, prolific Titian, continued the tradition established by Giovanni Bellini of sumptuous, poetic coloring. They created sensuous figures whose contours melted into luminous, atmospheric landscapes. Their stylistic effects influenced the works of Palma Vecchio, Pordenone, the Bassano family, the Ferrarese Dosso Dossi, and the lavish banquet scenes of Paolo Veronese. Only Tintoretto veered away from the harmonious canvases that were typical of the Venetians. He created instead twisted, dramatic, elongated forms, related to those of the mannerists but more vigorously conceived.

The Baroque Period

In the early 17th cent. Rome became the center of a renewal of Italian dominance in the arts. In Parma, Correggio decorated church vaults with lively figures floating softly on clouds—a scheme that was to have a profound influence on baroque ceiling paintings. The stormy chiaroscuro paintings of Caravaggio and the robust, illusionistic paintings of the Bolognese Carracci family gave rise to the baroque period in Italian art. Domenichino, Francesco Albani, and later Andrea Sacchi were among those who carried out the classical implications in the art of the Carracci.

On the other hand, Guido Reni, Guercino, Gentileschi, Lanfranco, and later Pietro da Cortona and Padre Pozzo, while thoroughly trained in a classical-allegorical mode, were at first inclined to paint dynamic compositions full of gesticulating figures in a manner closer to that of Caravaggio. The towering virtuoso of baroque exuberance and grandeur in sculpture and architecture was Bernini. Toward 1640 many of the painters leaned toward the classical style that had been brought to the fore in Rome by the French expatriate Nicolas Poussin. The sculptors Alessandro Algardi and the Fleming François Duquenoy also tended toward the classical. Notable late baroque artists include the Genoese Gaulli and the Neapolitans Luca Giordano and Francesco Solimena.

The Rococo Period

The leading lights of the 18th cent. came from Venice. Among them were the brilliant exponent of the rococo style, Tiepolo; the architectural painters Guardi, Canaletto, Piazzetta, and Bellotto; and the engraver of Roman antiquities, Piranesi. Fantastic landscape was brought into vogue in the works of Castiglione and Magnasco, both of whom worked in Naples.

Modern Italian Art

During the late 18th and 19th cent. Italy continued to serve as a training school for the artists of the world but tended to rest on her laurels. In the mid-19th cent. the group known as the Macchiaioli gave new life to landscape and genre subjects. Early in the 20th cent. the exponents of futurism developed a dynamic vision of the modern world while Chirico expressed a strange metaphysical quietude and Modigliani joined the school of Paris. Gifted later modern artists include the sculptors Giacomo Manzù, Marino Marini, the still-life painter Giorgio Morandi, and the iconoclastic painter Lucio Fontana. In the second half of the 20th cent. Italian designers, particularly those of Milan, have profoundly influenced international styles with their imaginative and ingenious functional works.

Italian architecture, the several styles employed in Italy after the Roman period.

The Romanesque

Italy's Romanesque architecture (12th cent.) reveals the first use of the groined vault with projecting ribs. It is also typified by the development of a type of basilica having side galleries. The style was especially pronounced in Lombardy and is superbly exemplified in Sant' Ambrogio, Milan. There are two regional forms of Italian Romanesque—Tuscan (including Florentine) and southern. The cathedral of Pisa (1063-1118), with its campanile (the "leaning tower"), admirably displays the Tuscan characteristics, chief of which is the decorative use of tier upon tier of columns. Tuscan architects of the period also made a specialty of using variegated marbles and followed the antique style in this rather closely. The Romanesque of the south, as in the cathedral of Monreale, is characterized by its rich mosaics and delicate carvings, which show Byzantine, Saracenic, and Norman influences.

Gothic Influences

Gothic architecture was not greatly developed in Italy; a notable exception is the cathedral of Milan, built in part by foreign architects. The Church of St. Francis in Assisi (begun 1228) and the cathedral at Siena (begun 1269), among others, also have Gothic elements—the ribbed vault and the pointed arch (see Gothic architecture and art). However, the Italians largely adhered to the native tradition of building in terms of simple basilican proportions with massive walls, a practice that was carried into the Renaissance.

The Renaissance

In the 15th cent. a conscious revival of classical antiquity began (see Renaissance art and architecture). Brunelleschi emulated the ancient Romans in his masterly construction (1420-34) of the dome of the Florentine cathedral, and Michelozzo used antique elements in the courtyard of the Medici Palace, Florence (begun 1444). Alberti borrowed freely from a Roman triumphal arch in his design (1450s) for the exterior of the Tempio Malatestiano in Rimini. Bramante, Antonio da Sangallo, Peruzzi, and Raphael made Rome the center of spectacular architectural developments in the first half of the 16th cent., when St. Peter's was the most important project under way. Vignola did significant work in Rome in the latter part of the 16th cent., while in N Italy the formal classicism of Palladio was a potent factor in the spreading of Renaissance architecture throughout Europe. The monumental work of Michelangelo reflected elements of mannerism and his influence extended into the baroque period.

