Italy is a renowned country with a diverse culture and magnificent landmarks. From its historical sights, to its famous cuisine or its wild celebrations, Italy possesses many aspects of history that can be seen throughout the world today. Each characteristic of Italian culture influences the lives of every person who lives in Italy and all of the tourists who visit it. Traditions and customs are important to the experiences received throughout Italy, and Italian life is widely focused on the past and its effect on present-day history. Each piece of Italian culture is native to the area, and was established according to the events that occurred around it. With the new concepts and ideas being discovered regularly, Italian culture flourished from the start. Italy’s lifestyle, entertainment, beliefs, and sights were developed through events of the past and serve as defining elements of the Italian culture because they are still relevant in not only Italian life, but also around the globe today. Italy has a significant influence on the people and places in other regions of the world. Many structures and natural landscapes like the Colosseum, Amalfi Coast, and the Trevi Fountain are all popular tourist destinations that have created a beautiful environment that people from all areas of the world come to visit each year. Foods like pizza, pasta, and gelato, which all originated in Italy, can be found all over the globe. New York for example, has at least one pizzeria on every block, and other Italian restaurants can be found in many communities all around the United States and countless other countries. This shows that Italian cuisine is a major dietary staple in the lives of many people on the planet, especially Americans. Different forms of transportation like the Vespa, the Fiat 500, and sports and luxury cars like Ferraris, Lamborghinis, and Maseratis were developed in Italy. Small, compact vehicles have provided reasonable and fuel efficient options for transportation in many countries, and the expensive, luxury cars have become very popular around the world. Italy’s developments have influenced countries to adopt their cultural ideas, but also inspired them to create further advancements of their own.
In order to gain more knowledge about the history of Italy and how the country’s culture, landmarks, and other features have affected different regions of the globe, our group decided to research Italy’s main sights, forms of entertainment, foods, beliefs and more that originated there. Our main goal of this project was to provide the class with a better understanding of the people, places, and things to do and see in Italy. We created a website on Weebly where we divided up four different sections or categories to cover multiple characteristics of Italian influence. Each group member was assigned five to six different topics to research for each category including trends, music, religion, popular tourist destinations in the country, etc. We also decided to add pictures from our own trips to Italy and pictures from other family member’s visits to the ‘album’ category on our website. This addition of photos makes the project more personal and it is really interesting to see how Italy has changed and developed over the years. Through this project we have all learned so much about Italy, and how the country has impacted many other places in the world.
This website was created by Gabby, Chloe and Kate for our Be a Historian project for our World History AP Class.