Libri Audio

Italy (, ), officially the Italian Republic (), is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia. The independent states of San Marino and the Vatican City are enclaves within the Italian Peninsula, and Campione d'Italia is an Italian exclave in Switzerland. The territory of Italy covers 301,338 km² and is influenced by a temperate seasonal climate. With 60,200,000 inhabitants, it is the sixth 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 Etruscans and the Romans. Italy's capital, Rome, was for centuries the political center of Western civilization, as the capital of the Roman Empire. After its decline, Italy would endure numerous invasions by foreign peoples, from Germanic tribes such as the Lombards and Ostrogoths, to the Normans and later, the Byzantines, among others. Centuries later, Italy would become the birthplace of the Renaissance,

. an immensely fruitful intellectual movement that would prove to be integral in shaping the subsequent course of European thought.

Through much of its post-Roman history, Italy was fragmented into numerous kingdoms and city-states (such as the Kingdom of Sardinia, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and the duchy of Milan), but was unified in 1861, a tumultuous period in history known as the "Risorgimento". In the late 19th century, through World War I, and to World War II, Italy possessed a colonial empire, which extended its rule to Libya, Eritrea, Italian Somaliland, Ethiopia, Albania, Rhodes, the Dodecanese and a concession in Tianjin, China.The Italian Colonial Empire - All Empires Italy was a founding member of the European Community (EC) in 1957, which became the European Union in 1993. It is part of the Schengen zone and adopted the European currency, the euro, in 1999.

Modern Italy is a democratic republic and a developed country with the eighth-highest quality of life index rating in the world. Italy enjoys a high standard of living, and is the world's 18th most developed country.http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/HDR_2009_EN_Complete.pdf It is a founding member of what is now the European Union, having signed the Treaty of Rome in 1957, and it is a founding member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). It is a member of the G8 and G20, having the world's seventh-largest nominal GDP, and is also a member state of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the World Trade Organization (WTO), the Council of Europe, and the Western European Union. It has the world's eight-largest defence budget and shares NATO's nuclear weapons.

Italy, especially Rome, has a major global impact in politics and culture, with worldwide organizations such as FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization), International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), Glocal Forum, World Food Programme (WFT), and the NATO Defence College being headquartered in the country and the city. The country's European political, social and military influence make it a major regional power, alongside the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Russia.jstor.orgforeignaffairs.org| Ben W. Heineman, Jr., and Fritz Heimann speak of Italy as a major country or "player" along with Germany, France, Japan, and the United Kingdom, in "The Long War Against Corruption".M. De Leonardis, Il Mediterraneo nella politica estera italiana del secondo dopoguerra, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2003, p. 17carabinieri.itbooks.google.com The country has a high public education level, high labour force, is a globalised nation, and also has 2009's sixth best international reputation.Nation Branding » Nation Brands Index 2009 Italy also has the world's 19th highest life expectancy, after New Zealand and Bermuda. Italy is the world's fifth most visited country, with over 43.7 million international arrivals,http://unwto.org/facts/eng/pdf/highlights/UNWTO_Highlights08_en_HR.pdf and boasts a long tradition of excellence in all the arts and sciences, including the fact that Italy has the world's greatest number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites to date (44).

Gaius Julius CaesarFully, Caius Iulius Caii filius Caii nepos Caesar Imperator ("Gaius Julius Caesar, son of Gaius, grandson of Gaius, Imperator"). Official name after deification in 42 BC: Divus Iulius ("The Divine Julius"). ( in Classical Latin; conventionally in English), (13 July 100 BCThere is some dispute over the date of Caesar's birth. The day is sometimes stated to be 12 July when his feast-day was celebrated after deification, but this was because his true birthday clashed with the Ludi Apollinares. Some scholars, based on the dates he held certain magistracies, have made a case for 101 or 102 BC as the year of his birth, but scholarly consensus favours 100 BC. Goldsworthy, 30 ? 15 March 44 BCAfter Caesar's death the leap years were not inserted according to his intent and there is uncertainty about when leap years were observed between 45 BC and AD 4 inclusive; the dates in this article between 45 BC and AD 4 inclusive are those observed in Rome and there is an uncertainty of about a day as to where those dates would be on the proleptic Julian calendar. See Blackburn, B and Holford-Strevens, L. (1999 corrected 2003). The Oxford Companion to the Year. Oxford University Press. p. 671. ISBN 978-0192142313), was a Roman military and political leader. He played a critical role in the transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire.

As a politician, Caesar made use of popularist tactics. During the late 60s and into the 50s BC, he formed political alliances that led to the so-called "First Triumvirate," an Category: wikt - :extralegal|extra-legal arrangement with Marcus Licinius Crassus and Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus ("Pompey the Great") that was to dominate Roman politics for several years. Their factional attempts to amass power for themselves were opposed within the Roman Senate by the optimates, among them Marcus Porcius Cato and Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus, with the sometime support of Marcus Tullius Cicero. Caesar's conquest of Gaul extended the Roman world to the North Sea, and in 55 BC he also conducted the first Roman invasion of Britain. These achievements granted him unmatched military power and threatened to eclipse Pompey's, while the death of Crassus contributed to increasing political tensions between the two triumviral survivors. Political realignments in Rome finally led to a stand-off between Caesar and Pompey, the latter having taken up the cause of the Senate. With the order that sent his legions across the Rubicon, Caesar began a civil war in 49 BC from which he emerged as the unrivaled leader of the Roman world.

After assuming control of government, he began extensive reforms of Roman society and government. He centralised the bureaucracy of the Republic and was eventually proclaimed "dictator in perpetuity" (dictator perpetuo). A group of senators, led by Marcus Junius Brutus, assassinated the dictator on the Ides of March (15 March) 44 BC, hoping to restore the normal running of the Republic. However, the result was another Roman civil war, which ultimately led to the establishment of a permanent autocracy by Caesar's adopted heir, Gaius Octavianus. In 42 BC, two years after his assassination, the Senate officially sanctified Caesar as one of the Roman deities.

Much of Caesar's life is known from his own Commentaries (Commentarii) on his military campaigns, and other contemporary sources such as the letters and speeches of his political rival Cicero, the historical writings of Sallust, and the poetry of Catullus. Many more details of his life are recorded by later historians, such as Appian, Suetonius, Plutarch, Cassius Dio and Strabo.