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THE

ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA

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ELEVENTH EDITION

VOLUME XV

ITALY to KYSHTYM

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Copyright, in the United States of America, 1910,
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VOLUME XV SLICE I
Italy to Jacobite Church

Articles in This Slice

INITIALS USED IN VOLUME XV. TO IDENTIFY INDIVIDUAL
CONTRIBUTORS,[1] WITH THE HEADINGS OF THE
ARTICLES IN THIS VOLUME SO SIGNED.

[1] A complete list, showing all individual contributors, appears in the final volume.

PRINCIPAL UNSIGNED ARTICLES

ITALY (Italia), the name[1] applied both in ancient and in modern times to the great peninsula that projects from the mass of central Europe far to the south into the Mediterranean Sea, where the island of Sicily may be considered as a continuation of the continental promontory. The portion of the Mediterranean commonly termed the Tyrrhenian Sea forms its limit on the W. and S., and the Adriatic on the E.; while to the N., where it joins the main continent of Europe, it is separated from the adjacent regions by the mighty barrier of the Alps, which sweeps round in a vast semicircle from the head of the Adriatic to the shores of Nice and Monaco.

Topography.—The land thus circumscribed extends between the parallels of 46° 40′ and 36° 38′ N., and between 6° 30′ and 18° 30′ E. Its greatest length in a straight line along the mainland is from N.W. to S.E., in which direction it measures 708 m. in a direct line from the frontier near Courmayeur to Cape Sta Maria di Leuca, south of Otranto, but the great mountain peninsula of Calabria extends about two degrees farther south to Cape Spartivento in lat. 37° 55′. Its breadth is, owing to its configuration, very irregular. The northern portion, measured from the Alps at the Monte Viso to the mouth of the Po, has a breadth of about 270 m., while the maximum breadth, from the Rocca Chiardonnet near Susa to a peak in the valley of the Isonzo, is 354 m. But the peninsula of Italy, which forms the largest portion of the country, nowhere exceeds 150 m. in breadth, while it does not generally measure more than 100 m. across. Its southern extremity, Calabria, forms a complete peninsula, being united to the mass of Lucania or the Basilicata by an isthmus only 35 m. in width, while that between the gulfs of Sta Eufemia and Squillace, which connects the two portions of the province, does not exceed 20 m. The area of the kingdom of Italy, exclusive of the large islands, is computed at 91,277 sq. m. Though Boundaries. the Alps form throughout the northern boundary of Italy, the exact limits at the extremities of the Alpine chain are not clearly marked. Ancient geographers appear to have generally regarded the remarkable headland which descends from the Maritime Alps to the sea between Nice and Monaco as the limit of Italy in that direction, and in a purely geographical point of view it is probably the best point that could be selected. But Augustus, who was the first to give to Italy a definite political organization, carried the frontier to the river Varus or Var, a few miles west of Nice, and this river continued in modern times to be generally recognized as the boundary between France and Italy. But in 1860 the annexation of Nice and the adjoining territory to France brought the political frontier farther east, to a point between Mentone and Ventimiglia which constitutes no natural limit.

Towards the north-east, the point where the Julian Alps approach close to the seashore (just at the sources of the little stream known in ancient times as the Timavus) would seem to constitute the best natural limit. But by Augustus the frontier was carried farther east so as to include Tergeste (Trieste), and the little river Formio (Risano) was in the first instance chosen as the limit, but this was subsequently transferred to the river Arsia (the Arsa), which flows into the Gulf of Quarnero, so as to include almost all Istria; and the circumstance that the coast of Istria was throughout the middle ages held by the republic of Venice tended to perpetuate this arrangement, so that Istria was generally regarded as belonging to Italy, though certainly not forming any natural portion of that country. Present Italian aspirations are similarly directed.

The only other part of the northern frontier of Italy where the boundary is not clearly marked by nature is Tirol or the valley of the Adige. Here the main chain of the Alps (as marked by the watershed) recedes so far to the north that it has never constituted the frontier. In ancient times the upper valleys of the Adige and its tributaries were inhabited by Raetian tribes and included in the province of Raetia; and the line of demarcation between that province and Italy was purely arbitrary, as it remains to this day. Tridentum or Trent was in the time of Pliny included in the tenth region of Italy or Venetia, but he tells us that the inhabitants were a Raetian tribe. At the present day the frontier between Austria and the kingdom of Italy crosses the Adige about 30 m. below Trent—that city and its territory, which previous to the treaty of Lunéville in 1801 was governed by sovereign archbishops, subject only to the German emperors, being now included in the Austrian empire.

While the Alps thus constitute the northern boundary of Italy, its configuration and internal geography are determined almost entirely by the great chain of the Apennines, which branches off from the Maritime Alps between Nice and Genoa, and, after stretching in an unbroken line from the Gulf of Genoa to the Adriatic, turns more to the south, and is continued throughout Central and Southern Italy, of which it forms as it were the backbone, until it ends in the southernmost extremity of Calabria at Cape Spartivento. The great spur or promontory projecting towards the east to Brindisi and Otranto has no direct connexion with the central chain.

One chief result of the manner in which the Apennines traverse Italy from the Mediterranean to the Adriatic is the marked division between Northern Italy, including the region north of the Apennines and extending thence to the foot of the Alps, and the central and more southerly portions of the peninsula. No such line of separation exists farther south, and the terms Central and Southern Italy, though in general use among geographers and convenient for descriptive purposes, do not correspond to any natural divisions.

1. Northern Italy.—By far the larger portion of Northern Italy is occupied by the basin of the Po, which comprises the whole of the broad plain extending from the foot of the Apennines to that of the Alps, together with the valleys and slopes on both sides of it. From its source in Monte Viso to its outflow into the Adriatic—a distance of more than 220 m. in a direct line—the Po receives all the waters that flow from the Apennines northwards, and all those that descend from the Alps towards the south, Mincio (the outlet of the Lake of Garda) inclusive. The next river to the E. is the Adige, which, after pursuing a parallel course with the Po for a considerable distance, enters the Adriatic by a separate mouth. Farther to the N. and N.E. the various rivers of Venetia fall directly into the Gulf of Venice.

There is no other instance in Europe of a basin of similar extent equally clearly characterized—the perfectly level character of the plain being as striking as the boldness with which the lower slopes of the mountain ranges begin to rise on each side of it. This is most clearly marked on the side of the Apennines, where the great Aemilian Way, which has been the high road from the time of the Romans to our own, preserves an unbroken straight line from Rimini to Piacenza, a distance of more than 150 m., during which the underfalls of the mountains continually approach it on the left, without once crossing the line of road.

The geography of Northern Italy will be best described by following the course of the Po. That river has its origin as a mountain torrent descending from two little dark lakes on the north flank of Monte Viso, at a height of more than 6000 ft. above the sea; and after a course of less than 20 m. it enters the plain at Saluzzo, between which and Turin, a distance of only 30 m., it receives three considerable tributaries—the Chisone on its left bank, bringing down the waters from the valley of Fenestrelle, and the Varaita and Maira on the south, contributing those of two valleys of the Alps immediately south of that of the Po itself. A few miles below Valenza it is joined by the Tanaro, a large stream, which brings with it the united waters of the Stura, the Bormida and several minor rivers.

More important are the rivers that descend from the main chain of the Graian and Pennine Alps and join the Po on its left bank. Of these the Dora (called for distinction’s sake Dora Riparia), which unites with the greater river just below Turin, has its source in the Mont Genèvre, and flows past Susa at the foot of the Mont Cenis. Next comes the Stura, which rises in the glaciers of the Roche Melon; then the Orca, flowing through the Val di Locana; and then the Dora Baltea, one of the greatest of all the Alpine tributaries of the Po, which has its source in the glaciers of Mont Blanc, above Courmayeur, and thence descends through the Val d’Aosta for about 70 m. till it enters the plain at Ivrea, and, after flowing about 20 m. more, joins the Po a few miles below Chivasso. This great valley—one of the most considerable on the southern side of the Alps—has attracted special attention, in ancient as well as modern times, from its leading to two of the most frequented passes across the great mountain chain—the Great and the Little St Bernard—the former diverging at Aosta, and crossing the main ridges to the north into the valley of the Rhone, the other following a more westerly direction into Savoy. Below Aosta also the Dora Baltea receives several considerable tributaries, which descend from the glaciers between Mont Blanc and Monte Rosa.

About 25 m. below its confluence with the Dora, the Po receives the Sesia, also a large river, which has its source above Alagna at the southern foot of Monte Rosa, and after flowing by Varallo and Vercelli falls into the Po about 14 m. below the latter city. About 30 m. east of this confluence—in the course of which the Po makes a great bend south to Valenza, and then returns again to the northward—it is joined by the Ticino, a large and rapid river, which brings with it the outflow of Lago Maggiore and all the waters that flow into it. Of these the Ticino itself has its source about 10 m. above Airolo at the foot of the St Gotthard, and after flowing above 36 m. through the Val Leventina to Bellinzona (where it is joined by the Moësa bringing down the waters of the Val Misocco) enters the lake through a marshy plain at Magadino, about 10 m. distant. On the west side of the lake the Toccia or Tosa descends from the pass of the Gries nearly due south to Domodossola, where it receives the waters of the Doveria from the Simplon, and a few miles lower down those of the Val d’Anzasca from the foot of Monte Rosa, and 12 m. farther has its outlet into the lake between Baveno and Pallanza. The Lago Maggiore is also the receptacle of the waters of the Lago di Lugano on the east and the Lago d’Orta on the west.

The next great affluent of the Po, the Adda, forms the outflow of the Lake of Como, and has also its sources in the Alps, above Bormio, whence it flows through the broad and fertile valley of the Valtellina for more than 65 m. till it enters the lake near Colico. The Adda in this part of its course has a direction almost due east to west; but at the point where it reaches the lake, the Liro descends the valley of S. Giacomo, which runs nearly north and south from the pass of the Splügen, thus affording one of the most direct lines of communication across the Alps. The Adda flows out of the lake at its south-eastern extremity at Lecco, and has thence a course through the plain of above 70 m. till it enters the Po between Piacenza and Cremona. It flows by Lodi and Pizzighettone, and receives the waters of the Brembo, descending from the Val Brembana, and the Serio from the Val Seriana above Bergamo. The Oglio, a more considerable stream than either of the last two, rises in the Monte Tonale above Edolo, and descends through the Val Camonica to Lovere, where it expands into a large lake, called Iseo from the town of that name on its southern shore. Issuing thence at its south-west extremity, the Oglio has a long and winding course through the plain before it finally reaches the Po a few miles above Borgoforte. In this lower part it receives the smaller streams of the Mella, which flows by Brescia, and the Chiese, which proceeds from the small Lago d’Idro, between the Lago d’Iseo and that of Garda.

The last of the great tributaries of the Po is the Mincio, which flows from the Lago di Garda, and has a course of about 40 m. from Peschiera, where it issues from the lake at its south-eastern angle, till it joins the Po. About 12 m. above the confluence it passes under the walls of Mantua, and expands into a broad lake-like reach so as entirely to encircle that city. Notwithstanding its extent, the Lago di Garda is not fed by the snows of the high Alps, nor is the stream which enters it at its northern extremity (at Riva) commonly known as the Mincio, though forming the main source of that river, but is termed the Sarca; it rises at the foot of Monte Tonale.

The Adige, formed by the junction of two streams—the Etsch or Adige proper and the Eisak, both of which belong to Tirol rather than to Italy—descends as far as Verona, where it enters the great plain, with a course from north to south nearly parallel to the rivers last described, and would seem likely to discharge its waters into those of the Po, but below Legnago it turns eastward and runs parallel to the Po for about 40 m., entering the Adriatic by an independent mouth about 8 m. from the northern outlet of the greater stream. The waters of the two rivers have, however, been made to communicate by artificial cuts and canals in more than one place.

The Po itself, which is here a very large stream, with an average width of 400 to 600 yds., continues to flow with an undivided mass of waters as far as Sta Maria di Ariano, where it parts into two arms, known as the Po di Maestra and Po di Goro, and these again are subdivided into several other branches, forming a delta above 20 m. in width from north to south. The point of bifurcation, at present about 25 m. from the sea, was formerly much farther inland, more than 10 m. west of Ferrara, where a small arm of the river, still called the Po di Ferrara, branches from the main stream. Previous to the year 1154 this channel was the main stream, and the two small branches into which it subdivides, called the Po di Volano and Po di Primaro, were in early times the two main outlets of the river. The southernmost of these, the Po di Primaro, enters the Adriatic about 12 m. north of Ravenna, so that if these two arms be included, the delta of the Po extends about 36 m. from south to north. The whole course of the river, including its windings, is estimated at about 450 m.

Besides the delta of the Po and the large marshy tracts which it forms, there exist on both sides of it extensive lagoons of salt water, generally separated from the Adriatic by narrow strips of sand or embankments, partly natural and partly artificial, but having openings which admit the influx and efflux of the sea-water, and serve as ports for communication with the mainland. The best known and the most extensive of these lagoons is that in which Venice is situated, which extends from Torcello in the north to Chioggia and Brondolo in the south, a distance of above 40 m.; but they were formerly much more extensive, and afforded a continuous means of internal navigation, by what were called “the Seven Seas” (Septem Maria), from Ravenna to Altinum, a few miles north of Torcello. That city, like Ravenna, originally stood in the midst of a lagoon; and the coast east of it to near Monfalcone, where it meets the mountains, is occupied by similar expanses of water, which are, however, becoming gradually converted into dry land.

The tract adjoining this long line of lagoons is, like the basin of the Po, a broad expanse of perfectly level alluvial plain, extending from the Adige eastwards to the Carnic Alps, where they approach close to the Adriatic between Aquileia and Trieste, and northwards to the foot of the great chain, which here sweeps round in a semicircle from the neighbourhood of Vicenza to that of Aquileia. The space thus included was known in ancient times as Venetia, a name applied in the middle ages to the well-known city; the eastern portion of it became known in the middle ages as the Frioul or Friuli.

Returning to the south of the Po, the tributaries of that river on its right bank below the Tanaro are very inferior in volume and importance to those from the north. Flowing from the Ligurian Apennines, which never attain the limit of perpetual snow, they generally dwindle in summer into insignificant streams. Beginning from the Tanaro, the principal of them are—(1) the Scrivia, a small but rapid stream flowing from the Apennines at the back of Genoa; (2) the Trebbia, a much larger river, though of the same torrent-like character, which rises near Torriglia within 20 m. of Genoa, flows by Bobbio, and joins the Po a few miles above Piacenza; (3) the Nure, a few miles east of the preceding; (4) the Taro, a more considerable stream; (5) the Parma, flowing by the city of the same name; (6) the Enza; (7) the Secchia, which flows by Modena; (8) the Panaro, a few miles to the east of that city; (9) the Reno, which flows by Bologna, but instead of holding its course till it discharges its waters into the Po, as it did in Roman times, is turned aside by an artificial channel into the Po di Primaro. The other small streams east of this—of which the most considerable are the Solaro, the Santerno, flowing by Imola, the Lamone by Faenza, the Montone by Forlì, all in Roman times tributaries of the Po—have their outlet in like manner into the Po di Primaro, or by artificial mouths into the Adriatic between Ravenna and Rimini. The river Marecchia, which enters the sea immediately north of Rimini, may be considered as the natural limit of Northern Italy. It was adopted by Augustus as the boundary of Gallia Cispadana; the far-famed Rubicon was a trifling stream a few miles farther north, now called Fiumicino. The Savio is the only other stream of any importance which has always flowed directly into the Adriatic from this side of the Tuscan Apennines.

The narrow strip of coast-land between the Maritime Alps, the Apennines and the sea—called in ancient times Liguria, and now known as the Riviera of Genoa—is throughout its extent, from Nice to Genoa on the one side, and from Genoa to Spezia on the other, almost wholly mountainous. It is occupied by the branches and offshoots of the mountain ranges which separate it from the great plain to the north, and send down their lateral ridges close to the water’s edge, leaving only in places a few square miles of level plains at the mouths of the rivers and openings of the valleys. The district is by no means devoid of fertility, the steep slopes facing the south enjoying so fine a climate as to render them very favourable for the | growth of fruit trees, especially the olive, which is cultivated in terraces to a considerable height up the face of the mountains, while the openings of the valleys are generally occupied by towns or villages, some of which have become favourite winter resorts.

From the proximity of the mountains to the sea none of the rivers in this part of Italy has a long course, and they are generally mere mountain torrents, rapid and swollen in winter and spring, and almost dry in summer. The largest and most important are those which descend from the Maritime Alps between Nice and Albenga. The most considerable of them are—the Roja, which rises in the Col di Tenda and descends to Ventimiglia; the Taggia, between San Remo and Oneglia; and the Centa, which enters the sea at Albenga. The Lavagna, which enters the sea at Chiavari, is the only stream of any importance between Genoa and the Gulf of Spezia. But immediately east of that inlet (a remarkable instance of a deep landlocked gulf with no river flowing into it) the Magra, which descends from Pontremoli down the valley known as the Lunigiana, is a large stream, and brings with it the waters of another considerable stream, the Vara. The Magra (Macra), in ancient times the boundary between Liguria and Etruria, may be considered as constituting on this side the limit of Northern Italy.