The Baroque

The beginning of the 17th cent. ushered in the drama of the baroque era with Maderno's nave and facade for St. Peter's, to which a magnificent colonnaded plaza was added, designed by Bernini, the foremost genius of the period. Other outstanding architects of the century included Borromini, Cortona, and Rainaldi. After their deaths, Carlo Fontana became the most influential architect in Italy, transmitting the ideas of the great baroque masters to many of the most important architects of Europe. Italy, however, no longer possessed the undisputed leadership in European architecture, although in the 18th cent. Piedmont in N Italy produced remarkable designers, such as Guarini, Juvarra, and Vittone.

The Modern Era

Nineteenth-century Italian architecture, such as Giuseppe Sacconi's Victor Emmanuel monument, shows a decline in quality and increased pomposity. In the 20th cent. Italy has followed the trends of modern architecture; its outstanding practitioners include Pier Luigi Nervi, Giuseppe Terragni, Gio Ponti, and Renzo Piano.

Italian Wars, 1494-1559, series of regional wars brought on by the efforts of the great European powers to control the small independent states of Italy. Renaissance Italy was split into numerous rival states, most of which sought foreign alliances to increase their individual power. It thus became prey to the national states that had begun to emerge in Europe. Foremost among those were France and Spain, whose prolonged struggle for supremacy in Italy was to curtail Italian liberties for more than three centuries.

The wars began when, in 1494, Charles VIII of France invaded Italy and seized (1495) Naples without effort, only to be forced to retreat by a coalition of Spain, the Holy Roman emperor, the pope, Venice, and Milan. His successor, Louis XII, occupied (1499) Milan and Genoa. Louis gained his next objective, Naples, by agreeing to its conquest and partition with Ferdinand V of Spain and by securing the consent of Pope Alexander VI. Disagreement over division of the spoils between the Spanish and the French, however, flared into open warfare in 1502. Louis XII was forced to consent to the Treaties of Blois (1504-5), keeping Milan and Genoa but pledging Naples to Spain.

Trouble began again when Pope Julius II formed (1508) an alliance against Venice with France, Spain, and Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I (see Cambrai, League of). But shortly after the French victory over the Venetians at Agnadello (1509), Julius made peace with Venice and began to form the Holy League (1510) in order to expel the French "barbarians" from Italy. The French held their own until the Swiss stormed Milan (1512)—which they nominally restored to the Sforzas—routed the French at Novara (1513), and controlled Lombardy until they were defeated in turn by Louis's successor, Francis I, at Marignano (1515). By the peace of Noyon (1516), Naples remained in Spanish hands and Milan was returned to France.

The rivalry between Francis I and Charles V, king of Spain and (after 1519) Holy Roman emperor, reopened warfare in 1521, and the French were badly defeated in the Battle of Pavia (1525), the most important in the long wars. Francis was forced to sign the Treaty of Madrid (1526), by which he renounced his Italian claims and ceded Burgundy. This he repudiated, as soon as he was liberated, by forming the League of Cognac with Pope Clement VII, Henry VIII of England, Venice, and Florence.

To punish the pope, Charles V sent Charles de Bourbon against Rome, which was sacked for a full week (May, 1527). The French, after an early success at Genoa, were eventually forced to abandon their siege of Naples and retreat. The war ended (1529) with the Treaty of Cambrai (see Cambrai, Treaty of) and the renunciation of Francis's claims in Italy. France's two subsequent wars (1542-44 and 1556-57) ended in failure. Francis died in 1547, having renounced Naples (for the third time) in the Treaty of Crépy. Complete Spanish supremacy in Italy was obtained by the Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis (1559), which gave the Two Sicilies and Milan to Philip II.

The wars, though ruinous to Italy, had helped to spread the Italian Renaissance in Western Europe. From the military viewpoint, they signified the passing of chivalry, which found its last great representative in the seigneur de Bayard. The use of Swiss and German mercenaries was characteristic of the wars, and artillery passed its first major test.

Italian Somaliland: see Somalia.

Italian East Africa, former federation of the Italian colonies of Eritrea and Italian Somaliland and the kingdom of Ethiopia. The federation was formed (1936) to consolidate the administration of the three areas. During the federation's existence, efforts were made to construct road systems and to establish new industries and agricultural plantations. Resistance to Italian rule was particularly strong in Ethiopia, and when British forces invaded the federation in Jan., 1941, they received widespread support. By Dec., 1942, the Italians had been totally defeated. Ethiopia was restored its independence; Eritrea was placed under Ethiopian control in 1952 (becoming independent of that country in 1993); and Italian Somaliland, after a period as a UN trusteeship, became part of Somalia in 1960.

Romance language spoken in Italy (including Sicily and Sardinia) and in parts of Switzerland and France (including Corsica). Its 66 million speakers worldwide include many immigrants and their descendants in the Americas. Written Italian dates from the 10th century. The standard literary form is based on the dialect of Florence, but many Italians do not speak it, instead using regional dialects. These include Upper Italian (Gallo-Italian); Venetian in northeastern Italy; Tuscan; the dialects of Marche, Umbria, and Rome; of Abruzzi, Puglia, Naples, Campania, and Lucania; and of Calabria, Otranto, and Sicily. Seealso Italic languages.

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