Italy [antikvár]

INTRODUCTION At the mention of its name Italy excites the .imagination in a way that few other countries do. In fact, not a single western country can claim it owes nothing to this nation that was the mother of men and cities, of the arts and the law. Italy, one of the most civilized places in the world, was nonetheless one of the last European nations to achieve unity. National consciousness on the pensinsula, as perceived from the outside, had become no less strong than it had been since ancient times and Italy owes this, above all, to geographical factors. Italian unity clearly results from the remarkable simplicity of its natural frontiers, which are formed by the summits of an arc of Alpine mountains and the coastal contours of the peninsula. The two largest Mediterranean islands, Sicily and Sardinia, are also part of this country. The whole tends to form a perfect link between Europe, Africa and the East. This does not prevent the Italian landscape from demonstrating a remarkable diversity and fragmentation, however, ranging from the glaciers of the Alps to Sicily, foretaste of Africa, while the ancient division between the continental North and the Mezzogiorno peninsula plays a greater role than ever before. The traveller notices immediately within these well-defined frontiers how the State blurs into the twenty regions of which it consists and which are in harmony with natural realities. The three principal geographical elements of Italy are the Alps, the plain of the river Po and the Apennine chain, and correspond with numerous regional nuances, easily perceptible in the landscapes, and reinforced by the history, traditions and economy. The Alps are often thought of as a barrier, but they are more a solid anchorage linking Italy to Europe, because the main routes from the continent cross a chain of passes which have been traversed since the dawn of time. In modern times the Alps have augmented their role as a castle of water above the plain of the Po, holding enormous reserves of hydro-electric energy. Different chains can be distinguished in the Italian Alps. In the west the Piedmont Alps, falling steeply to the plain, form a fortress whose ramparts rise to the 4000 metres of Gran Paradiso, Cervin and Mont Rosa. Of the valleys which converge into the Po, only the basin of the Dora Baltea diverges to form the Val d'Aosta. Between the Simplón and Adige the Lombardy Alps are even more magnificent because they are duplicated to the south of the limestone Pre-Alps. On the Swiss border they form high massifs such as the Adamello, the Ortler or the Bernina, which feed almost two hundred glaciers. Ever since the Ice Age, these glaciers have extended to where the Alps descend to the plain and wherever an obstacle forced them to grind out a valley, today lies one of the lakes which have made northern Italy so famous. Some have