The Apennines (q.v.), as has been already mentioned, here traverse the whole breadth of Italy, cutting off the peninsula properly so termed from the broader mass of Northern Italy by a continuous barrier of considerable breadth, though of far inferior elevation to that of the Alps. The Ligurian Apennines may be considered as taking their rise in the neighbourhood of Savona, where a pass of very moderate elevation connects them with the Maritime Alps, of which they are in fact only a continuation. From the neighbourhood of Savona to that of Genoa they do not rise to more than 3000 to 4000 ft., and are traversed by passes of less than 2000 ft. As they extend towards the east they increase in elevation; the Monte Bue rises to 5915 ft., while the Monte Cimone, a little farther east, attains 7103 ft. This is the highest point in the northern Apennines, and belongs to a group of summits of nearly equal altitude; the range which is continued thence between Tuscany and what are now known as the Emilian provinces presents a continuous ridge from the mountains at the head of the Val di Mugello (due north of Florence) to the point where they are traversed by the celebrated Furlo Pass. The highest point in this part of the range is the Monte Falterona, above the sources of the Arno, which attains 5410 ft. Throughout this tract the Apennines are generally covered with extensive forests of chestnut, oak and beech; while their upper slopes afford admirable pasturage. Few towns of any importance are found either on their northern or southern declivity, and the former region especially, though occupying a tract of from 30 to 40 m. in width, between the crest of the Apennines and the plain of the Po, is one of the least known and at the same time least interesting portions of Italy.

2. Central Italy.—The geography of Central Italy is almost wholly determined by the Apennines, which traverse it in a direction from about north-north-east to south-south-west, almost precisely parallel to that of the coast of the Adriatic from Rimini to Pescara. The line of the highest summits and of the watershed ranges is about 30 to 40 m. from the Adriatic, while about double that distance separates it from the Tyrrhenian Sea on the west. In this part of the range almost all the highest points of the Apennines are found. Beginning from the group called the Alpi della Luna near the sources of the Tiber, which attain 4435 ft., they are continued by the Monte Nerone (5010 ft.), Monte Catria (5590), and Monte Maggio to the Monte Pennino near Nocera (5169 ft.), and thence to the Monte della Sibilla, at the source of the Nar or Nera, which attains 7663 ft. Proceeding thence southwards, we find in succession the Monte Vettore (8128 ft.), the Pizzo di Sevo (7945 ft.), and the two great mountain masses of the Monte Corno, commonly called the Gran Sasso d’Italia, the most lofty of all the Apennines, attaining to a height of 9560 ft., and the Monte della Maiella, its highest summit measuring 9170 ft. Farther south no very lofty summits are found till we come to the group of Monti del Matese, in Samnium (6660 ft.), which according to the division here adopted belongs to Southern Italy. Besides the lofty central masses enumerated there are two other lofty peaks, outliers from the main range, and separated from it by valleys of considerable extent. These are the Monte Terminillo, near Leonessa (7278 ft.), and the Monte Velino near the Lake Fucino, rising to 8192 ft., both of which are covered with snow from November till May. But the Apennines of Central Italy, instead of presenting, like the Alps and the northern Apennines, a definite central ridge, with transverse valleys leading down from it on both sides, in reality constitute a mountain mass of very considerable breadth, composed of a number of minor ranges and groups of mountains, which preserve a generally parallel direction, and are separated by upland valleys, some of them of considerable extent as well as considerable elevation above the sea. Such is the basin of Lake Fucino, situated in the centre of the mass, almost exactly midway between the two seas, at an elevation of 2180 ft. above them; while the upper valley of the Aterno, in which Aquila is situated, is 2380 ft. above the sea. Still more elevated is the valley of the Gizio (a tributary of the Aterno), of which Sulmona is the chief town. This communicates with the upper valley of the Sangro by a level plain called the Piano di Cinque Miglia, at an elevation of 4298 ft., regarded as the most wintry spot in Italy. Nor do the highest summits form a continuous ridge of great altitude for any considerable distance; they are rather a series of groups separated by tracts of very inferior elevation forming natural passes across the range, and broken in some places (as is the case in almost all limestone countries) by the waters from the upland valleys turning suddenly at right angles, and breaking through the mountain ranges which bound them. Thus the Gran Sasso and the Maiella are separated by the deep valley of the Aterno, while the Tronto breaks through the range between Monte Vettore and the Pizzo di Sevo. This constitution of the great mass of the central Apennines has in all ages exercised an important influence upon the character of this portion of Italy, which may be considered as divided by nature into two great regions, a cold and barren upland country, bordered on both sides by rich and fertile tracts, enjoying a warm but temperate climate.

The district west of the Apennines, a region of great beauty and fertility, though inferior in productiveness to Northern Italy, coincides in a general way with the countries familiar to all students of ancient history as Etruria and Latium. Until the union of Italy they were comprised in Tuscany and the southern Papal States. The northern part of Tuscany is indeed occupied to a considerable extent by the underfalls and offshoots of the Apennines, which, besides the slopes and spurs of the main range that constitutes its northern frontier towards the plain of the Po, throw off several outlying ranges or groups. Of these the most remarkable is the group between the valleys of the Serchio and the Magra, commonly known as the mountains of Carrara, from the celebrated marble quarries in the vicinity of that city. Two of the summits of this group, the Pizzo d’Uccello and the Pania della Croce, attain 6155 and 6100 ft. Another lateral range, the Prato Magno, which branches off from the central chain at the Monte Falterona, and separates the upper valley of the Arno from its second basin, rises to 5188 ft.; while a similar branch, called the Alpe di Catenaja, of inferior elevation, divides the upper course of the Arno from that of the Tiber.

The rest of this tract is for the most part a hilly, broken country, of moderate elevation, but Monte Amiata, near Radicofani, an isolated mass of volcanic origin, attains a height of 5650 ft. South of this the country between the frontier of Tuscany and the Tiber is in great part of volcanic origin, forming hills with distinct crater-shaped basins, in several instances occupied by small lakes (the Lake of Bolsena, Lake of Vico and Lake of Bracciano). This volcanic tract extends across the Campagna of Rome, till it rises again in the lofty group of the Alban hills, the highest summit of which, the Monte Cavo, is 3160 ft. above the sea. In this part the Apennines are separated from the sea, distant about 30 m. by the undulating volcanic plain of the Roman Campagna, from which the mountains rise in a wall-like barrier, of which the highest point, the Monte Gennaro, attains 4165 ft. South of Palestrina again, the main mass of the Apennines throws off another lateral mass, known in ancient times as the Volscian mountains (now called the Monti Lepini), separated from the central ranges by the broad valley of the Sacco, a tributary of the Liri (Liris) or Garigliano, and forming a large and rugged mountain mass, nearly 5000 ft. in height, which descends to the sea at Terracina, and between that point and the mouth of the Liri throws out several rugged mountain headlands, which may be considered as constituting the natural boundary between Latium and Campania, and consequently the natural limit of Central Italy. Besides these offshoots of the Apennines there are in this part of Central Italy several detached mountains, rising almost like islands on the seashore, of which the two most remarkable are the Monte Argentaro on the coast of Tuscany near Orbetello (2087 ft.) and the Monte Circello (1771 ft.) at the angle of the Pontine Marshes, by the whole breadth of which it is separated from the Volscian Apennines.

The two valleys of the Arno and the Tiber (Ital. Tevere) may be considered as furnishing the key to the geography of all this portion of Italy west of the Apennines. The Arno, which has its source in the Monte Falterona, one of the most elevated summits of the main chain of the Tuscan Apennines, flows nearly south till in the neighbourhood of Arezzo it turns abruptly north-west, and pursues that course as far as Pontassieve, where it again makes a sudden bend to the west, and pursues a westerly course thence to the sea, passing through Florence and Pisa. Its principal tributary is the Sieve, which joins it at Pontassieve, bringing down the waters of the Val di Mugello. The Elsa and the Era, which join it on its left bank, descending from the hills near Siena and Volterra, are inconsiderable streams; and the Serchio, which flows from the territory of Lucca and the Alpi Apuani, and formerly joined the Arno a few miles from its mouth, now enters the sea by a separate channel. The most considerable rivers of Tuscany south of the Arno are the Cecina, which flows through the plain below Volterra, and the Ombrone, which rises in the hills near Siena, and enters the sea about 12 m. below Grosseto.

The Tiber, a much more important river than the Arno, and the largest in Italy with the exception of the Po, rises in the Apennines, about 20 m. east of the source of the Arno, and flows nearly south by Borgo S. Sepolcro and Città di Castello, then between Perugia and Todi to Orte, just below which it receives the Nera. The Nera, which rises in the lofty group of the Monte della Sibilla, is a considerable stream, and brings with it the waters of the Velino (with its tributaries the Turano and the Salto), which joins it a few miles below its celebrated waterfall at Terni. The Teverone or Anio, which enters the Tiber a few miles above Rome, is an inferior stream to the Nera, but brings down a considerable body of water from the mountains above Subiaco. It is a singular fact in the geography of Central Italy that the valleys of the Tiber and Arno are in some measure connected by that of the Chiana, a level and marshy tract, the waters from which flow partly into the Arno and partly into the Tiber.

The eastern declivity of the central Apennines towards the Adriatic is far less interesting and varied than the western. The central range here approaches much nearer to the sea, and hence, with few exceptions, the rivers that flow from it have short courses and are of comparatively little importance. They may be enumerated, proceeding from Rimini southwards: (1) the Foglia; (2) the Metauro, of historical celebrity, and affording access to one of the most frequented passes of the Apennines; (3) the Esino; (4) the Potenza; (5) the Chienti; (6) the Aso; (7) the Tronto; (8) the Vomano; (9) the Aterno; (10) the Sangro; (11) the Trigno, which forms the boundary of the southernmost province of the Abruzzi, and may therefore be taken as the limit of Central Italy.

The whole of this portion of Central Italy is a hilly country, much broken and cut up by the torrents from the mountains, but fertile, especially in fruit-trees, olives and vines; and it has been, both in ancient and modern times, a populous district, containing many small towns though no great cities. Its chief disadvantage is the absence of ports, the coast preserving an almost unbroken straight line, with the single exception of Ancona, the only port worthy of the name on the eastern coast of Central Italy.

3. Southern Italy.—The great central mass of the Apennines, which has held its course throughout Central Italy, with a general direction from north-west to south-east, may be considered as continued in the same direction for about 100 m. farther, from the basin-shaped group of the Monti del Matese (which rises to 6660 ft.) to the neighbourhood of Potenza, in the heart of the province of Basilicata, corresponding nearly to the ancient Lucania. The whole of the district known in ancient times as Samnium (a part of which retains the name of Sannio, though officially designated the province of Campobasso) is occupied by an irregular mass of mountains, of much inferior height to those of Central Italy, and broken up into a number of groups, intersected by rivers, which have for the most part a very tortuous course. This mountainous tract, which has an average breadth of from 50 to 60 m., is bounded west by the plain of Campania, now called the Terra di Lavoro, and east by the much broader and more extensive tract of Apulia or Puglia, composed partly of level plains, but for the most part of undulating downs, contrasting strongly with the mountain ranges of the Apennines, which rise abruptly above them. The central mass of the mountains, however, throws out two outlying ranges, the one to the west, which separates the Bay of Naples from that of Salerno, and culminates in the Monte S. Angelo above Castellammare (4720 ft.), while the detached volcanic cone of Vesuvius (nearly 4000 ft.) is isolated from the neighbouring mountains by an intervening strip of plain. On the east side in like manner the Monte Gargano (3465 ft.), a detached limestone mass which projects in a bold spur-like promontory into the Adriatic, forming the only break in the otherwise uniform coast-line of Italy on that sea, though separated from the great body of the Apennines by a considerable interval of low country, may be considered as merely an outlier from the central mass.

From the neighbourhood of Potenza, the main ridge of the Apennines is continued by the Monti della Maddalena in a direction nearly due south, so that it approaches within a short distance of the Gulf of Policastro, whence it is carried on as far as the Monte Pollino, the last of the lofty summits of the Apennine chain, which exceeds 7000 ft. in height. The range is, however, continued through the province now called Calabria, to the southern extremity or “toe” of Italy, but presents in this part a very much altered character, the broken limestone range which is the true continuation of the chain as far as the neighbourhood of Nicastro and Catanzaro, and keeps close to the west coast, being flanked on the east by a great mass of granitic mountains, rising to about 6000 ft., and covered with vast forests, from which it derives the name of La Sila. A similar mass, separated from the preceding by a low neck of Tertiary hills, fills up the whole of the peninsular extremity of Italy from Squillace to Reggio. Its highest point is called Aspromonte (6420 ft.).

While the rugged and mountainous district of Calabria, extending nearly due south for a distance of more than 150 m., thus derives its character and configuration almost wholly from the range of the Apennines, the long spur-like promontory which projects towards the east to Brindisi and Otranto is merely a continuation of the low tract of Apulia, with a dry calcareous soil of Tertiary origin. The Monte Volture, which rises in the neighbourhood of Melfi and Venosa to 4357 ft., is of volcanic origin, and in great measure detached from the adjoining mass of the Apennines. Eastward from this the ranges of low bare hills called the Murgie of Gravina and Altamura gradually sink into the still more moderate level of those which constitute the peninsular tract between Brindisi and Taranto as far as the Cape of Sta Maria di Leuca, the south-east extremity of Italy. This projecting tract, which may be termed the “heel” or “spur” of Southern Italy, in conjunction with the great promontory of Calabria, forms the deep Gulf of Taranto, about 70 m. in width, and somewhat greater depth, which receives a number of streams from the central mass of the Apennines.

None of the rivers of Southern Italy is of any great importance. The Liri (Liris) or Garigliano, which has its source in the central Apennines above Sora, not far from Lake Fucino, and enters the Gulf of Gaeta about 10 m. east of the city of that name, brings down a considerable body of water; as does also the Volturno, which rises in the mountains between Castel di Sangro and Agnone, flows past Isernia, Venafro and Capua, and enters the sea about 15 m. from the mouth of the Garigliano. About 16 m. above Capua it receives the Calore, which flows by Benevento. The Silarus or Sele enters the Gulf of Salerno a few miles below the ruins of Paestum. Below this the watershed of the Apennines is too near to the sea on that side to allow the formation of any large streams. Hence the rivers that flow in the opposite direction into the Adriatic and the Gulf of Taranto have much longer courses, though all partake of the character of mountain torrents, rushing down with great violence in winter and after storms, but dwindling in the summer into scanty streams, which hold a winding and sluggish course through the great plains of Apulia. Proceeding south from the Trigno, already mentioned as constituting the limit of Central Italy, there are (1) the Biferno and (2) the Fortore, both rising in the mountains of Samnium, and flowing into the Adriatic west of Monte Gargano; (3) the Cervaro, south of the great promontory; and (4) the Ofanto, the Aufidus of Horace, whose description of it is characteristic of almost all the rivers of Southern Italy, of which it may be taken as the typical representative. It rises about 15 m. west of Conza, and only about 25 m. from the Gulf of Salerno, so that it is frequently (though erroneously) described as traversing the whole range of the Apennines. In its lower course it flows near Canosa and traverses the celebrated battlefield of Cannae. (5) The Bradano, which rises near Venosa, almost at the foot of Monte Volture, flows towards the south-east into the Gulf of Taranto, as do the Basento, the Agri and the Sinni, all of which descend from the central chain of the Apennines south of Potenza. The Crati, which flows from Cosenza northwards, and then turns abruptly eastward to enter the same gulf, is the only stream worthy of notice in the rugged peninsula of Calabria; while the arid limestone hills projecting eastwards to Capo di Leuca do not give rise to anything more than a mere streamlet, from the mouth of the Ofanto to the south-eastern extremity of Italy.

The only important lakes are those on or near the north frontier, formed by the expansion of the tributaries of the Po. They have been already noticed in connexion with the rivers by which they are formed, but may be again enumerated in order of Lakes. succession. They are, proceeding from west to east, (1) the Lago d’Orta, (2) the Lago Maggiore, (3) the Lago di Lugano, (4) the Lago di Como, (5) the Lago d’Iseo, (6) the Lago d’Idro, and (7) the Lago di Garda. Of these the last named is considerably the largest, covering an area of 143 sq. m. It is 32¼ m. long by 10 broad; while the Lago Maggiore, notwithstanding its name, though considerably exceeding it in length (37 m.), falls materially below it in superficial extent. They are all of great depth—the Lago Maggiore having an extreme depth of 1198 ft., while that of Como attains to 1365 ft. Of a wholly different character is the Lago di Varese, between the Lago Maggiore and that of Lugano, which is a mere shallow expanse of water, surrounded by hills of very moderate elevation. Two other small lakes in the same neighbourhood, as well as those of Erba and Pusiano, between Como and Lecco, are of a similar character.

The lakes of Central Italy, which are comparatively of trifling dimensions, belong to a wholly different class. The most important of these, the Lacus Fucinus of the ancients, now called the Lago di Celano, situated almost exactly in the centre of the peninsula, occupies a basin of considerable extent, surrounded by mountains and without any natural outlet, at an elevation of more than 2000 ft. Its waters have been in great part carried off by an artificial channel, and more than half its surface laid bare. Next in size is the Lago Trasimeno, a broad expanse of shallow waters, about 30 m. in circumference, surrounded by low hills. The neighbouring lake of Chiusi is of similar character, but much smaller dimensions. All the other lakes of Central Italy, which are scattered through the volcanic districts west of the Apennines, are of an entirely different formation, and occupy deep cup-shaped hollows, which have undoubtedly at one time formed the craters of extinct volcanoes. Such is the Lago di Bolsena, near the city of the same name, which is an extensive sheet of water, as well as the much smaller Lago di Vico (the Ciminian lake of ancient writers) and the Lago di Bracciano, nearer Rome, while to the south of Rome the well known lakes of Albano and Nemi have a similar origin.

The only lake properly so called in southern Italy is the Lago del Matese, in the heart of the mountain group of the same name, of small extent. The so-called lakes on the coast of the Adriatic north and south of the promontory of Gargano are brackish lagoons communicating with the sea.

