ITALY
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ITALY
especially since 1860, this college has lost its eccle-
siastical character and is now secularized.
Ecclesiastical Status. — The Italo-Greeks are subject to the jurisdiction of the diocesan bishops; several times, but in vain, they have sought exemption. However, the popes have long wished them to have a titular archbishop, resident in Rome, for the ordina- tion of their priests, and to lend splendour to Divine service. The first of these was Gabriele, titular Archbishop of Mitylene. When Clement XII estab- lished the Corsini College, he placed it in charge of a resident bishop or archbishop of the Greek Rite. At present this episcojms ordinans for the Greeks of Calabria resides at Naples. In 17S4 the Greeks of Sicily obtained from Pius VI an cpiscopiis ordinans, resident at Plana dei Greci. Naturally, the position of a people whose rite and discipline differed in many points from those of the siu'roiuiding population, required special legislation. Benedict XIV, in the Bull "Etsi pastoralis" (1742), collected, co-ordinated, and completed the various enactments of his prede- cessors, and this Bull is still the law. The Holy See has always endeavoured to respect the rite of the Italo-Greeks; on the other hand, it was only proper to maintain the position of the Latin Rite. No member of the clergy may pass from the Greek to the Latin Rite without the consent of the pope; and no layman without the permission of the bishop. The offspring of mixed marriages belong to the Latin Rite. A Greek wife may pass to the Latin Rite, but not a Latin husband to the Greek Rite. Much less would a Latin be allowed to become a priest of the Greek Rite, thus evading the law of celibacy. As regards the Eucharist, any promiscuity of Greeks and Latins is forbidden, except in case of grave necessity, e. g. if in a given locality there should be no Greek church. Where custom has abolished communion under both kinds, a contrary usage must not be introduced.
RoaoTTA, DeW ongiTie . . . delrito grcco in Italia (Rome. 175S~ 63); r>E CoROKKl, L'Autonomia ecclesiastica defjli italo-albanesi della Calabria e delta Basilicata (1903); Cotroneo, II rito greco in Calabria (Reggio in C.ilabria, 1902); De Maetinis. Juris Pontificii de Propaganda Fide, pt. II (Rome, 1888) ; Bullarium PonlifMum S. C. de Prop. Fide (8 vols., Rome, 1839); Gat, L Italie meridionale et I'empire byzantin depuis Vavenement de Basile I jusqu'a la prise de Bari par les Normands 867-1071 (Paris, 1904); Chalandon. Histoire de V Italie meridionale sous la domination normandc (Paris, 1908); Charon, Le quinzii-me centenaire de St. Jean Chrysostome (Rome, 1909), 258-264; Gaisser, I conti ecclesiastici italo-greci in Rassegna Gregoriana, IV (Rome, 1905), 385-412; Idem, Brani greci nella liturgia latina, ibid. (1902), fasc. 7, 8, 9.
U. Benigni.
Italy. — In ancient times Italy had several other names: it was called Saturnia, in honour of Saturn; (Enotria, wine-producing land; Ausonia, land of the Ausonians; Hesperia, land to the west (of Greece); Tyrrhenia, etc. The name Italy {'IraXia), which seems to have been taken from vitulus, to signify a land abounding in cattle, was applied at first to a very limited territory. According to Nissen and to others, it served to designate the southernmost portion of the peninsula of Calabria; but some authorities, as Coc- chia and Gentile, hold that the name was given orig- inally to that country between the Sele and the Lao whicn later was called Lucania. We find the name Italy in u.se, however, among Greek writers of the fifth and the fourth centuries b. c. (Herodotus, Thucyd- ides, Aristotle, Plato); and in 241 b. c, in the treaty of peace that ended the First Punic War, it served to designate peninsular Italy; while in 202 b. c, at the close of the .Second Punic War, the name of Italy was extended as far as the Alps.
