Around Italy

ITALIA.
How did it get her name?

For more than 2,000 years, the boot-shaped peninsula surrounded by the Ligure, Tirreno, Adriatico, Jonio, and Mediterraneo seas has been known as Italia. How did it get its name?

Some scholars of linguistics believe that Italia is a Latin word with origins dating to the Oscans, a people who lived in southern Italy before the Romans. Italia may be derived from the Oscan word of "vitelieu," for cattle.

Others point to the ancient Greek philosophers Aristotle and Antioch of Syracuse, who believed that Italia comes from a Prince Italo who ruled over southern Italy. In fact, hundreds of years before the Romans, a tribe of people known as the "Itali" lived in what is now Calabria.

Scholars believe that the term spread north as the Romans conquered new parts of the peninsula. Eventually, in 42 BC, the Roman emperor Octavian decreed that the entire peninsula be called "Italia."

• Rimini
 —  History of Rimini,
• Venezia
 —  History and Curiosity, St. Mark's Basilica, Palazzo Ducale, Correr museum,
• Padova
 —  History, art and culture, Basilica di sant'Antonio, Botanical Gardens,
• Firenze
 —  Santa Maria del Fiore, Santa Croce, Santa Maria Novella, Piazza della Signoria, Palazzo Vecchio, The Uffizi Palace, Michelangelo's David, Loggia dei Lanzi, Fontana del Porcellino, Ponte Vecchio, Casa di Dante, Pitti Palace, Fortress da Basso, The story of Pinocchio,
• Pisa
 —  The city of Pisa, Piazza dei Miracoli, The Dome of Pisa, Battistero, The leaning tower of Pisa, The Monumental Cemetery, The Pisa Normale School, Church of San Michele in Borgo, Church of San Michele degli Scalzi, Church of Santa Maria della Spina,
• Siena
 —  History of Siena, Contrade of Siena, Siena's Palio, Piazza del Campo, Siena's Duomo, Word's oldest bank, Il Chiantigiano, Il Chianti,
• Napoli
 —  Naples City, Piazza Plebiscito, S.Lucia and Castel dell'Ovo, City Centre,
• Pompei
 —  History of Pompei,
• Tivoli
 —  Tivoli Town,
• Roma
 —  History of Rome, Roma and the She-Wolf, Ancient Rome, Old Rome, Colosseum, Pantheon, The Spanish Steps, The Villa Borghese, Fontane,
• Vatican
 —  San Pietro in Vaticano, Vatican Museums, Castel Sant'Angelo,
• San-Marino
 —  History of San-Marino,