The three great islands of Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica are closely connected with Italy, both by geographical position and community of language, but they are considered at length in separate articles. Of the smaller islands that lie near the coasts Islands. of Italy, the most considerable is that of Elba, off the west coast of central Italy, about 50 m. S. of Leghorn, and separated from the mainland at Piombino by a strait of only about 6 m. in width. North of this, and about midway between Corsica and Tuscany, is the small island of Capraia, steep and rocky, and only 4½ m. long, but with a secure port; Gorgona, about 25 m. farther north, is still smaller, and is a mere rock, inhabited by a few fishermen. South of Elba are the equally insignificant islets of Pianosa and Montecristo, while the more considerable island of Giglio lies much nearer the mainland, immediately opposite the mountain promontory of Monte Argentano, itself almost an island. The islands farther south in the Tyrrhenian Sea are of an entirely different character. Of these Ischia and Procida, close to the northern headland of the Bay of Naples, are of volcanic origin, as is the case also with the more distant group of the Ponza Islands. These are three in number—Ponza, Palmarola and Zannone; while Ventotene (also of volcanic formation) is about midway between Ponza and Ischia. The island of Capri, on the other hand, opposite the southern promontory of the Bay of Naples, is a precipitous limestone rock. The Aeolian or Lipari Islands, a remarkable volcanic group, belong rather to Sicily than to Italy, though Stromboli, the most easterly of them, is about equidistant from Sicily and from the mainland.

The Italian coast of the Adriatic presents a great contrast to its opposite shores, for while the coast of Dalmatia is bordered by a succession of islands, great and small, the long and uniform coast-line of Italy from Otranto to Rimini presents not a single adjacent island; and the small outlying group of the Tremiti Islands (north of the Monte Gargano and about 15 m. from the mainland) alone breaks the monotony of this part of the Adriatic.

Geology.—The geology of Italy is mainly dependent upon that of the Apennines (q.v.). On each side of that great chain are found extensive Tertiary deposits, sometimes, as in Tuscany, the district of Monferrat, &c., forming a broken, hilly country, at others spreading into broad plains or undulating downs, such as the Tavoliere of Puglia, and the tract that forms the spur of Italy from Bari to Otranto.

Besides these, and leaving out of account the islands, the Italian peninsula presents four distinct volcanic districts. In three of them the volcanoes are entirely extinct, while the fourth is still in great activity.

1. The Euganean hills form a small group extending for about 10 m. from the neighbourhood of Padua to Este, and separated from the lower offshoots of the Alps by a portion of the wide plain of Padua. Monte Venda, their highest peak, is 1890 ft. high.

2. The Roman district, the largest of the four, extends from the hills of Albano to the frontier of Tuscany, and from the lower slopes of the Apennines to the Tyrrhenian Sea. It may be divided into three groups: the Monti Albani, the second highest[2] of which, Monte Cavo (3115 ft.), is the ancient Mons Albanus, on the summit of which stood the temple of Jupiter Latialis, where the assemblies of the cities forming the Latin confederation were held; the Monti Cimini, which extend from the valley of the Tiber to the neighbourhood of Civita Vecchia, and attain at their culminating point an elevation of 3454 ft.; and the mountains of Radicofani and Monte Amiata, the latter of which is 5688 ft. high. The lakes of Bolsena (Vulsiniensis), of Bracciano (Sabatinus), of Vico (Ciminus), of Albano (Albanus), of Nemi (Nemorensis), and other smaller lakes belong to this district; while between its south-west extremity and Monte Circello the Pontine Marshes form a broad strip of alluvial soil infested by malaria.

3. The volcanic region of the Terra di Lavoro is separated by the Volscian mountains from the Roman district. It may be also divided into three groups. Of Roccamonfina, at the N.N.W. end of the Campanian Plain, the highest cone, called Montagna di Santa Croce, is 3291 ft. The Phlegraean Fields embrace all the country round Baiae and Pozzuoli and the adjoining islands. Monte Barbaro (Gaurus), north-east of the site of Cumae, Monte San Nicola (Epomeus), 2589 ft. in Ischia, and Camaldoli, 1488 ft., west of Naples, are the highest cones. The lakes Averno (Avernus), Lucrino (Lucrinus), Fusaro (Palus Acherusia), and Agnano are within this group, which has shown activity in historical times. A stream of lava issued in 1198 from the crater of the Solfatara, which still continues to exhale steam and noxious gases; the Lava dell’ Arso came out of the N.E. flank of Monte Epomeo in 1302; and Monte Nuovo, north-west of Pozzuoli (455 ft.), was thrown up in three days in September 1538. Since its first historical eruption in A.D. 79, Vesuvius or Somma, which forms the third group, has been in constant activity. The Punta del Nasone, the highest point of Somma, is 3714 ft. high, while the Punta del Palo, the highest point of the brim of the crater of Vesuvius, varies materially with successive eruptions from 3856 to 4275 ft.

4. The Apulian volcanic formation consists of the great mass of Monte Volture, which rises at the west end of the plains of Apulia, on the frontier of Basilicata, and is surrounded by the Apennines on its south-west and north-west sides. Its highest peak, the Pizzuto di Melfi, attains an elevation of 4365 ft. Within the widest crater there are the two small lakes of Monticchio and San Michele. In connexion with the volcanic districts we may mention Le Mofete, the pools of Ampsanctus, in a wooded valley S.E. of Frigento, in the province of Avellino, Campania (Virgil, Aeneid, vii. 563-571), The largest is not more than 160 ft. in circumference, and 7 ft. deep.

The whole of the great plain of Lombardy is covered by Pleistocene and recent deposits. It is a great depression—the continuation of the Adriatic Sea—filled up by deposits brought down by the rivers from the mountains. The depression was probably formed during the later stages of the growth of the Alps.

Climate and Vegetation.—The geographical position of Italy, extending from about 46° to 38° N., renders it one of the hottest countries in Europe. But the effect of its southern latitude is tempered by its peninsular character, bounded as it is on both sides by seas of considerable extent, as well as by the great range of the Alps with its snows and glaciers to the north. There are thus irregular variations of climate. Great differences also exist with regard to climate between northern and southern Italy, due in great part to other circumstances as well as to differences of latitude. Thus the great plain of northern Italy is chilled by the cold winds from the Alps, while the damp warm winds from the Mediterranean are to a great extent intercepted by the Ligurian Apennines. Hence this part of the country has a cold winter climate, so that while the mean summer temperature of Milan is higher than that of Sassari, and equal to that of Naples, and the extremes reached at Milan and Bologna are a good deal higher than those of Naples, the mean winter temperature of Turin is actually lower than that of Copenhagen. The lowest recorded winter temperature at Turin is 5° Fahr. Throughout the region north of the Apennines no plants will thrive which cannot stand occasional severe frosts in winter, so that not only oranges and lemons but even the olive tree cannot be grown, except in specially favoured situations. But the strip of coast between the Apennines and the sea, known as the Riviera of Genoa, is not only extremely favourable to the growth of olives, but produces oranges and lemons in abundance, while even the aloe, the cactus and the palm flourish in many places.

Central Italy also presents striking differences of climate and temperature according to the greater or less proximity to the mountains. Thus the greater part of Tuscany, and the provinces thence to Rome, enjoy a mild winter climate, and are well adapted to the growth of mulberries and olives as well as vines, but it is not till after passing Terracina, in proceeding along the western coast towards the south, that the vegetation of southern Italy develops in its full luxuriance. Even in the central parts of Tuscany, however, the climate is very much affected by the neighbouring mountains, and the increasing elevation of the Apennines as they proceed south produces a corresponding effect upon the temperature. But it is when we reach the central range of the Apennines that we find the coldest districts of Italy. In all the upland valleys of the Abruzzi snow begins to fall early in November, and heavy storms occur often as late as May; whole communities are shut out for months from any intercourse with their neighbours, and some villages are so long buried in snow that regular passages are made between the different houses for the sake of communication among the inhabitants. The district from the south-east of Lake Fucino to the Piano di Cinque Miglia, enclosing the upper basin of the Sangro and the small lake of Scanno, is the coldest and most bleak part of Italy south of the Alps. Heavy falls of snow in June are not uncommon, and only for a short time towards the end of July are the nights totally exempt from light frosts. Yet less than 40 m. E. of this district, and even more to the north, the olive, the fig-tree and the orange thrive luxuriantly on the shores of the Adriatic from Ortona to Vasto. In the same way, whilst in the plains and hills round Naples snow is rarely seen, and never remains long, and the thermometer seldom descends to the freezing-point, 20 m. E. from it in the fertile valley of Avellino, of no great elevation, but encircled by high mountains, light frosts are not uncommon as late as June; and 18 m. farther east, in the elevated region of San Angelo dei Lombardi and Bisaccia, the inhabitants are always warmly clad, and vines grow with difficulty and only in sheltered places. Still farther south-east, Potenza has almost the coldest climate in Italy, and certainly the lowest summer temperatures. But nowhere are these contrasts so striking as in Calabria. The shores, especially on the Tyrrhenian Sea, present almost a continued grove of olive, orange, lemon and citron trees, which attain a size unknown in the north of Italy. The sugar-cane flourishes, the cotton-plant ripens to perfection, date-trees are seen in the gardens, the rocks are clothed with the prickly-pear or Indian fig, the enclosures of the fields are formed by aloes and sometimes pomegranates, the liquorice-root grows wild, and the mastic, the myrtle and many varieties of oleander and cistus form the underwood of the natural forests of arbutus and evergreen oak. If we turn inland but 5 or 6 m. from the shore, and often even less, the scene changes. High districts covered with oaks and chestnuts succeed to this almost tropical vegetation; a little higher up and we reach the elevated regions of the Pollino and the Sila, covered with firs and pines, and affording rich pastures even in the midst of summer, when heavy dews and light frosts succeed each other in July and August, and snow begins to appear at the end of September or early in October. Along the shores of the Adriatic, which are exposed to the north-east winds, blowing coldly from over the Albanian mountains, delicate plants do not thrive so well in general as under the same latitude along the shores of the Tyrrhenian Sea.

Southern Italy indeed has in general a very different climate from the northern portion of the kingdom; and, though large tracts are still occupied by rugged mountains of sufficient elevation to retain the snow for a considerable part of the year, the districts adjoining the sea enjoy a climate similar to that of Greece and the southern provinces of Spain. Unfortunately several of these fertile tracts suffer severely from malaria (q.v.), and especially the great plain adjoining the Gulf of Tarentum, which in the early ages of history was surrounded by a girdle of Greek cities—some of which attained to almost unexampled prosperity—has for centuries past been given up to almost complete desolation.[3]

It is remarkable that, of the vegetable productions of Italy, many which are at the present day among the first to attract the attention of the visitor are of comparatively late introduction, and were unknown in ancient times. The olive indeed in all ages clothed the hills of a large part of the country; but the orange and lemon, are a late importation from the East, while the cactus or Indian fig and the aloe, both of them so conspicuous on the shores of southern Italy, as well as of the Riviera of Genoa, are of Mexican origin, and consequently could not have been introduced earlier than the 16th century. The same remark applies to the maize or Indian corn. Many botanists are even of opinion that the sweet chestnut, which now constitutes so large a part of the forests that clothe the sides both of the Alps and the Apennines, and in some districts supplies the chief food of the inhabitants, is not originally of Italian growth; it is certain that it had not attained in ancient times to anything like the extension and importance which it now possesses. The eucalyptus is of quite modern introduction; it has been extensively planted in malarious districts. The characteristic cypress, ilex and stone-pine, however, are native trees, the last-named flourishing especially near the coast. The proportion of evergreens is large, and has a marked effect on the landscape in winter.

Fauna.—The chamois, bouquetin and marmot are found only in the Alps, not at all in the Apennines. In the latter the bear was found in Roman times, and there are said to be still a few remaining. Wolves are more numerous, though only in the mountainous districts; the flocks are protected against them by large white sheepdogs, who have some wolf blood in them. Wild boars are also found in mountainous and forest districts. Foxes are common in the neighbourhood of Rome. The sea mammals include the common dolphin (Delphinus delphis). The birds are similar to those of central Europe; in the mountains vultures, eagles, buzzards, kites, falcons and hawks are found. Partridges, woodcock, snipe, &c., are among the game birds; but all kinds of small birds are also shot for food, and their number is thus kept down, while many members of the migratory species are caught by traps in the foothills on the south side of the Alps, especially near the Lake of Como, on their passage. Large numbers of quails are shot in the spring. Among reptiles, the various kinds of lizard are noticeable. There are several varieties of snakes, of which three species (all vipers) are poisonous. Of sea-fish there are many varieties, the tunny, the sardine and the anchovy being commercially the most important. Some of the other edible fish, such as the palombo, are not found in northern waters. Small cuttlefish are in common use as an article of diet. Tortoiseshell, an important article of commerce, is derived from the Thalassochelys caretta, a sea turtle. Of freshwater fish the trout of the mountain streams and the eels of the coast lagoons may be mentioned. The tarantula spider and the scorpion are found in the south of Italy. The aquarium of the zoological station at Naples contains the finest collection in the world of marine animals, showing the wonderful variety of the different species of fish, molluscs, crustacea, &c., found in the Mediterranean.

(E. H. B.; T. As.)

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Population.—The following table indicates the areas of the several provinces (sixty-nine in number), and the population of each according to the censuses of the 31st of December 1881 and the 9th of February 1901. (The larger divisions or compartments in which the provinces are grouped are not officially recognized.)

The number of foreigners in Italy in 1901 was 61,606, of whom 37,762 were domiciled within the kingdom.

The population given in the foregoing table is the resident or “legal” population, which is also given for the individual towns. This is 490,251 higher than the actual population, 32,475,253, ascertained by the census of the 10th of February 1901; the difference is due to temporary absences from their residences of certain individuals on military service, &c., who probably were counted twice, and also to the fact that 469,020 individuals were returned as absent from Italy, while only 61,606 foreigners were in Italy at the date of the census. The kingdom is divided into 69 provinces, 284 regions, of which 197 are classed as circondarii and 87 as districts (the latter belonging to the province of Mantua and the 8 provinces of Venetia), 1806 administrative divisions (mandamenti) and 8262 communes. These were the figures at the date of the census. In 1906 there were 1805 mandamenti and 8290 communes, and 4 boroughs in Sardinia not connected with communes. The mandamenti or administrative divisions no longer correspond to the judicial divisions (mandamenti giudiziarii) which in November 1891 were reduced from 1806 to 1535 by a law which provided that judicial reform should not modify existing administrative and electoral divisions. The principal elective local administrative bodies are the provincial and the communal councils. The franchise is somewhat wider than the parliamentary. Both bodies are elected for six years, one-half being renewed every three years. The provincial council elects a provincial commission and the communal council a municipal council from among its own members; these smaller bodies carry on the business of the larger while they are not sitting. The syndic of each commune is elected by ballot by the communal council from among its own members.

The actual (not the resident or “legal”) population of Italy since 1770 is approximately given in the following table (the first census of the kingdom as a whole was taken in 1871):—

The average density increased from 257.21 per sq. m. in 1881 to 293.28 in 1901. In Venetia, Emilia, the Marches, Umbria and Tuscany the proportion of concentrated population is only from 40 to 55%; in Piedmont, Liguria and Lombardy the proportion rises to from 70 to 76%; in southern Italy, Sicily and Sardinia it attains a maximum of from 76 to 93%.

The population of towns over 100,000 is given in the following table according to the estimates for 1906. The population of the town itself is distinguished from that of its commune, which often includes a considerable portion of the surrounding country.

The population of the different parts of Italy differs in character and dialect; and there is little community of sentiment between them. The modes of life and standards of comfort and morality in north Italy and in Calabria are widely different; the former being far in front of the latter. Much, however, is effected towards unification, by compulsory military service, it being the principle that no man shall serve within the military district to which he belongs. In almost all parts the idea of personal loyalty (e.g. between master and servant) retains an almost feudal strength. The inhabitants of the north—the Piedmontese, Lombards and Genoese especially—have suffered less than those of the rest of the peninsula from foreign domination and from the admixture of inferior racial elements, and the cold winter climate prevents the heat of summer from being enervating. They, and also the inhabitants of central Italy, are more industrious than the inhabitants of the southern provinces, who have by no means recovered from centuries of misgovernment and oppression, and are naturally more hot-blooded and excitable, but less stable, capable of organization or trustworthy. The southerners are apathetic except when roused, and socialist doctrines find their chief adherents in the north. The Sicilians and Sardinians have something of Spanish dignity, but the former are one of the most mixed and the latter probably one of the purest races of the Italian kingdom. Physical characteristics differ widely; but as a whole the Italian is somewhat short of stature, with dark or black hair and eyes, often good looking. Both sexes reach maturity early. Mortality is decreasing, but if we may judge from the physical conditions of the recruits the physique of the nation shows little or no improvement. Much of this lack of progress is attributed to the heavy manual (especially agricultural) work undertaken by women and children. The women especially age rapidly, largely owing to this cause (E. Nathan, Vent’ anni di vita italiana attraverso all’ annuario, 169 sqq.).

Births, Marriages, Deaths.—Birth and marriage rates vary considerably, being highest in the centre and south (Umbria, the Marches, Apulia, Abruzzi and Molise, and Calabria) and lowest in the north (Piedmont, Liguria and Venetia), and in Sardinia. The death-rate is highest in Apulia, in the Abruzzi and Molise, and in Sardinia, and lowest in the north, especially in Venetia and Piedmont.

