Italy, a Universal Heritage: How Italy and Sicily Shaped the World

Italy and Sicily have given the world far more than a cliché. Opera, the sonnet, double-entry bookkeeping, radio, the idea of fair punishment: these are Italian contributions to the world that we use every day, often without knowing it. This section tells their stories one by one, with sources.

Why "more than pizza and mandolins"

Abroad, Italy is often summed up in two pictures: pizza and the mandolin. They are affectionate images, and Italian food truly deserves its place in the world: we cover it in Culture and Style. But stopping there means missing almost everything else.

Behind many things we now take for granted lies an idea born in Italy or in Sicily. Sometimes it is a true invention. More often it is the improvement of something born elsewhere, or the spread across Europe of knowledge that came from far away. That is why every entry in this section carries a label:

• INVENTION: something that did not exist before;
• REFINEMENT: an idea born elsewhere and made better or more useful;
• SPREAD: knowledge that travelled from Italy to the rest of the world.

When a "first" is disputed or belongs to legend, we say so plainly. The most debated stories have a page of their own: Myths and Disputed Claims.

Sicily, a crossroads of civilizations

Sitting at the centre of the Mediterranean, Sicily was Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Arab, Norman and Swabian (ruled by the German Hohenstaufen dynasty) before it became Italian. Each people left something behind: temples, words, crops, laws, mosaics. That is why Sicilian entries in this section carry their own tag: Sicily.

We also choose our words with care. Archimedes and Empedocles were "born in Sicily", in Greek Sicily: calling them "Italian" would be wrong, because Italy as a state was born many centuries later. Likewise, Frederick II was born in Jesi, in central Italy, but lived mostly in Palermo: so we speak of "the Sicilian court of Frederick II".

Sicily's civilizations at a glance

• 734–733 BC – Greek settlers found Naxos and Syracuse: Greek Sicily begins.
• 241 BC – At the end of the First Punic War, fought between Rome and Carthage, most of the island passes to Rome and becomes its first province.
• 535 AD – The general Belisarius takes the island for the Byzantine Empire.
• 827 – The Aghlabids, an Arab dynasty from present-day Tunisia, land at Mazara. In 831 they take Palermo, which becomes the capital of Arab Sicily.
• 1061–1072 – The Normans land at Messina and, eleven years later, enter Palermo.
• 1130 – Roger II is crowned the first King of Sicily in Palermo Cathedral, on Christmas Day.
• 1198 – Frederick II of Swabia becomes King of Sicily: his court gathers poets, jurists and scientists.
• 1860–1861 – After Garibaldi's Expedition of the Thousand, a volunteer army that landed in Sicily, the island joins the new Kingdom of Italy.

Did you know? Frederick II was Roger II's grandson: his mother, Constance of Hauteville, was the daughter of Sicily's first Norman king. Swabian Sicily was the direct heir of Norman Sicily.

Eight highlights

A taste of what you will find in this section. Each one is told in full, with sources, on the page shown.

• Opera is born in Florence, and Italian becomes the language of music all over the world. → Culture and Style
• The sonnet is born at the Sicilian court of Frederick II and goes on to conquer European poetry. → Culture and Style
• Archimedes of Syracuse, born in Sicily, lays the foundations of mechanics and hydrostatics. → Science and Mathematics
• Double-entry bookkeeping, the accounting method companies still use, takes hold in Italy's merchant cities. → Economics, Finance and Business
• The Salerno Medical School is among the first schools of medicine in medieval Europe. → Medicine and Public Health
• Radio: Guglielmo Marconi's experiments open the age of wireless communication. → Technology and Engineering
• Cesare Beccaria writes against torture and the death penalty, and Tuscany abolishes it. → Law, Institutions and Rights
• The name America comes from the Florentine navigator Amerigo Vespucci. → Exploration and Geography

Pages in this section

• Culture and Style: theatre, music, art, language, elegance and food. This is the main page of the section.
• Economics, Finance and Business: Fibonacci, double-entry bookkeeping, the first banks, the patent.
• Science and Mathematics: from Archimedes and Empedocles to Galileo, Volta, Majorana and Fermi.
• Medicine and Public Health: from Salerno to the Venetian lazaretto (quarantine hospital) and on to the Nobel Prizes.
• Technology and Engineering: from eyeglasses to the microprocessor.
• Law, Institutions and Rights: from the University of Bologna to the fight against the Mafia.
• Exploration and Geography: Marco Polo, al-Idrisi, Columbus, Vespucci, Verrazzano.
• Sport and Records: from the Targa Florio road race to records in athletics and swimming.
• Myths and Disputed Claims: Meucci and Bell, Marconi and Tesla, pizza Margherita and other stories worth checking.

How these pages were written

Every entry is based on authoritative sources: Treccani (the Italian national encyclopedia), Britannica, UNESCO, museums, universities and sports federations. Figures that change over time, such as the number of UNESCO sites or sporting records, show the date they were last checked. If you spot a mistake, write to us: we will check it and correct it.

The section is curated by Maestro Ilarion, a tenor and pianist who sings in churches all over Sicily. Music and Italian bel canto are his craft, which is why the journey begins with culture, theatre and music. Find out who he is and where he sings.

Sources

• Treccani, Dizionario di Storia: "Sicilia" (in Italian)
• Encyclopaedia Britannica: "Sicily"
• Encyclopaedia Britannica: "Kingdom of Sicily"