Physical Characteristics. — Italy has an area of 110,646 square miles, of which 91,39.3 are on the Con- tinent of Europe, and 19,253 on the islands. The area of Italy, therefore, is little more than half that of France.
Under the Romans and in the Middle Ages, under the powerful republics of .^malfi and of Pisa, of Genoa and of Venice, Italy ruled the Mediterranean Sea,
which, however, after the discovery of America,
ceased to be the centre of European maritime activity.
The centre of European interests was carried towards
the west: the Italian republics fell into decay, and sea-
power went to the countries on the Atlantic Ocean.
But the opening of the Suez Canal (1869) and the tun-
nelling of the Alps (Frcjus, 1871; St. Gothard, 1884;
Simplon, 1906), which brought Central and North-
western Europe into easy communication with Italian
ports, and especially with Genoa, have restored to the
Mediterranean much of its former importance and
made of Italy a mighty bridge between Europe and
the Levant. Of the three great peninsulas of Southern
Europe, Italy is that whose adjoining seas penetrate
deepest into the European Continent, while its fron-
tiers border on the greatest number of other states
(France, Switzerland, Austria) and are in contact
with a greater number of races: French, German, Slav.
Before Italy took its present form it was part of a great body of land called by geologists Tyrrhensis, now covered by the waters of the Tyrrhenian Sea, which was united to Africa. In fact, a great part of the Tuscan Archipelago and of the other islands of the Tyrrhenian Sea, the masses of thePeloritan Mountains in Sicily, of Aspromonte and of Sila in Calabria, the Roian Alps, formed of archaic rocks, all are fragments of an ancient land now for the most part submerged. Another fact that gave to the configuration of Italy its present characteristic lines was the recession of the sea from that great gulf which became the fertile plain of the Po. (jlaciers that at one time occupied the greater portion of Northern Italy gave rise to many moraine ranges. When the promontory of Ciargano was an island, the Adriatic Sea, which separated that elevation from the Apennines and which occupied all the table-land of Apulia, projected an arm towards the south through the Sella di Spinazzola and the valley of the rivers Basentiello and Bradano, until it met the Ionian Sea. Therefore Italy is a recent for- mation, and consequently is sul^ject to telluric phe- nomena that are unknown, or are less frequent, in the neighbouring countries. It is due to these causes that Sicily was separated from the Continent and became an island. Within historical times, the coast of Poz- zuoli, near Naples, has untlergone a slow depression that caused the columns of the temple of Serapis to sink into the sea, from which they emerged latfer through a rising movement of the ground. In conse- quence of the earthquake that destroyed Messina and Reggio (28 December, 1908), the ground hasundergone alteration, antl telluric movements show no ten- dency to cease. Italy has the characteristic shape of a riding boot, of which the top is represented by the Alps, the seam by the Apennines, and the toe, the heel, and the spur, respectively, by the peninsulas of Calabria, Salento, and Gargano. The country consists of a continental portion that terminates at almost the forty-fourth parallel, between Spezia and Rimini, of peninsular, and of insular portions. It is customary to divide the peninsular portions into two parts: Central Italy and Southern Italy, of which the former is con- tained between the forty-fourth parallel and a straight line that connects the mouth of the Trigno River with that of the Garigliano, marking the narrowest part of the peninsula between the .\driatic and the Tyr- rhenian Seas. Southern I taly is the part of the penin- sula which lies south of tliis line. Northern Italy in- cludes Piedmont, Lombardy, Aeniec, Emilia, and Liguria; Central Italy inclmles Ttiseany, Umbria, and Lazio; Southern Italy includes Campania, the Basil- icata, and Calabria.
Insular Italy will be found treated of under the arti- cles Sicily ; Sicilies, Kingdom of the Two ; Sardinia. Piedmont, Lombardy, Tuscany, Venice, and the his- toric towns within tho.sc regions will also be found the subject of seiiarate articles. Concerning the temporal power of the popes and events culminating in the