Taking the statistics for the whole kingdom, the annual marriage-rate for the years 1876-1880 was 7.53 per 1000; in 1881-1885 it rose to 8.06; in 1886-1890 it was 7.77; in 1891-1895 it was 7.41, and in 1896-1900 it had gone down to 7.14 (a figure largely produced by the abnormally low rate of 6.88 in 1898), and in 1902 was 7.23. Divorce is forbidden by the Roman Catholic Church, and only 839 judicial separations were obtained from the courts in 1902, more than half of the demands made having been abandoned. Of the whole population in 1901, 57.5% were unmarried, 36.0% married, and 6.5% widowers or widows. The illegitimate births show a decrease, having been 6.95 per 100 births in 1872 and 5.72 in 1902, with a rise, however, in the intermediate period as high as 7.76 in 1883. The birth-rate shows a corresponding decrease from 38.10 per 1000 in 1881 to 33.29 in 1902. The male births have since 1872 been about 3% (3.14 in 1872-1875 and 2.72 in 1896-1900) in excess of the female births, which is rather more than compensated for by the greater male mortality, the excess being 2.64 in 1872-1875 and having increased to 4.08 in 1896-1900. (The calculations are made in both cases on the total of births and deaths of both sexes.) The result is that, while in 1871 there was an excess of 143,370 males over females in the total population, in 1881 the excess was only 71,138, and in 1901 there were 169,684 more females than males. The death-rate (excluding still-born children) was, in 1872, 30.78 per 1000, and has since steadily decreased—less rapidly between 1886-1890 than during other years; in 1902 it was only 22.15 and in 1899 was as low as 21.89. The excess of births over deaths shows considerable variations—owing to a very low birth-rate, it was only 3.12 per 1000 in 1880, but has averaged 11.05 per 1000 from 1896 to 1900, reaching 11.98 in 1899 and 11.14 in 1902. For the four years 1899-1902 24.66% died under the age of one year, 9.41 between one and two years. The average expectation of life at birth for the same period was 52 years and 11 months, 62 years and 2 months at the age of three years, 52 years at the age of fifteen, 44 years at the age of twenty-four, 30 years at the age of forty; while the average period of life, which was 35 years 3 months per individual in 1882, was 43 years per individual in 1901. This shows a considerable improvement, largely, but not entirely, in the diminution of infant mortality; the expectation of life at birth in 1882, it is true, was only 33 years and 6 months, and at three years of age 56 years 1 month; but the increase, both in the expectation of life and in its average duration, goes all through the different ages.

Occupations.—In the census of 1901 the population over nine years of age (both male and female) was divided as follows as regards the main professions:—

Emigration.—The movement of emigration may be divided into two currents, temporary and permanent—the former going chiefly towards neighbouring European countries and to North Africa, and consisting of manual labourers, the latter towards trans-oceanic countries, principally Brazil, Argentina and the United States. These emigrants remain abroad for several years, even when they do not definitively establish themselves there. They are composed principally of peasants, unskilled workmen and other manual labourers. There was a tendency towards increased emigration during the last quarter of the 19th century. The principal causes are the growth of population, and the over-supply of and low rates of remuneration for manual labour in various Italian provinces. Emigration has, however, recently assumed such proportions as to lead to scarcity of labour and rise of wages in Italy itself. Italians form about half of the total emigrants to America.

The increased figures may, to a minor extent, be due to better registration, in consequence of the law of 1901.

From the next table will be seen the direction of emigration in the years specified:—

The figures for 1905 show that the total of 718,221 emigrants was made up, as regards numbers, mainly by individuals from Venetia, Sicily, Campania, Piedmont, Calabria and the Abruzzi; while the percentage was highest in Calabria (4.44), the Abruzzi, Venetia, Basilicata, the Marches, Sicily (2.86), Campania, Piedmont (2.02). Tuscany gives 1.20, Latium 1.14%, Apulia only 1.02, while Sardinia with 0.34% occupies an exceptional position. The figure for Sicily, which was 106,000 in 1905, reached 127,000 in 1906 (3.5%), and of these about three-fourths would be adults; in the meantime, however, the population increases so fast that even in 1905 there was a net increase in Sicily of 20,000 souls; so that in three years 220,000 workers were replaced by 320,000 infants.

The phenomenon of emigration in Sicily cannot altogether be explained by low wages, which have risen, though prices have done the same. It has been defined as apparently “a kind of collective madness.”

Agriculture.—Accurate statistics with regard to the area occupied in different forms of cultivation are difficult to obtain, both on account of their varied and piecemeal character and from the lack of a complete cadastral survey. A complete survey was ordered by the law of the 1st of March 1886, but many years must elapse before its completion. The law, however, enabled provinces most heavily burdened by land tax to accelerate their portion of the survey, and to profit by the re-assessment of the tax on the new basis. An idea of the effects of the survey may be gathered from the fact that the assessments in the four provinces of Mantua, Ancona, Cremona and Milan, which formerly amounted to a total of £1,454,696, are now £2,788,080, an increase of 91%. Of the total area of Italy, 70,793,000 acres, 71% are classed as “productive.” The unproductive area comprises 16% of the total area (this includes 4% occupied by lagoons or marshes, and 1.75% of the total area susceptible of bonificazione or improvement by drainage. Between 1882 and 1902 over £4,000,000 was spent on this by the government). The uncultivated area is 13%. This includes 3.50% of the total susceptible of cultivation.

The cultivated area may be divided into five agrarian regions or zones, named after the variety of tree culture which flourishes in them. (1) Proceeding from south to north, the first zone is that of the agrumi (oranges, lemons and similar fruits). It comprises a great part of Sicily. In Sardinia it extends along the southern and western coasts. It predominates along the Ligurian Riviera from Bordighera to Spezia, and on the Adriatic, near San Benedetto del Tronto and Gargano, and, crossing the Italian shore of the Ionian Sea, prevails in some regions of Calabria, and terminates around the gulfs of Salerno, Sorrento and Naples. (2) The region of olives comprises the internal Sicilian valleys and part of the mountain slopes; in Sardinia, the valleys near the coast on the S.E., S.W. and N.W.; on the mainland it extends from Liguria and from the southern extremities of the Romagna to Cape Santa Maria di Leuca in Apulia, and to Cape Spartivento in Calabria. Some districts of the olive region are near the lakes of upper Italy and in Venetia, and the territories of Verona, Vicenza, Treviso and Friuli. (3) The vine region begins on the sunny slopes of the Alpine spurs and in those Alpine valleys open towards the south, extending over the plains of Lombardy and Emilia. In Sardinia it covers the mountain slopes to a considerable height, and in Sicily covers the sides of the Madonie range, reaching a level above 3000 ft. on the southern slope of Etna. The Calabrian Alps, the less rocky sides of the Apulian Murgie and the whole length of the Apennines are covered at different heights, according to their situation. The hills of Tuscany, and of Monferrato in Piedmont, produce the most celebrated Italian vintages. (4) The region of chestnuts extends from the valleys to the high plateaus of the Alps, along the northern slopes of the Apennines in Liguria, Modena, Tuscany, Romagna, Umbria, the Marches and along the southern Apennines to the Calabrian and Sicilian ranges, as well as to the mountains of Sardinia. (5) The wooded region covers the Alps and Apennines above the chestnut level. The woods consist chiefly of pine and hazel upon the Apennines, and upon the Calabrian, Sicilian and Sardinian mountains of oak, ilex, hornbeam and similar trees.

Between these regions of tree culture lie zones of different herbaceous culture, cereals, vegetables and textile plants. The style of cultivation varies according to the nature of the ground, terraces supported by stone walls being much used in mountainous districts. Cereal cultivation occupies the foremost place in area and quantity though it has been on the decline since 1903, still representing, however, an advance on previous years. Wheat is the most important crop and is widely distributed. In 1905 12,734,491 acres, or about 18% of the total area, produced 151,696,571 bushels of wheat, a yield of only 12 bushels per acre. The importation has, however, enormously increased since 1882—from 164,600 to 1,126,368 tons; while the extent of land devoted to corn cultivation has slightly decreased. Next in importance to wheat comes maize, occupying about 7% of the total area of the country, and cultivated almost everywhere as an alternative crop. The production of maize in 1905 reached about 96,250,000 bushels, a slight increase on the average. The production of maize is, however, insufficient, and 208,719 tons were imported in 1902—about double the amount imported in 1882.

Rice is cultivated in low-lying, moist lands, where spring and summer temperatures are high. The Po valley and the valleys of Emilia and the Romagna are best adapted for rice, but the area is diminishing on account of the competition of foreign rice and of the impoverishment of the soil by too intense cultivation. The area is about 0.5% of the total of Italy. The area under rye is about 0.5% of the total, of which about two-thirds lie in the Alpine and about one-third in the Apennine zone. The barley zone is geographically extensive but embraces not more than 1% of the total area, of which half is situated in Sardinia and Sicily. Oats, cultivated in the Roman and Tuscan maremma and in Apulia, are used almost exclusively for horses and cattle. The area of oats cultivation is 1.5% of the total area. The other cereals, millet and panico sorgo (Panicum italicum), have lost much of their importance in consequence of the introduction of maize and rice. Millet, however, is still cultivated in the north of Italy, and is used as bread for agricultural labourers, and as forage when mixed with buckwheat (Sorghum saccaratum). The manufacture of macaroni and similar foodstuff is a characteristic Italian industry. It is extensively distributed, but especially flourishes in the Neapolitan provinces. The exportation of “corn-flour pastes” sank, however, from 7100 tons to 350 between 1882 and 1902.

The cultivation of green forage is extensive and is divided into the categories of temporary and perennial. The temporary includes vetches, pulse, lupine, clover and trifolium; and the perennial, meadow-trefoil, lupinella, sulla (Hedysarum coronarium), lucerne and darnel. The natural grass meadows are extensive, and hay is grown all over the country, but especially in the Po valley. Pasture occupies about 30% of the total area of the country, of which Alpine pastures occupy 1.25%. Seed-bearing vegetables are comparatively scarce. The principal are: white beans, largely consumed by the working classes; lentils, much less cultivated than beans; and green peas, largely consumed in Italy, and exported as a spring vegetable. Chick-pease are extensively cultivated in the southern provinces. Horse beans are grown, especially in the south and in the larger islands; lupines are also grown for fodder.

Among tuberous vegetables the potato comes first. The area occupied is about 0.7% of the whole of the country. Turnips are grown principally in the central provinces as an alternative crop to wheat. They yield as much as 12 tons per acre. Beetroot (Beta vulgaris) is used as fodder, and yields about 10 tons per acre. Sugar beet is extensively grown to supply the sugar factories. In 1898-1899 there were only four sugar factories, with an output of 5972 tons; in 1905 there were thirty-three, with an output of 93,916 tons.

Market gardening is carried on both near towns and villages, where products find ready sale, and along the great railways, on account of transport facilities. Rome is an exception to the former rule and imports garden produce largely from the neighbourhood of Naples and from Sardinia.

Among the chief industrial plants is tobacco, which grows wherever suitable soil exists. Since tobacco is a government monopoly, its cultivation is subject to official concessions and prescriptions. Experiments hitherto made show that the cultivation of Oriental tobacco may profitably be extended in Italy. The yield for 1901 was 5528 tons, but a large increase took place subsequently, eleven million new plants having been added in southern Italy in 1905.

The chief textile plants are hemp, flax and cotton. Hemp is largely cultivated in the provinces of Turin, Ferrara, Bologna, Forlì, Ascoli Piceno and Caserta. Bologna hemp is specially valued. Flax covers about 160,000 acres, with a product, in fibre, amounting to about 20,000 tons. Cotton (Gossypium herbaceum), which at the beginning of the 19th century, at the time of the Continental blockade, and again during the American War of Secession, was largely cultivated, is now grown only in parts of Sicily and in a few southern provinces. Sumach, liquorice and madder are also grown in the south.

The vine is cultivated throughout the length and breadth of Italy, but while in some of the districts of the south and centre it occupies from 10 to 20% of the cultivated area, in some of the northern provinces, such as Sondrio, Belluno, Grosseto, &c., the average is only about 1 or 2%. The methods of cultivation are varied; but the planting of the vines by themselves in long rows of insignificant bushes is the exception. In Lombardy, Emilia, Romagna, Tuscany, the Marches, Umbria and the southern provinces, they are trained to trees which are either left in their natural state or subjected to pruning and pollarding. In Campania the vines are allowed to climb freely to the tops of the poplars. In the rest of Italy the elm and the maple are the trees mainly employed as supports. Artificial props of several kinds—wires, cane work, trellis work, &c.—are also in use in many districts (in the neighbourhood of Rome canes are almost exclusively employed), and in some the plant is permitted to trail along the ground. The vintage takes place, according to locality and climate, from the beginning of September to the beginning of November. The vine has been attacked by the Oidium Tuckeri, the Phylloxera vastatrix and the Peronospora viticola, which in rapid succession wrought great havoc in Italian vineyards. American vines, are, however, immune and have been largely adopted. The production of wine in the vintage of 1907, which was extraordinarily abundant all over the country, was estimated at 1232 million gallons (56 million hectolitres), the average for 1901-1903 being some 352 million gallons less; of this the probable home consumption was estimated at rather over half, while a considerable amount remained over from 1906. The exportation in 1902 only reached about 45 million gallons (and even that is double the average), while an equally abundant vintage in France and Spain rendered the exportation of the balance of 1907 impossible, and fiscal regulations rendered the distillation of the superfluous amount difficult. The quality, too, owing to bad weather at the time of vintage, was not good; Italian wine, indeed, never is sufficiently good to compete with the best wines of other countries, especially France (though there is more opening for Italian wines of the Bordeaux and Burgundy type); nor will many kinds of it stand keeping, partly owing to their natural qualities and partly to the insufficient care devoted to their preparation. There has been some improvement, however, while some of the heavier white wines, noticeably the Marsala of Sicily, have excellent keeping qualities. The area cultivated as vineyards has increased enormously, from about 4,940,000 acres to 9,880,000 acres, or about 14% of the total area of the country. Over-production seems thus to be a considerable danger, and improvement of quality is rather to be sought after. This has been encouraged by government prizes since 1904.

Next to cereals and the vine the most important object of cultivation is the olive. In Sicily and the provinces of Reggio, Catanzaro, Cosenza and Lecce this tree flourishes without shelter; as far north as Rome, Aquila and Teramo it requires only the slightest protection; in the rest of the peninsula it runs the risk of damage by frost every ten years or so. The proportion of ground under olives is from 20 to 36% at Porto Maurizio, and in Reggio, Lecce, Bari, Chieti and Leghorn it averages from 10 to 19%. Throughout Piedmont, Lombardy, Venetia and the greater part of Emilia, the tree is of little importance. In the olive there is great variety of kinds, and the methods of cultivation differ greatly in different districts; in Bari, Chieti and Lecce, for instance, there are regular woods of nothing but olive-trees, while in middle Italy there are olive-orchards with the interspaces occupied by crops of various kinds. The Tuscan oils from Lucca, Calci and Buti are considered the best in the world; those of Bari, Umbria and western Liguria rank next. The wood of the olive is also used for the manufacture of small articles. The olive-growing area occupies about 3.5% of the total area of the country, and the crop in 1905 produced about 75,000,000 gallons of oil. The falling off of the crop, especially in 1899, was due to bad seasons and to insects, notably the Cycloconium oleoginum, and the Dacus oleae, or oil-fly, which have ravaged the olive-yards, and it is noticeable that lately good and bad seasons seem to alternate; between 1900 and 1905 the crops were alternately one half of, and equal to, that of the latter year. With the development of agricultural knowledge, notable improvements have been effected in the manufacture of oil. The steam mills give the best results. The export trade, however, is decreasing considerably, while the home consumption is increasing. In 1901, 1985 imperial tuns of oil were shipped from Gallipoli for abroad—two-thirds to the United Kingdom, one-third to Russia—and 666 to Italian ports; while in 1904 the figures were reversed, 1633 tuns going to Italian ports, and only 945 tuns to foreign ports. The other principal port of shipping is Gioia Tauro, 30 m. N.N.E. of Reggio Calabria. A certain amount of linseed-oil is made in Lombardy, Sicily, Apulia and Calabria; colza in Piedmont, Lombardy, Venetia and Emilia; and castor-oil in Venetia and Sicily. The product is principally used for industrial purposes, and partly in the preparation of food, but the amount is decreasing.

The cultivation of oranges, lemons and their congeners (collectively designated in Italian by the term agrumi) is of comparatively modern date, the introduction of the Citrus Bigaradia being probably due to the Arabs. Sicily is the chief centre of cultivation—the area occupied by lemon and orange orchards in the province of Palermo alone having increased from 11,525 acres in 1854 to 54,340 in 1874. Reggio Calabria, Catanzaro, Cosenza, Lecce, Salerno, Naples and Caserta are the continental provinces which come next after Sicily. In Sardinia the cultivation is extensive, but receives little attention. Both crude and concentrated lime-juice is exported, and essential oils are extracted from the rind of the agrumi, more particularly from that of the lemon and the bergamot. In northern and central Italy, except in the province of Brescia, the agrumi are almost non-existent. The trees are planted on irrigated soil and the fruit gathered between November and August. Considerable trade is done in agro di limone or lemon extract, which forms the basis of citric acid. Extraction is extensively carried on in the provinces of Messina and Palermo.

Among other fruit trees, apple-trees have special importance. Almonds are widely cultivated in Sicily, Sardinia and the southern provinces; walnut trees throughout the peninsula, their wood being more important than their fruit; hazel nuts, figs, prickly pears (used in the south and the islands for hedges, their fruit being a minor consideration), peaches, pears, locust beans and pistachio nuts are among the other fruits. The mulberry-tree (Morus alba), whose leaves serve as food for silkworms, is cultivated in every region, considerable progress having been made in its cultivation and in the rearing of silkworms since 1850. Silkworm-rearing establishments of importance now exist in the Marches, Umbria, in the Abruzzi, Tuscany, Piedmont and Venetia. The chief silk-producing provinces are Lombardy, Venetia and Piedmont. During the period 1900-1904 the average annual production of silk cocoons was 53,500 tons, and of silk 5200 tons.

The great variety in physical and social conditions throughout the peninsula gives corresponding variety to the methods of agriculture. In the rotation of crops there is an amazing diversity—shifts of two years, three years, four years, six years, and in many cases whatever order strikes the fancy of the farmer. The fields of Tuscany for the most part bear wheat one year and maize the next, in perpetual interchanges, relieved to some extent by green crops. A similar method prevails in the Abruzzi, and in the provinces of Salerno, Benevento and Avellino. In Lombardy a six-year shift is common: either wheat, clover, maize, rice, rice, rice (the last year manured with lupines) or maize, wheat followed by clover, clover, clover ploughed in, and rice, rice and rice manured with lupines. The Emilian region is one where regular rotations are best observed—a common shift being grain, maize, clover, beans and vetches, &c., grain, which has the disadvantage of the grain crops succeeding each other. In the province of Naples, Caserta, &c., the method of fallows is widely adopted, the ground often being left in this state for fifteen or twenty years; and in some parts of Sicily there is a regular interchange of fallow and crop year by year. The following scheme indicates a common Sicilian method of a type which has many varieties: fallow, grain, grain, pasture, pasture—other two divisions of the area following the same order, but beginning respectively with the two years of grain and the two of pasture.

Woods and forests play an important part, especially in regard to the consistency of the soil and to the character of the watercourses. The chestnut is of great value for its wood and its fruit, an article of popular consumption. Good timber Woods and forests. is furnished by the oak and beech, and pine and fir forests of the Alps and Apennines. Notwithstanding the efforts of the government to unify and co-ordinate the forest laws previously existing in the various states, deforestation has continued in many regions. This has been due to speculation, to the unrestricted pasturage of goats, to the rights which many communes have over the forests, and to some extent to excessive taxation, which led the proprietors to cut and sell the trees and then abandon the ground to the Treasury. The results are—a lack of water-supply and of water-power, the streams becoming mere torrents for a short period and perfectly dry for the rest of the year; lack of a sufficient supply of timber; the denudation of the soil on the hills, and, where the valleys below have insufficient drainage, the formation of swamps. If the available water-power of Italy, already very considerable, be harnessed, converted into electric power (which is already being done in some districts), and further increased by reafforestation, the effect upon the industries of Italy will be incalculable, and the importation of coal will be very materially diminished. The area of forest is about 14.3% of the total, and of the chestnut-woods 1.5 more; and its products in 1886 were valued at £3,520,000 (not including chestnuts). A quantity of it is really brushwood, used for the manufacture of charcoal and for fuel, coal being little used except for manufacturing purposes. Forest nurseries have also been founded.

According to an approximate calculation the number of head of Live stock. live stock in Italy in 1890 was 16,620,000, thus divided:—horses, 720,000; asses, 1,000,000; mules, 300,000; cattle, 5,000,000; sheep, 6,000,000; goats, 1,800,000; swine, 1,800,000.

The breed of cattle most widely distributed is that known as the Podolian, usually with white or grey coat and enormous horns. Of the numerous sub-varieties, the finest is said to be that of the Val di Chiana, where the animals are stall-fed all the year round; next is ranked the so-called Valle Tiberina type. Wilder varieties roam in vast herds over the Tuscan and Roman maremmas, and the corresponding districts in Apulia and other regions. In the Alpine districts there is a stock distinct from the Podolian, generally called razza montanina. These animals are much smaller in stature and more regular in form than the Podolians; they are mainly kept for dairy purposes. Another stock, with no close allies nearer than the south of France, is found in the plain of Racconigi and Carmagnola; the mouse-coloured Swiss breed occurs in the neighbourhood of Milan: the Tirolese breed stretches south to Padua and Modena; and a red-coated breed named of Reggio or Friuli is familiar both in what were the duchies of Parma and Modena, and in the provinces of Udine and Treviso. In Sicily the so-called Modica race is of note; and in Sardinia there is a distinct stock which seldom exceeds the weight of 700 ℔. Buffaloes are kept in several districts, more particularly of southern Italy.

Enormous flocks are possessed by professional sheep-farmers, who pasture them in the mountains in the summer, and bring them down to the plains in the winter. At Saluzzo in Piedmont there is a stock with hanging ears, arched face and tall stature, kept for its dairy qualities; and in the Biellese the merino breed is maintained by some of the larger proprietors. In the upper valleys of the Alps there are many local varieties, one of which at Ossola is like the Scottish blackface. Liguria is not much adapted for sheep-farming on a large scale; but a number of small flocks come down to the plain of Tuscany in the winter. With the exception of a few sub-Alpine districts near Bergamo and Brescia, the great Lombard plain is decidedly unpastoral. The Bergamo sheep is the largest breed in the country; that of Cadore and Belluno approaches it in size. In the Venetian districts the farmers often have small stationary flocks. Throughout the Roman province, and Umbria, Apulia, the Abruzzi, Basilicata and Calabria, is found in its full development a remarkable system of pastoral migration with the change of seasons which has been in existence from the most ancient times, and has attracted attention as much by its picturesqueness as by its industrial importance (see [Apulia]). Merino sheep have been acclimatized in the Abruzzi, Capitanata and Basilicata. The number of sheep, however, is on the decrease. Similarly, the number of goats, which are reared only in hilly regions, is decreasing, especially on account of the existing forest laws, as they are the chief enemies of young plantations. Horse-breeding is on the increase. The state helps to improve the breeds by placing choice stallions at the disposal of private breeders at a low tariff. The exportation is, however, unimportant, while the importation is largely on the increase, 46,463 horses having been imported in 1902. Cattle-breeding varies with the different regions. In upper Italy cattle are principally reared in pens and stalls; in central Italy cattle are allowed to run half wild, the stall system being little practised; in the south and in the islands cattle are kept in the open air, few shelters being provided. The erection of shelters, however, is encouraged by the state. Swine are extensively reared in many provinces. Fowls are kept on all farms and, though methods are still antiquated, trade in fowls and eggs is rapidly increasing.

In 1905 Italy exported 32,786 and imported 17,766 head of cattle; exported 33,574 and imported 6551 sheep; exported 95,995 and imported 1604 swine. The former two show a very large decrease and the latter a large increase on the export figures for 1882. The export of agricultural products shows a large increase.

The north of Italy has long been known for its great dairy districts. Parmesan cheese, otherwise called Lodigiano (from Lodi) or grana, was presented to King Louis XII. as early as 1509. Parmesan is not confined to the province from which it derives its name; it is manufactured in all that part of Emilia in the neighbourhood of the Po, and in the provinces of Brescia, Bergamo, Pavia, Novara and Alessandria. Gorgonzola, which takes its name from a town in the province, has become general throughout the whole of Lombardy, in the eastern parts of the “ancient provinces,” and in the province of Cuneo. The cheese known as the cacio-cavallo is produced in regions extending from 37° to 43° N. lat. Gruyère, extensively manufactured in Switzerland and France, is also produced in Italy in the Alpine regions and in Sicily. With the exception of Parmesan, Gorgonzola, La Fontina and Gruyère, most of the Italian cheese is consumed in the locality of its production. Co-operative dairy farms are numerous in north Italy, and though only about half as many as in 1889 (114 in 1902) are better organized. Modern methods have been introduced.

The drainage of marshes and marshy lands has considerably Drainage, &c. extended. A law passed on the 22nd of March 1900 gave a special impulse to this form of enterprise by fixing the ratio of expenditure incumbent respectively upon the State, the provinces, the communes, and the owners or other private individuals directly interested.

The Italian Federation of Agrarian Unions has greatly contributed to agricultural progress. Government travelling teachers Agrarian economics. of agriculture, and fixed schools of viticulture, also do good work. Some unions annually purchase large quantities of merchandise for their members, especially chemical manures. The importation of machinery amounted to over 5000 tons in 1901.

Income from land has diminished on the whole. The chief diminution has taken place in the south in regard to oranges and lemons, cereals and (for some provinces) vines. Since 1895, however, the heavy import corn duty has caused a slight rise in the income from corn lands. The principal reasons for the general decrease are the fall in prices through foreign competition and the closing of certain markets, the diseases of plants and the increased outlay required to combat them, and the growth of State and local taxation. One of the great evils of Italian agricultural taxation is its lack of elasticity and of adaptation to local conditions. Taxes are not sufficiently proportioned to what the land may reasonably be expected to produce, nor sufficient allowance made for the exceptional conditions of a southern climate, in which a few hours’ bad weather may destroy a whole crop. The Italian agriculturist has come to look (and often in vain) for action on a large scale from the state, for irrigation, drainage of uncultivated low-lying land, which may be made fertile, river regulation, &c.; while to the small proprietor the state often appears only as a hard and inconsiderate tax-gatherer.

The relations between owners and tillers of the soil are still regulated by the ancient forms of agrarian contract, which have remained almost untouched by social and political changes. The possibility of reforming these contracts in some parts of the kingdom has been studied, in the hope of bringing them into closer harmony with the needs of rational cultivation and the exigencies of social justice.

Peasant proprietorship is most common in Lombardy and Piedmont, but it is also found elsewhere. Large farms are found in certain of the more open districts; but in Italy generally, and especially in Sardinia, the land is very much subdivided. The following forms of contract are most usual in the several regions: In Piedmont the mezzadria (métayage), the terzieria, the colonia parziaria, the boaria, the schiavenza and the affitto, or lease, are most usual. Under mezzadria the contract generally lasts three years. Products are usually divided in equal proportions between the owner and the tiller. The owner pays the taxes, defrays the cost of preparing the ground, and provides the necessary implements. Stock usually belongs to the owner, and, even if kept on the half-and-half system, is usually bought by him. The peasant, or mezzadro, provides labour. Under terzieria the owner furnishes stock, implements and seed, and the tiller retains only one-third of the principal products. In the colonia parziaria the peasant executes all the agricultural work, in return for which he is housed rent-free, and receives one-sixth of the corn, one-third of the maize and has a small money wage. This contract is usually renewed from year to year. The boaria is widely diffused in its two forms of cascina fatta and paghe. In the former case a peasant family undertakes all the necessary work in return for payment in money or kind, which varies according to the crop; in the latter the money wages and the payment in kind are fixed beforehand. Schiavenza, either simple or with a share in the crops, is a form of contract similar to the boaria, but applied principally to large holdings. The wages are lower than under the boaria. In the affitto, or lease, the proprietor furnishes seed and the implements. Rent varies according to the quality of the soil.

In Lombardy, besides the mezzadria, the lease is common, but the terzieria is rare. The lessee, or farmer, tills the soil at his own risk; usually he provides live stock, implements and capital, and has no right to compensation for ordinary improvements, nor for extraordinary improvements effected without the landlord’s consent. He is obliged to give a guarantee for the fulfilment of his engagements. In some places he pays an annual tribute in grapes, corn and other produce. In some of the Lombard mezzadria contracts taxes are paid by the cultivator.

In Venetia it is more common than elsewhere in Italy for owners to till their own soil. The prevalent forms of contract are the mezzadria and the lease. In Liguria, also, mezzadria and lease are the chief forms of contract.

In Emilia both mezzadria and lease tenure are widely diffused in the provinces of Ferrara, Reggio and Parma; but other special forms of contract exist, known as the famiglio da spesa, boaria, braccianti obbligati and braccianti disobbligati. In the famiglio da spesa the tiller receives a small wage and a proportion of certain products. The boaria is of two kinds. If the tiller receives as much as 45 lire per month, supplemented by other wages in kind, it is said to be boaria a salario; if the principal part of his remuneration is in kind, his contract is called boaria a spesa.

In the Marches, Umbria and Tuscany, mezzadria prevails in its purest form. Profits and losses, both in regard to produce and stock, are equally divided. In some places, however, the landlord takes two-thirds of the olives and the whole of the grapes and the mulberry leaves. Leasehold exists in the province of Grosseto alone. In Latium leasehold and farming by landlords prevail, but cases of mezzadria and of “improvement farms” exist. In the agro Romano, or zone immediately around Rome, land is as a rule left for pasturage. It needs, therefore, merely supervision by guardians and mounted overseers, or butteri, who are housed and receive wages. Large landlords are usually represented by ministri, or factors, who direct agricultural operations and manage the estates, but the estate is often let to a middleman, or mercante di campagna. Wherever corn is cultivated, leasehold predominates. Much of the work is done by companies of peasants, who come down from the mountainous districts when required, permanent residence not being possible owing to the malaria. Near Velletri and Frosinone “improvement farms” prevail. A piece of uncultivated land is made over to a peasant for from 20 to 29 years. Vines and olives are usually planted, the landlord paying the taxes and receiving one-third of the produce. At the end of the contract the landlord either cultivates his land himself or leases it, repaying to the improver part of the expenditure incurred by him. This repayment sometimes consists of half the estimated value of the standing crops.

In the Abruzzi and in Apulia leasehold is predominant. Usually leases last from three to six years. In the provinces of Foggia and Lecce long leases (up to twenty-nine years) are granted, but in them it is explicitly declared that they do not imply enfiteusi (perpetual leasehold), nor any other form of contract equivalent to co-proprietorship. Mezzadria is rarely resorted to. On some small holdings, however, it exists with contracts lasting from two to six years. Special contracts, known as colonie immovibili and colonie temporanee are applied to the latifondi or huge estates, the owners of which receive half the produce, except that of the vines, olive-trees and woods, which he leases separately. “Improvement contracts” also exist. They consist of long leases, under which the landlord shares the costs of improvements and builds farm-houses; also leases of orange and lemon gardens, two-thirds of the produce of which go to the landlord, while the farmer contributes half the cost of farming besides the labour. Leasehold, varying from four to six years for arable land and from six to eighteen years for forest-land, prevails also in Campania, Basilicata and Calabria. The estaglio, or rent, is often paid in kind, and is equivalent to half the produce of good land and one-third of the produce of bad land. “Improvement contracts” are granted for uncultivated bush districts, where one fourth of the produce goes to the landlord, and for plantations of fig-trees, olive-trees and vines, half of the produce of which belongs to the landlord, who at the end of ten years reimburses the tenant for a part of the improvements effected. Other forms of contract are the piccola mezzadria, or sub-letting by tenants to under-tenants, on the half-and-half system; enfiteusi, or perpetual leases at low rents—a form which has almost died out; and mezzadria (in the provinces of Caserta and Benevento).

In Sicily leasehold prevails under special conditions. In pure leasehold the landlord demands at least six months’ rent as guarantee, and the forfeiture of any fortuitous advantages. Under the gabella lease the contract lasts twenty-nine years, the lessee being obliged to make improvements, but being sometimes exempted from rent during the first years. Inquilinaggio is a form of lease by which the landlord, and sometimes the tenant, makes over to tenant or sub-tenant the sowing of corn. There are various categories of inquilinaggio, according as rent is paid in money or in kind. Under mezzadria or metateria the landlord divides the produce with the farmer in various proportions. The farmer provides all labour. Latifondi farms are very numerous in Sicily. The landlord lets his land to two or more persons jointly, who undertake to restore it to him in good condition with one-third of it “interrozzito,” that is, fallow, so as to be cultivated the following year according to triennial rotation. These lessees are usually speculators, who divide and sub-let the estate. The sub-tenants in their turn let a part of their land to peasants in mezzadria, thus creating a system disastrous both for agriculture and the peasants. At harvest-time the produce is placed in the barns of the lessor, who first deducts 25% as premium, then 16% for battiteria (the difference between corn before and after winnowing), then deducts a proportion for rent and subsidies, so that the portion retained by the actual tiller of the soil is extremely meagre. In bad years the tiller, moreover, gives up seed corn before beginning harvest.

In Sardinia landlord-farming and leasehold prevail. In the few cases of mezzadria the Tuscan system is followed.

Mines.—The number of mines increased from 589 in 1881 to 1580 in 1902. The output in 1881 was worth about £2,800,000, but by 1895 had decreased to £1,800,000, chiefly on account of the fall in the price of sulphur. It afterwards rose, and was worth more than £3,640,000 in 1899, falling again to £3,118,600 in 1902 owing to severe American competition in sulphur (see [Sicily]). The chief minerals are sulphur, in the production of which Italy holds one of the first places, iron, zinc, lead; these, and, to a smaller extent, copper of an inferior quality, manganese and antimony, are successfully mined. The bulk of the sulphur mines are in Sicily, while the majority of the lead and zinc mines are in Sardinia; much of the lead smelting is done at Pertusola, near Genoa, the company formed for this purpose having acquired many of the Sardinian mines. Iron is mainly mined in Elba. Quicksilver and tin are found (the latter in small quantities) in Tuscany. Boracic acid is chiefly found near Volterra, where there is also a little rock salt, but the main supply is obtained by evaporation. The output of stone from quarries is greatly diminished (from 12,500,000 tons, worth £1,920,000, in 1890, to 8,000,000 tons, worth £1,400,000, in 1899), a circumstance probably attributable to the slackening of building enterprise in many cities, and to the decrease in the demand for stone for railway, maritime and river embankment works. The value of the output had, however, by 1902 risen to £1,600,000, representing a tonnage of about 10,000,000. There is good travertine below Tivoli and elsewhere in Italy; the finest granite is found at Baveno. Lava is much used for paving-stones in the neighbourhood of volcanic districts, where pozzolana (for cement) and pumice stone are also important. Much of Italy contains Pliocene clay, which is good for pottery and brickmaking. Mineral springs are very numerous, and of great variety.

Fisheries.—The number of boats and smacks engaged in the fisheries has considerably increased. In 1881 the total number was 15,914, with a tonnage of 49,103. In 1902 there were 23,098 boats, manned by 101,720 men, and the total catch was valued at just over half a million sterling—according to the government figures, which are certainly below the truth. The value has, however, undoubtedly diminished, though the number of boats and crews increases. Most of the fishing boats, properly so called, start from the Adriatic coast, the coral boats from the western Mediterranean coast, and the sponge boats from the western Mediterranean and Sicilian coasts. Fishing and trawling are carried on chiefly off the Italian (especially Ligurian), Austrian and Tunisian coasts; coral is found principally near Sardinia and Sicily, and sponges almost exclusively off Sicily and Tunisia in the neighbourhood of Sfax. For sponge fishing no accurate statistics are available before 1896; in that year 75 tons of sponges were secured, but there has been considerable diminution since, only 31 tons being obtained in 1902. A considerable proportion was obtained by foreign boats. The island of Lampedusa may be considered its centre. Coral fishing, which fell off between 1889 and 1892 on account of the temporary closing of the Sciacca coral reefs has greatly decreased since 1884, when the fisheries produced 643 tons, whereas in 1902 they only produced 225 tons. The value of the product has, however, proportionately increased, so that the sum realized was little less, while less than half the number of men was employed. Sardinian coral commands from £3 to £4 per kilogramme (2.204 ℔), and is much more valuable than the Sicilian coral. The Sciacca reefs were again closed for three winters by a decree of 1904. The fishing is largely carried on by boats from Torre del Greco, in the Gulf of Naples, where the best coral beds are now exhausted. In 1879 4000 men were employed; in 1902 only just over 1000. In 1902 there were 48 tunny fisheries, employing 3006 men, and 5116 tons of fish worth £80,000 were caught. The main fisheries are in Sardinia, Sicily and Elba. Anchovy and sardine fishing (the products of which are reckoned among the general total) are also of considerable importance, especially along the Ligurian and Tuscan coasts. The lagoon fisheries are also of great importance, more especially those of Comacchio, the lagoon of Orbetello and the Mare Piccolo at Taranto &c. The deep-sea fishing boats in 1902 numbered 1368, with a total tonnage of 16,149; 100 of these were coral-fishing boats and 111 sponge-fishing boats.

Industrial Progress.—The industrial progress of Italy has been great since 1880. Many articles formerly imported are now made at home, and some Italian manufactures have begun to compete in foreign markets. Italy has only unimportant lignite and anthracite mines, but water power is abundant and has been largely applied to industry, especially in generating electricity. The electric power required for the tramways and the illumination of Rome is entirely supplied by turbines situated at Tivoli, and this is the case elsewhere, and the harnessing of this water-power is capable of very considerable extension. A sign of industrial development is to be found in the growing number of manufacturing companies, both Italian and foreign.

The chief development has taken place in mechanical industries, though it has also been marked in metallurgy. Sulphur mining supplies large industries of sulphur-refining and grinding, in spite of American competition. Very little pig iron is Mechanical industries. made, most of the iron ore being exported, and iron manufactured consists of old iron resmelted. For steel-making foreign pig iron is chiefly used. The manufacture of steel rails, carried on first at Terni and afterwards at Savona, began in Italy in 1886. Tin has been manufactured since 1892. Lead, antimony, mercury and copper are also produced. The total salt production in 1902 was 458,497 tons, of which 248,215 were produced in the government salt factories and the rest in the free salt-works of Sicily. Great progress has been made in the manufacture of machinery; locomotives, railway carriages, electric tram-cars, &c., and machinery of all kinds, are now largely made in Italy itself, especially in the north and in the neighbourhood of Naples. At Turin the manufacture of motor-cars has attained great importance and the F.I.A.T. (Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino) factory employs 2000 workmen, while eight others employ 2780 amongst them.

The textile industries, some of which are of ancient date, are among those that have most rapidly developed. Handlooms and small spinning establishments have, in the silk industry, given place to large establishments with steam looms. The production Textiles. of raw silk at least tripled itself between 1875 and 1900, and the value of the silks woven in Italy, estimated in 1890 to be £2,200,000, is now, on account of the development of the export trade, calculated to be almost £4,000,000. Lombardy (especially Como, Milan and Bergamo), Piedmont and Venetia are the chief silk-producing regions. There are several public assay offices in Italy for silk; the first in the world was established in Turin in 1750. The cotton industry has also rapidly developed. Home products not only supply the Italian market in increasing degree, but find their way into foreign markets. While importation of raw cotton increases importations of cotton thread and of cotton stuffs have rapidly decreased. The value of the annual produce of the various branches of the cotton industry, which in 1885 was calculated to be £7,200,000, was in 1900, notwithstanding the fall in prices, about £12,000,000. The industry is chiefly developed in Lombardy, Piedmont and Liguria; to some extent also in Campania, Venetia and Tuscany, and to a less extent in Lazio (Rome), Apulia, Emilia, the Marches, Umbria, the Abruzzi and Sicily. A government weaving school was established in Naples in 1906. As in the case of cotton, Italian woollen fabrics are conquering the home market in increasing degree. The industry centres chiefly in Piedmont (province of Novara), Venetia (province of Vicenza), Tuscany (Florence), Lombardy (Brescia), Campania (Caserta), Genoa, Umbria, the Marches and Rome. To some extent the industry also exists in Emilia, Calabria, Basilicata, the Abruzzi, Sardinia and Sicily. It has, however, a comparatively small export trade.

The other textile industries (flax, jute, &c.) have made notable progress. The jute industry is concentrated in a few large factories, which from 1887 onwards have more than supplied the home market, and have begun considerably to export.

Chemical industries show an output worth £2,640,000 in 1902 as against £1,040,000 in 1893. The chief products are sulphuric acid; sulphate of copper, employed chiefly as a preventive of certain maladies of the vine; carbonate of lead, hyperphosphates Chemicals. and chemical manures; calcium carbide; explosive powder; dynamite and other explosives. Pharmaceutical industries, as distinguished from those above mentioned, have kept pace with the general development of Italian activity. The principal product is quinine, the manufacture of which has acquired great importance, owing to its use as a specific against malaria. Milan and Genoa are the principal centres, and also the government military pharmaceutical factory at Turin. Other industries of a semi-chemical character are candle-, soap-, glue-, and perfume-making, and the preparation of india-rubber. The last named has succeeded, by means of the large establishments at Milan in supplying not only the whole Italian market but an export trade.

The match-making industry is subject to special fiscal conditions. In 1902-1903 there were 219 match factories scattered throughout Italy, but especially in Piedmont, Lombardy and Venetia. The number has been reduced to less than half since 1897 by the suppression of smaller factories, while the production has increased from 47,690 millions to 59,741 millions.

The beetroot-sugar industry has attained considerable proportions in Umbria, the Marches, Lazio, Venetia and Piedmont since 1890. In 1898-1899, 5972 tons were produced, while in 1905 the figure had risen to 93,916. The rise of the industry has been favoured by protective tariffs and by a system of excise which allows a considerable premium to manufacturers.

Alcohol has undergone various oscillations, according to the legislation governing distilleries. In 1871 only 20 hectolitres were produced, but in 1881 the output was 318,000 hectolitres, the maximum hitherto attained. Since then special laws have hampered development, some provinces, as for instance Sardinia, being allowed to manufacture for their own consumption but not for export. In other parts the industry is subjected to an almost prohibitive excise-duty. The average production is about 180,000 hectolitres per annum. The greatest quantity is produced in Lombardy, Piedmont, Venetia and Tuscany. The quantity of beer is about the same, the greater part of the beer drunk being imported from Germany, while the production of artificial mineral waters has somewhat decreased. There is a considerable trade (not very large for export, however) in natural mineral waters, which are often excellent.

Paper-making is highly developed in the provinces of Novara, Caserta, Milan, Vicenza, Turin, Como, Lucca, Ancona, Genoa, Brescia, Cuneo, Macerata and Salerno. The hand-made paper of Fabriano is especially good.

Furniture-making in different styles is carried on all over Italy, especially as a result of the establishment of industrial schools. Each region produces a special type, Venetia turning out imitations of 16th- and 17th-century styles, Tuscany the 15th-century or cinquecento style, and the Neapolitan provinces the Pompeian style. Furniture and cabinet-making in great factories are carried on particularly in Lombardy and Piedmont. Bent-wood factories have been established in Venetia and Liguria.

A characteristic Italian industry is that of straw-plaiting for hat-making, which is carried on principally in Tuscany, in the district of Fermo, in the Alpine villages of the province of Vicenza, and in some communes of the province of Messina. The plaiting is done by country women, while the hats are made up in factories. Both plaits and hats are largely exported.

Tobacco is entirely a government monopoly; the total amount manufactured in 1902-1903 was 16,599 tons—a fairly constant figure.

The finest glass is made in Tuscany and Venetia; Venetian glass is often coloured and of artistic form.

In the various ceramic arts Italy was once unrivalled, but the ancient tradition for a long time lost its primeval impulse. The works at Vinovo, which had fame in the 18th century, came to an untimely end in 1820; those of Castelli (in the Abruzzi), Artistic industries. which have been revived, were supplanted by Charles III.’s establishment at Capodimonte, 1750, which after producing articles of surprising execution was closed before the end of the century. The first place now belongs to the Della Doccia works at Florence. Founded in 1735 by the marquis Carlo Ginori, they maintained a reputation of the very highest kind down to about 1860; but since then they have not kept pace with their younger rivals in other lands. They still, however, are commercially successful. Other cities where the ceramic industries keep their ground are Pesaro, Gubbio, Faenza (whose name long ago became the distinctive term for the finer kind of potter’s work in France, faïence), Savona and Albissola, Turin, Mondovi, Cuneo, Castellamonte, Milan, Brescia, Sassuolo, Imola, Rimini, Perugia, Castelli, &c. In all these the older styles, by which these places became famous in the 16th-18th centuries, have been revived. It is estimated that the total production of the finer wares amounts on the average to £400,000 per annum. The ruder branches of the art—the making of tiles and common wares—are pretty generally diffused.

The jeweller’s art received large encouragement in a country which had so many independent courts; but nowhere has it attained a fuller development than at Rome. A vast variety of trinkets—in coral, glass, lava, &c.—is exported from Italy, or carried away by the annual host of tourists. The copying of the paintings of the old masters is becoming an art industry of no small mercantile importance in some of the larger cities.

The production of mosaics is an industry still carried on with much success in Italy, which indeed ranks exceedingly high in the department. The great works of the Vatican are especially famous (more than 17,000 distinct tints are employed in their productions), and there are many other establishments in Rome. The Florentine mosaics are perhaps better known abroad; they are composed of larger pieces than the Roman. Those of the Venetian artists are remarkable for the boldness of their colouring. There is a tendency towards the fostering of feminine home industries—lace-making, linen-weaving, &c.

Condition of the Working Classes.—The condition of the numerous agricultural labourers (who constitute one-third of the population) is, except in some regions, hard, and in places absolutely miserable. Much light was thrown upon their position by the agricultural inquiry (inchiesta agraria) completed in 1884. The large numbers of emigrants, who are drawn chiefly from the rural classes, furnish another proof of poverty. The terms of agrarian contracts and leases (except in districts where mezzadria prevails in its essential form), are in many regions disadvantageous to the labourers, who suffer from the obligation to provide guarantees for payment of rent, for repayment of seed corn and for the division of products.

It was only at the close of the 19th century that the true cause of malaria—the conveyance of the infection by the bite of the Anopheles claviger—was discovered. This mosquito does Malaria. not as a rule enter the large towns; but low-lying coast districts and ill-drained plains are especially subject to it. Much has been done in keeping out the insects by fine wire netting placed on the windows and the doors of houses, especially in the railwaymen’s cottages. In 1902 the state took up the sale of quinine at a low price, manufacturing it at the central military pharmaceutical laboratory at Turin. Statistics show the difference produced by this measure.

The profit made by the state, which is entirely devoted to a special fund for means against malaria, amounted in these five years to £41,759. It has been established that two 3-grain pastilles a day are a sufficient prophylactic; and the proprietors of malarious estates and contractors for public works in malarious districts are bound by law to provide sufficient quinine for their workmen, death for want of this precaution coming under the provisions of the workmen’s compensation act. Much has also been, though much remains to be, done in the way of bonificamento, i.e. proper drainage and improvement of the (generally fertile) low-lying and hitherto malarious plains.

In Venetia the lives of the small proprietors and of the salaried peasants are often extremely miserable. There and in Lombardy the disease known as pellagra is most widely diffused. The disease is due to poisoning by micro-organisms produced by deteriorated maize, and can be combated by care in ripening, drying and storing the maize. The most recent statistics show the disease to be diminishing. Whereas in 1881 there were 104,067 (16.29 per 1000) peasants afflicted by the disease, in 1899 there were only 72,603 (10.30 per 1000) peasants, with a maximum of 39,882 (34.32 per 1000) peasants in Venetia, and 19,557 (12.90 per 1000) peasants in Lombardy. The decrease of the disease is a direct result of the efforts made to combat it, in the form of special hospitals or pellagrosari, economic kitchens, rural bakeries and maize-drying establishments. A bill for the better prevention of pellagra was introduced in the spring of 1902. The deaths from it dropped in that year to 2376, from 3054 in the previous year and 3788 in 1900.

In Liguria, on account of the comparative rarity of large estates, agricultural labourers are in a better condition. Men earn between 1s. 3d. and 2s. 1d. a day, and women from 5d. to 8d. In Emilia the day labourers, known as disobbligati, earn, on the contrary, low wages, out of which they have to provide for shelter and to lay by something against unemployment. Their condition is miserable. In Tuscany, however, the prevalence of mezzadria, properly so called, has raised the labourers’ position. Yet in some Tuscan provinces, as, for instance, that of Grosseto, where malaria rages, labourers are organized in gangs under “corporals,” who undertake harvest work. They are poverty-stricken, and easily fall victims to fever. In the Abruzzi and in Apulia both regular and irregular workmen are engaged by the year. The curatori or curatoli (factors) receive £40 a year, with a slight interest in the profits; the stockmen hardly earn in money and kind £13; the muleteers and under-workmen get between £5 to £8, plus firewood, bread and oil; irregular workmen have even lower wages, with a daily distribution of bread, salt and oil. In Campania and Calabria the curatoli and massari earn, in money and kind, about £12 a year; cowmen, shepherds and muleteers about £10; irregular workmen are paid from 8½d. to 1s. 8d. per day, but only find employment, on an average, 230 days in the year. The condition of Sicilian labourers is also miserable. The huge extent of the latifondi, or large estates, often results in their being left in the hands of speculators, who exploit both workmen and farmers with such usury that the latter are often compelled, at the end of a scanty year, to hand over their crops to the usurers before harvest. In Sardinia wage-earners are paid 10d. a day, with free shelter and an allotment for private cultivation. Irregular adult workmen earn between 10d. and 1s. 3d., and boys from 6d. to 10d. a day. Woodcutters and vine-waterers, however, sometimes earn as much as 3s. a day.

The peasants somewhat rarely use animal food—this is most largely used in Sardinia and least in Sicily—bread and polenta or macaroni and vegetables being the staple diet. Wine is the prevailing drink.

The condition of the workmen employed in manufactures has improved during recent years. Wages are higher, the cost of the prime necessaries of life is, as a rule, lower, though taxation on some of them is still enormous; so that the remuneration of work has improved. Taking into account the variations in wages and in the price of wheat, it may be calculated that the number of hours of work requisite to earn a sum equal to the price of a cwt. of wheat fell from 183 in 1871 to 73 in 1894. In 1898 it was 105, on account of the rise in the price of wheat, and since then up till 1902 it oscillated between 105 and 95.

Wages have risen from 22.6 centimes per hour (on an average) to 26.3 centimes, but not in all industries. In the mining and woollen industries they have fallen, but have increased in mechanical, chemical, silk and cotton industries. Wages vary greatly in different parts of Italy, according to the cost of the necessaries of life, the degree of development of working-class needs and the state of working-class organization, which in some places has succeeded in increasing the rates of pay. Women are, as a rule, paid less than men, and though their wages have also increased, the rise has been slighter than in the case of men. In some trades, for instance the silk trade, women earn little more than 10d. a day, and, for some classes of work, as little as 7d. and 4½d. The general improvement in sanitation has led to a corresponding improvement in the condition of the working classes, though much still remains to be done, especially in the south. On the other hand, it is generally the case that even in the most unpromising inn the bedding is clean.

The number of industrial strikes has risen from year to year, although, on account of the large number of persons involved in Strikes. some of them, the rise in the number of strikers has not always corresponded to the number of strikes. During the years 1900 and 1901 strikes were increasingly numerous, chiefly on account of the growth of Socialist and working-class organizations.

The greatest proportion of strikes takes place in northern Italy, especially Lombardy and Piedmont, where manufacturing industries are most developed. Textile, building and mining industries show the highest percentage of strikes, since they give employment to large numbers of men concentrated in single localities. Agricultural strikes, though less frequent than those in manufacturing industries, have special importance in Italy. They are most common in the north and centre, a circumstance which shows them to be promoted less by the more backward and more ignorant peasants than by the better-educated labourers of Lombardy and Emilia, among whom Socialist organizations are widespread. Since 1901 there have been, more than once, general strikes at Milan and elsewhere, and one in the autumn of 1905 caused great inconvenience throughout the country, and led to no effective result.

Although in some industrial centres the working-class movement has assumed an importance equal to that of other countries, there is no general working-class organization comparable to the English trade unions. Mutual benefit and co-operative societies serve the purpose of working-class defence or offence against the employers. In 1893, after many vicissitudes, the Italian Socialist Labour Party was founded, and has now become the Italian Socialist Party, in which the majority of Italian workmen enrol themselves. Printers and hat-makers, however, possess trade societies. In 1899 an agitation began for the organization of “Chambers of Labour,” intended to look after the technical education of workmen and to form commissions of arbitration in case of strikes. They act also as employment bureaux, and are often centres of political propaganda. At present such “chambers” exist in many Italian cities, while “leagues of improvement,” or of “resistance,” are rapidly spreading in the country districts. In many cases the action of these organizations has proved, at least temporarily, advantageous to the working classes.

Labour legislation is backward in Italy, on account of the late development of manufacturing industry and of working-class organization. On the 17th of April 1898 a species of Employers’ Liability Act compelled employers of more than five workmen in certain industries to insure their employees against accidents. On the 17th of July 1898 a national fund for the insurance of workmen against illness and old age was founded by law on the principle of optional registration. In addition to an initial endowment by the state, part of the annual income of the fund is furnished in various forms by the state (principally by making over a proportion of the profits of the Post Office Savings Bank), and part by the premiums of the workmen. The minimum annual premium is six lire for an annuity of one lira per day at the age of sixty, and insurance against sickness. The low level of wages in many trades and the jealousies of the “Chambers of Labour” and other working-class organizations impede rapid development.

A law came into operation in February 1908, according to which a weekly day of rest (with few exceptions) was established on Sunday in every case in which it was possible, and otherwise upon some other day of the week.

The French institution of Prudhommes was introduced into Italy in 1893, under the name of Collegi di Probiviri. The institution has not attained great vogue. Most of the colleges deal with matters affecting textile and mechanical industries. Each “college” is founded by royal decree, and consists of a president, with not fewer than ten and not more than twenty members. A conciliation bureau and a jury are elected to deal with disputes concerning wages, hours of work, labour contracts, &c., and have power to settle the disputes, without appeal, whenever the amounts involved do not exceed £8.

Provident institutions have considerably developed in Italy under the forms of savings banks, assurance companies Provident Institutions. and mutual benefit societies. Besides the Post Office Savings Bank and the ordinary savings banks, many co-operative credit societies and ordinary credit banks receive deposits of savings.

The greatest number of savings banks exists in Lombardy; Piedmont and Venetia come next. Campania holds the first place in the south, most of the savings of that region being deposited in the provident institutions of Naples. In Liguria and Sardinia the habit of thrift is less developed. Assurance societies in Italy are subject to the general dispositions of the commercial code regarding commercial companies. Mutual benefit societies have increased rapidly, both because their advantages have been appreciated, and because, until recently, the state had taken no steps directly to insure workmen against illness. The present Italian mutual benefit societies resemble the ancient beneficent corporations, of which in some respects they may be considered a continuation. The societies require government recognition if they wish to enjoy legal rights. The state (law of the 15th of April 1896) imposed this condition in order to determine exactly the aims of the societies, and, while allowing them to give help to their sick, old or feeble members, or aid the families of deceased members, to forbid them to pay old-age pensions, lest they assumed burdens beyond their financial strength. Nevertheless, the majority of societies have not sought recognition, being suspicious of fiscal state intervention.

Co-operation, for the various purposes of credit, distribution, production and labour, has attained great development in Italy. Credit co-operation is represented by a special type of association known as People’s Banks (Banche Popolari). Co-operation. They are not, as a rule, supported by workmen or peasants, but rather by small tradespeople, manufacturers and farmers. They perform a useful function in protecting their clients from the cruel usury which prevails, especially in the south. A recent form of co-operative credit banks are the Casse Rurali or rural banks, on the Raffeisen system, which lend money to peasants and small proprietors out of capital obtained on credit or by gift. These loans are made on personal security, but the members of the bank do not contribute any quota of the capital, though their liability is unlimited in case of loss. They are especially widespread in Lombardy and Venetia.

Distributive co-operation is confined almost entirely to Piedmont, Liguria, Lombardy, Venetia, Emilia and Tuscany, and is practically unknown in Basilicata, the Abruzzi and Sardinia.

Co-operative dairies are numerous. They have, however, much decreased in number since 1889. More numerous are the agricultural and viticultural co-operative societies, which have largely increased in number. They are to be found mainly in the fertile plains of north Italy, where they enjoy considerable success, removing the cause of labour troubles and strikes, and providing for cultivation on a sufficiently large scale. The richest, however, of the co-operative societies, though few in number, are those for the production of electricity, for textile industries and for ceramic and glass manufactures.

Co-operation in general is most widely diffused, in proportion to population, in central Italy; less so in northern Italy, and much less so in the south and the islands. It thus appears that co-operation flourishes most in the districts in which the mezzadria system has been prevalent.

Railways.—The first railway in Italy, a line 16 m. long from Naples to Castellammare, was opened in 1840. By 1881 there were some 5500 m. open, in 1891 some 8000 m., while in 1901 the total length was 9317 m. In July 1905 all the principal lines, which had been constructed by the state, but had been since 1885 let out to three companies (Mediterranean, Adriatic, Sicilian), were taken over by the state; their length amounted in 1901 to 6147 m., and in 1907 to 8422 m. The minor lines (many of them narrow gauge) remain in the hands of private companies. The total length, including the Sardinian railways, was 10,368 m. in 1907. The state, in taking over the railways, did not exercise sufficient care to see that the lines and the rolling stock were kept up to a proper state of efficiency and adequacy for the work they had to perform; while the step itself was taken somewhat hastily. The result was that for the first two years of state administration the service was distinctly bad, and the lack of goods trucks at the ports was especially felt. A capital expenditure of £4,000,000 annually was decided on to bring the lines up to the necessary state of efficiency to be able to cope with the rapidly increasing traffic. It was estimated in 1906 that this would have to be maintained for a period of ten years, with a further total expenditure of £14,000,000 on new lines.

Comparing the state of things in 1901 with that of 1881, for the whole country, we find the passenger and goods traffic almost doubled (except the cattle traffic), the capital expenditure almost doubled, the working expenses per mile almost imperceptibly increased, and the gross receipts per mile slightly lower. The personnel had increased from 70,568 to 108,690. The construction of numerous unremunerative lines, and the free granting of concessions to government and other employees (and also of cheap tickets on special occasions for congresses, &c., in various towns, without strict inquiry into the qualifications of the claimants) will account for the failure to realize a higher profit. The fares (in slow trains, with the addition of 10% for expenses) are: 1st class, 1.85d.; 2nd, 1.3d.; 3rd, 0.725d. per mile. There are, however, considerable reductions for distances over 93 m., on a scale increasing in proportion to the distance.

The taking over of the main lines by the state has of course produced a considerable change in the financial situation of the railways. The state incurred in this connexion a liability of some £20,000,000, of which about £16,000,000 represented the rolling stock. The state has considerably improved the engines and passenger carriages. The capital value of the whole of the lines, rolling stock, &c., for 1908-1909 was calculated approximately at £244,161,400, and the profits at £5,295,019, or 2.2%.

Milan is the most important railway centre in the country, and is followed by Turin, Genoa, Verona, Bologna, Rome, Naples. Lombardy and Piedmont are much better provided with railways in proportion to their area than any other parts of Italy; next come Venetia, Emilia and the immediate environs of Naples.

The northern frontier is crossed by the railway from Turin to Ventimiglia by the Col di Tenda, the Mont Cenis line from Turin to Modane (the tunnel is 7 m. in length), the Simplon line (tunnel 11 m. in length) from Domodossola to Brigue, the St Gotthard from Milan to Chiasso (the tunnel is entirely in Swiss territory), the Brenner from Verona to Trent, the line from Udine to Tarvis and the line from Venice to Triest by the Adriatic coast. Besides these international lines the most important are those from Milan to Turin (via Vercelli and via Alessandria), to Genoa via Tortona, to Bologna via Parma and Modena, to Verona, and the shorter lines to the district of the lakes of Lombardy; from Turin to Genoa via Savona and via Alessandria; from Genoa to Savona and Ventimiglia along the Riviera, and along the south-west coast of Italy, via Sarzana (whence a line runs to Parma) to Pisa (whence lines run to Pistoia and Florence) and Rome; from Verona to Modena, and to Venice via Padua; from Bologna to Padua, to Rimini (and thence along the north-east coast via Ancona, Castellammare Adriatico and Foggia to Brindisi and Otranto), and to Florence and Rome; from Rome to Ancona, to Castellammare Adriatico and to Naples; from Naples to Foggia, via Metaponto (with a junction for Reggio di Calabria), to Brindisi and to Reggio di Calabria. (For the Sicilian and Sardinian lines, see [Sicily] and [Sardinia].) The speed of the trains is not high, nor are the runs without stoppage long as a rule. One of the fastest runs is from Rome to Orte, 52.40 m. in 69 min., or 45.40 m. per hour, but this is a double line with little traffic. The low speed reduces the potentiality of the lines. The insufficiency of rolling stock, and especially of goods wagons, is mainly caused by delays in “handling” traffic consequent on this or other causes, among which may be mentioned the great length of the single lines south of Rome. It is thus a matter of difficulty to provide trucks for a sudden emergency, e.g. the vintage season; and in 1905-1907 complaints were many, while the seaports were continually short of trucks. This led to deficiencies in the supply of coal to the manufacturing centres, and to some diversion elsewhere of shipping.

Steam and Electric Tramways.—Tramways with mechanical traction have developed rapidly. Between 1875, when the first line was opened, and 1901, the length of the lines grew to 1890 m. of steam and 270 m. of electric tramways. These lines exist principally in Lombardy (especially in the province of Milan), in Piedmont, especially in the province of Turin, and in other regions of northern and central Italy. In the south they are rare, on account partly of the mountainous character of the country, and partly of the scarcity of traffic. All the important towns of Italy are provided with internal electric tramways, mostly with overhead wires.

Carriage-roads have been greatly extended in modern times, although their ratio to area varies in different localities. In north Italy there are 1480 yds. of road per sq. m.; in central Italy 993; in southern Italy 405; in Sardinia 596, and in Sicily only 244. They are as a rule well kept up in north and central Italy, less so in the south, where, especially in Calabria, many villages are inaccessible by road and have only footpaths leading to them. By the act of 1903 the state contributes half and the province a quarter of the cost of roads connecting communes with the nearest railway stations or landing places.

Inland Navigation.—Navigable canals had in 1886 a total length of about 655 m.; they are principally situated in Piedmont, Lombardy and Venetia, and are thus practically confined to the Po basin. Canals lead from Milan to the Ticino, Adda and Po. The Po is itself navigable from Turin downwards, but through its delta it is so sandy that canals are preferred, the Po di Volano and the Po di Primaro on the right, and the Canale Bianco on the left. The total length of navigable rivers is 967 m.

Posts, Telegraphs and Telephones.—The number of post offices (including collettorie, or collecting offices, which are rapidly being eliminated) increased from 2200 in 1862 to 4823 in 1881, 6700 in 1891 and 8817 in 1904. In spite of a large increase in the number of letters and post cards (i.e. nearly 10 per inhabitant per annum in 1904, as against 5.65 in 1888) the average is considerably below that of most other European countries. The number of state telegraph offices was 4603, of other offices (railway and tramway stations, which accept private telegrams for transmission) 1930. The telephone system is considerably developed; in 1904, 92 urban and 66 inter-urban systems existed. They were installed by private companies, but have been taken over by the state. International communication between Rome and Paris, and Italy and Switzerland also exists. The parcel post and money order services have largely increased since 1887-1888, the number of parcels having almost doubled (those for abroad are more than trebled), while the number of money orders issued is trebled and their value doubled (about £40,000,000). The value of the foreign orders paid in Italy increased from £1,280,000 to £2,356,000—owing to the increase of emigration and of the savings sent home by emigrants.

At the end of 1907 Italy was among the few countries that had not adopted the reduction of postage sanctioned at the Postal Union congress, held in Rome in 1906, by which the rates became 2½d. for the first oz., and 1½d. per oz. afterwards. The internal rate is 15c. (1½d.) per ½ oz.; post-cards 10c. (1d.), reply 15c. On the other hand, letters within the postal district are only 5c. (½d.) per ½ oz. Printed matter is 2c. (1⁄5d.) per 50 grammes (12⁄3 oz.). The regulations provide that if there is a greater weight of correspondence (including book-packets) than 1¼ ℔ for any individual by any one delivery, notice shall be given him that it is lying at the post office, he being then obliged to arrange for fetching it. Letters insured for a fixed sum are not delivered under any circumstances.

Money order cards are very convenient and cheap (up to 10 lire [8s.] for 10c. [1d.]), as they need not be enclosed in a letter, while a short private message can be written on them. Owing to the comparatively small amount of letters, it is found possible to have a travelling post office on all principal trains (while almost every train has a travelling sorter, for whom a compartment is reserved) without a late fee being exacted in either case. In the principal towns letters may be posted in special boxes at the head office just before the departure of any given mail train, and are conveyed direct to the travelling post office. Another convenient arrangement is the provision of letter-boxes on electric tram-cars in some cities.

Mercantile Marine.—Between the years 1881 and 1905 the number of ships entered and cleared at Italian ports decreased slightly (219,598 in 1881 and 208,737 in 1905), while their aggregate tonnage increased (32,070,704 in 1881 and 80,782,030 in 1905). In the movement of shipping, trade with foreign countries prevails (especially as regards arrivals) over trade between Italian ports. Most of the merchandise and passengers bound for and hailing from foreign ports sail under foreign flags. Similarly, foreign vessels prevail over Italian vessels in regard to goods embarked. European countries absorb the greater part of Italian sea-borne trade, whereas most of the passenger traffic goes to North and South America. The substitution of steamships for sailing vessels has brought about a diminution in the number of vessels belonging to the Italian mercantile marine, whether employed in the coasting trade, the fisheries or in traffic on the high seas. Thus:—

Among the steamers the increase has chiefly taken place in vessels of more than 1000 tons displacement, but the number of large sailing vessels has also increased. The most important Italian ports are (in order): Genoa, Naples, Palermo, Leghorn, Messina, Venice, Catania.

Foreign Trade.—Italian trade with foreign countries (imports and exports) during the quinquennium 1872-1876 averaged £94,000,000 a year; in the quinquennium 1893-1897 it fell to £88,960,000 a year. In 1898, however, the total rose to £104,680,000, but the increase was principally due to the extra importation of corn in that year. In 1899 it was nearly £120,000,000. Since 1899 there has been a steady increase both in imports and exports. Thus:—

* No account has here been taken of fluctuations of exchange.

The great extension of Italian coast-line is thought by some to be not really a source of strength to the Italian mercantile marine, as few of the ports have a large enough hinterland to provide them with traffic, and in this hinterland (except in the basin of the Po) there are no canals or navigable rivers. Another source of weakness is the fact that Italy is a country of transit and the Italian mercantile marine has to enter into competition with the ships of other countries, which call there in passing. A third difficulty is the comparatively small tonnage and volume of Italian exports relatively to the imports, the former in 1907 being about one-fourth of the latter, and greatly out of proportion to the relative value; while a fourth is the lack of facilities for handling goods, especially in the smaller ports.

The total imports for the first six months of 1907 amounted to £57,840,000, an increase of £7,520,000 as compared with the corresponding period of 1906. The exports for the corresponding period amounted to £35,840,000, a diminution of £1,520,000 as compared with the corresponding period of 1906. The diminution was due to a smaller exportation of raw silk and oil. The countries with which this trade is mainly carried on are: (imports) United Kingdom, Germany, United States, France, Russia and India; (exports) Switzerland, United States, Germany, France, United Kingdom and Argentina.

The most important imports are minerals, including coal and metals (both in pig and wrought); silks, raw, spun and woven; stone, potter’s earths, earthenware and glass; corn, flour and farinaceous products; cotton, raw, spun and woven; and live stock. The principal exports are silk and cotton tissues, live stock, wines, spirits and oils; corn, flour, macaroni and similar products; and minerals, chiefly sulphur. Before the tariff reform of 1887 manufactured articles, alimentary products and raw materials for manufacture held the principal places in the imports. In the exports, alimentary products came first, while raw materials for manufacture and manufactured articles were of little account. The transformation of Italy from a purely agricultural into a largely industrial country is shown by the circumstance that trade in raw stuffs, semi-manufactured and manufactured materials, now preponderates over that in alimentary products and wholly-manufactured articles, both the importation of raw materials and the exportation of manufactured articles having increased. The balance of Italian trade has undergone frequent fluctuations. The large predominance of imports over exports after 1884 was a result of the falling off of the export trade in live stock, olive oil and wine, on account of the closing of the French market, while the importation of corn from Russia and the Balkan States increased considerably. In 1894 the excess of imports over exports fell to £2,720,000, but by 1898 it had grown to £8,391,000, in consequence chiefly of the increased importation of coal, raw cotton and cotton thread, pig and cast iron, old iron, grease and oil-seeds for use in Italian industries. In 1899 the excess of imports over exports fell to £3,006,000; but since then it has never been less than £12,000,000.

Education.—Public instruction in Italy is regulated by the state, which maintains public schools of every grade, and requires that other public schools shall conform to the rules of the state schools. No private person may open a school without state authorization. Schools may be classed thus:—

1. Elementary, of two grades, of the lower of which there must legally be at least one for boys and one for girls in each commune; while the upper grade elementary school is required in communes having normal and secondary schools or over 4000 inhabitants. In both the instruction is free. They are maintained by the communes, sometimes with state help. The age limit is six to nine years for the lower grade, and up to twelve for the higher grade, attendance being obligatory at the latter also where it exists. 2. Secondary instruction (i.) classical in the ginnasi and licei, the latter leading to the universities; (ii.) technical. 3. Higher education—universities, higher institutes and special schools.

Of the secondary and higher educatory methods, in the normal schools and licei the state provides for the payment of the staff and for scientific material, and often largely supports the ginnasi and technical schools, which should by law be supported by the communes. The universities are maintained by the state and by their own ancient resources; while the higher special schools are maintained conjointly by the state, the province, the commune and (sometimes) the local chamber of commerce.

The number of persons unable to read and write has gradually decreased, both absolutely and in proportion to the number of inhabitants. The census of 1871 gave 73% of illiterates, that of 1881, 67%, and that of 1901, 56%, i.e. 51.8 for males and 60.8 for females. In Piedmont there were 17.7% of illiterates above six years (the lowest) and in Calabria 78.7% (the highest), the figures for the whole country being 48.5. As might be expected, progress has been most rapid wherever education, at the moment of national unification, was most widely diffused. For instance, the number of bridegrooms unable to write their names in 1872 was in the province of Turin 26%, and in the Calabrian province of Cosenza 90%; in 1899 the percentage in the province of Turin had fallen to 5%, while in that of Cosenza it was still 76%. Infant asylums (where the first rudiments of instruction are imparted to children between two and a half and six years of age) and elementary schools have increased in number. There has been a corresponding increase in the number of scholars. Thus:—

The teachers in 1901-1902 numbered 65,739 (exclusive of 576 non-teaching directors and 322 teachers of special subjects) or about 41.5 scholars per teacher.

The rate of increase in the public state-supported schools has been much greater than in the private schools. School buildings have been improved and the qualifications of teachers raised. Nevertheless, many schools are still defective, both from a hygienic and a teaching point of view; while the economic position of the elementary teachers, who in Italy depend upon the communal administrations and not upon the state, is still in many parts of the country extremely low.

The law of 1877 rendering education compulsory for children between six and nine years of age has been the principal cause of the spread of elementary education. The law is, however, imperfectly enforced for financial reasons. In 1901-1902 only 65% out of the whole number of children between six and nine years of age were registered in the lower standards of the elementary and private schools. The evening schools have to some extent helped to spread education. Their number and that of their scholars have, however, decreased since the withdrawal of state subsidies. In 1871-1872 there were 375,947 scholars at the evening schools and 154,585 at the holiday schools, while in 1900-1901 these numbers had fallen to 94,510 and 35,460 respectively. These are, however, the only institutions in which a decrease is shown, and by the law of 1906 5000 of these institutions are to be provided in the communes where the proportion of illiterates is highest. In 1895 they numbered 4245, with 138,181 scholars. Regimental schools impart elementary education to illiterate soldiers. Whereas the levy of 1894 showed 40% of the recruits to be completely illiterate, only 27% were illiterate when the levy was discharged in 1897. Private institutions and working-class associations have striven to improve the intellectual conditions of the working classes. Popular universities have lately attained considerable development. The number of institutes devoted to secondary education remained almost unchanged between 1880-1881 and 1895-1896. In some places the number has even been diminished by the suppression of private educational institutes. But the number of scholars has considerably increased, and shows a ratio superior to the general increase of the population. The greatest increase has taken place in technical education, where it has been much more rapid than in classical education. There are three higher commercial schools, with academic rank, at Venice, Genoa and Bari, and eleven secondary commercial schools; and technical and commercial schools for women at Florence and Milan. The number of agricultural schools has also grown, although the total is relatively small when compared with population. The attendance at the various classes of secondary schools in 1882 and 1902 is shown by the following table:—

The schools which do not obtain equality with government schools are either some of those conducted by religious orders, or else those in which a sufficient standard is not reached. The total number of such schools was, in 1896, 742 with 33,813 pupils.

The pupils of the secondary schools reach a maximum of 6.60 per 1000 in Liguria and 5.92 in Latium, and a minimum of 2.30 in the Abruzzi, 2.27 in Calabria and 1.65 in Basilicata.

For the boarding schools, or convitti, there are only incomplete reports except for the institutions directly dependent on the ministry of public instruction, which are comparatively few. The rest are largely directed by religious institutions. In 1895-1896 there were 919 convitti for boys, with 59,066 pupils, of which 40, with 3814 pupils, were dependent on the ministry (in 1901-1902 there were 43 of these with 4036 pupils); and 1456 for girls, with 49,367 pupils, of which only 8, with about 600 pupils, were dependent on the ministry.

The scuole normali or training schools (117 in number, of which 75 were government institutions) for teachers had 1329 male students in 1901-1902, showing hardly any increase, while the female students increased from 8005 in 1882-1883 to 22,316 in 1895-1896, but decreased to 19,044 in 1901-1902, owing to the admission of women to telegraph and telephone work. The female secondary schools in 1881-1882 numbered 77, of which 7 were government institutions, with 3569 pupils; in 1901-1902 there were 233 schools (9 governmental) with 9347 pupils.

The total attendance of students in the various faculties at the different universities and higher institutes is as follows:—

Thus a large all-round increase in secondary and higher education is shown—satisfactory in many respects, but showing that more young men devote themselves to the learned professions (especially to the law) than the economic condition of the country will justify. There are 21 universities—Bologna, Cagliari, Camerino, Catania, Ferrara, Genoa, Macerata, Messina, Modena, Naples, Padua, Palermo, Parma, Pavia, Perugia, Pisa, Rome, Sassari, Siena, Turin, Urbino, of which Camerino, Ferrara, Perugia and Urbino are not state institutions; university courses are also given at Aquila, Bari and Catanzaro. Of these the most frequented in 1904-1905 were: Naples (4745), Turin (3451), Rome (2630), Bologna (1711), Pavia (1559), Padua (1364), Genoa (1276), and the least frequented, Cagliari (254), Siena (235) and Sassari (200). The professors are ordinary and extraordinary, and free professors (liberi docenti), corresponding to the German Privatdozenten, are also allowed to be attached to the universities.

The institutions which co-operate with the universities are the special schools for engineers at Turin, Naples, Rome and Bologna (and others attached to some of the universities), the higher technical institute at Milan, the higher veterinary schools of Milan, Naples and Turin, the institute for higher studies at Florence (Istituto di studi superiori, pratici e di perfezionamento), the literary and scientific academy of Milan, the higher institutes for the training of female teachers at Florence and Rome, the Institute of Social Studies at Florence, the higher commercial schools at Venice, Bari and Genoa, the commercial university founded by L. Bocconi at Milan in 1902, the higher naval school at Genoa, the higher schools of agriculture at Milan and Portici, the experimental institute at Perugia, the school of forestry at Vallambrosa, the industrial museum at Turin. The special secondary institutions, distinct from those already reckoned under the universities and allied schools, include an Oriental institute at Naples with 243 pupils; 34 schools of agriculture with (1904-1905) 1925 students; 2 schools of mining (at Caltanisetta and Iglesias) with (1904-1905) 83 students; 308 industrial and commercial schools with (1903-1904) 46,411 students; 174 schools of design and moulding with (1898) 12,556 students; 13 government fine art institutes (1904-1905) with 2778 students and 13 non-government with 1662 students; 5 government institutes of music with 1026 students, and 51 non-government with 4109 pupils (1904-1905). Almost all of these show a considerable increase.

Libraries are numerous in Italy, those even of small cities being often rich in manuscripts and valuable works. Statistics collected in 1893-1894 and 1896 revealed the existence of 1831 libraries, either private (but open to the public) or completely public. The public libraries have been enormously increased since 1870 by the incorporation of the treasures of suppressed monastic institutions. The richest in manuscripts is that of the Vatican, especially since the purchase of the Barberini Library in 1902; it now contains over 34,000 MSS. The Vatican archives are also of great importance. Most large towns contain important state or communal archives, in which a considerable amount of research is being done by local investigators; the various societies for local history (Società di Storia Patria) do very good work and issue valuable publications; the treasures which the archives contain are by no means exhausted. Libraries and archives are under the superintendence of the Ministry of Public Instruction. A separate department of this ministry under a director-general has the charge of antiquities and fine arts, making archaeological excavations and supervising those undertaken by private persons (permission to foreigners, even to foreign schools, to excavate in Italy is rarely granted), and maintaining the numerous state museums and picture galleries. The exportation of works of art and antiquities from Italy without leave of the ministry is forbidden (though it has in the past been sometimes evaded). An inventory of those subjects, the exportation of which can in no case be permitted, has been prepared; and the ministry has at its disposal a fund of £200,000 for the purchase of important works of art of all kinds.

Charities.—In Italy there is no legal right in the poor to be supported by the parish or commune, nor any obligation on the commune to relieve the poor—except in the case of forsaken children and the sick poor. Public charity is exercised through the permanent charitable foundations (opere pie), which are, however, very unequally distributed in the different provinces. The districts of Italy which show between 1881 and 1903 the greatest increase of new institutions, or of gifts to old ones, are Lombardy, Piedmont, Liguria, while Sardinia, Calabria and Basilicata stand lowest, Latium standing comparatively low.

The patrimony of Italian charitable institutions is considerable and is constantly increasing. In 1880 the number of charitable institutions (exclusive of public pawnshops, or Monti di Pietà, and other institutions which combine operations of credit with charity) was approximately 22,000, with an aggregate patrimony of nearly £80,000,000. The revenue was about £3,600,000; after deduction of taxes, interest on debts, expenses of management, &c., £2,080,000. Adding to this £1,240,000 of communal and provincial subsidies, the product of the labour of inmates, temporary subscriptions, &c., the net revenue available for charity was, during 1880, £3,860,000. Of this sum £260,000 was spent for religious purposes. Between 1881 and 1905 the bequests to existing institutions and sums left for the endowment of new institutions amounted to about £16,604,600.

Charitable institutions take, as a rule, the two forms of outdoor and indoor relief and attendance. The indoor institutions are the more important in regard to endowment, and consist of hospitals for the infirm (a number of these are situated at the seaside); of hospitals for chronic and incurable diseases; of orphan asylums; of poorhouses and shelters for beggars; of infant asylums or institutes for the first education of children under six years of age; of lunatic asylums; of homes for the deaf and dumb; and of institutes for the blind. The outdoor charitable institutions include those which distribute help in money or food; those which supply medicine and medical help; those which aid mothers unable to rear their own children; those which subsidize orphans and foundlings; those which subsidize educational institutes; and those which supply marriage portions. Between 1881 and 1898 the chief increases took place in the endowments of hospitals; orphan asylums; infant asylums; poorhouses; almshouses; voluntary workhouses; and institutes for the blind. The least creditably administered of these are the asylums for abandoned infants; in 1887, of a total of 23,913, 53.77% died; while during the years 1893-1896 (no later statistics are available) of 117,970 51.72% died. The average mortality under one year for the whole of Italy in 1893-1896 was only 16.66%.

Italian charity legislation was reformed by the laws of 1862 and 1890, which attempted to provide efficacious protection for endowments, and to ensure the application of the income to the purposes for which it was intended. The law considers as “charitable institutions” (opere pie) all poorhouses, almshouses and institutes which partly or wholly give help to able-bodied or infirm paupers, or seek to improve their moral and economic condition; and also the Congregazioni di carità (municipal charity boards existing in every commune, and composed of members elected by the municipal council), which administer funds destined for the poor in general. All charitable institutions were under the protection of provincial administrative junta, existing in every province, and empowered to control the management of charitable endowments. The supreme control was vested in the minister of the Interior. The law of 1890 also empowers every citizen to appeal to the tribunals on behalf of the poor, for whose benefit a given charitable institution may have been intended. A more recent law provides for the formation of a central body, with provincial commissions under it. Its effect, however, has been comparatively small.

Public pawnshops or Monti di pietà numbered 555 in 1896, with a net patrimony of £2,879,625. In that year their income, including revenue from capital, was £416,385, and their expenditure £300,232. The amount lent on security was £4,153,229.

The Monti frumentarii or co-operative corn deposits, which lend seed corn to farmers, and are repaid after harvest with interest in kind, numbered 1615 in 1894, and possessed a patrimony of £240,000.

In addition to the regular charitable institutions, the communal and provincial authorities exercise charity, the former (in 1899) to the extent of £1,827,166 and the latter to the extent of £919,832 per annum. Part of these sums is given to hospitals, and part spent directly by the communal and provincial authorities. Of the sum spent by the communes, about ½ goes for the sanitary service (doctors, midwives, vaccination), 1⁄8 for the maintenance of foundlings, 1⁄10 for the support of the sick in hospitals, and 1⁄22 for sheltering the aged and needy. Of the sum spent by the provincial authorities, over half goes to lunatic asylums and over a quarter to the maintenance of foundling hospitals.

Religion.—The great majority of Italians—97.12%—are Roman Catholics. Besides the ordinary Latin rite, several others are recognized. The Armenians of Venice maintain their traditional characteristics. The Albanians of the southern provinces still employ the Greek rite and the Greek language in their public worship, and their priests, like those of the Greek Church, are allowed to marry. Certain peculiarities introduced by St Ambrose distinguish the ritual of Milan from that of the general church. Up to 1871 the island of Sicily was, according to the bull of Urban II., ecclesiastically dependent on the king, and exempt from the canonical power of the pope.

Though the territorial authority of the papal see was practically abolished in 1870, the fact that Rome is the seat of the administrative centre of the vast organization of the church is not without significance to the nation. In the same city in which the administrative functions of the body politic are centralized there still exists the court of the spiritual potentate which in 1879 consisted of 1821 persons. Protestants number some 65,000, of whom half are Italian and half foreign. Of the former 22,500 are Waldensians. The number of Jews was returned as 36,000, but is certainly higher. There are, besides, in Italy some 2500 members of the Greek Orthodox Church. There were in 1901 20,707 parishes in Italy, 68,444 secular clergy and 48,043 regulars (monks, lay brothers and nuns). The size of parishes varies from province to province, Sicily having larger parishes in virtue of the old Sicilian church laws, and Naples, and some parts of central Italy, having the smallest. The Italian parishes had in 1901 a total gross revenue, including assignments from the public worship endowment fund, of £1,280,000 or an average of £63 per parish; 51% of this gross sum consists of revenue from glebe lands.

The kingdom is divided into 264 sees and ten abbeys, or prelatures nullius dioceseos. The dioceses are as follows:—

A. 6 suburbicarian sees—Ostia and Velletri, Porto and Sta Rufina, Albano, Frascati, Palestrina, Sabina—all held by cardinal bishops.

B. 74 sees immediately subject to the Holy See, of which 12 are archiepiscopal and 61 episcopal.

C. 37 ecclesiastical provinces, each under a metropolitan, composed of 148 suffragan dioceses. Their position is indicated in the following table:—

Twelve archbishops and sixty-one bishops are independent of all metropolitan supervision, and hold directly of the Holy See. The archbishops are those of Amalfi, Aquila, Camerino and Treia, Catania, Cosenza, Ferrara, Gaeta, Lucca, Perugia, Rossano, Spoleto, and Udine, and the bishops those of Acireale, Acquapendente, Alatri, Amelia, Anagni, Ancona-Umana, Aquino-Sora-Pontecorvo, Arezzo, Ascoli, Assisi, Aversa, Bagnorea, Borgo San Donnino, Cava-Sarno, Città di Castello, Città della Pieve, Cività Castellana-Orte-Gallese, Corneto-Civita Vecchia, Cortona, Fabriano-Matelica, Fano, Ferentino, Foggia, Foligno, Gravina-Montepeloso, Gubbio, Jesi, Luni-Sarzana and Bragnato, S. Marco-Bisignano, Marsi (Pescina), Melfi-Rapolla, Mileto, Molfetta-Terlizzi-Giovennazzo, Monopoli, Montalcino, Montefiascone, Montepulciano, Nardo, Narni, Nocera in Umbria, Norcia, Orvieto, Osimo-Cingoli, Parma, Penne-Atri, Piacenza, Poggio Mirteto, Recanati-Loreto, Rieti, Segni, Sutri-Nepi, Teramo, Terni, Terracina-Piperno-Sezze, Tivoli, Todi, Trivento, Troia, Valva-Sulmona, Veroli, Viterbo-Toscanella. Excluding the diocese of Rome and suburbicarian sees, each see has an average area of 430 sq. m. and a population of 121,285 souls. The largest sees exist in Venetia and Lombardy, and the smallest in the provinces of Naples, Leghorn, Forlì, Ancona, Pesaro, Urbino, Caserta, Avellino and Ascoli. The Italian sees (exclusive of Rome and of the suburbicarian sees) have a total annual revenue of £206,000 equal to an average of £800 per see. The richest is that of Girgenti, with £6304, and the poorest that of Porto Maurizio, with only £246. In each diocese is a seminary or diocesan school.

In 1855 an act was passed in the Sardinian states for the disestablishment of all houses of the religious orders not engaged in preaching, teaching or the care of the sick, of all chapters of collegiate churches not having a cure of souls or existing Religious Foundations. in towns of less than 20,000 inhabitants, and of all private benefices for which no service was paid by the holders. The property and money thus obtained were used to form an ecclesiastical fund (Cassa Ecclesiastica) distinct from the finances of the state. This act resulted in the suppression of 274 monasteries with 3733 friars, of 61 nunneries with 1756 nuns and of 2722 chapters and benefices. In 1860 and 1861 the royal commissioners (even before the constitution of the new kingdom of Italy had been formally declared) issued decrees by which there were abolished—(1) in Umbria, 197 monasteries and 102 convents with 1809 male and 2393 female associates, and 836 chapters or benefices; (2) in the Marches, 292 monasteries and 127 convents with 2950 male and 2728 female associates; (3) in the Neapolitan provinces, 747 monasteries and 275 convents with 8787 male and 7493 female associates. There were thus disestablished in seven or eight years 2075 houses of the regular clergy occupied by 31,649 persons; and the confiscated property yielded a revenue of £398,298. And at the same time there had been suppressed 11,889 chapters and benefices of the secular clergy, which yielded an annual income of £199,149. The value of the capital thus potentially freed was estimated at £12,000,000; though hitherto the ecclesiastical possessions in Lombardy, Emilia, Tuscany and Sicily had been untouched. As yet the Cassa Ecclesiastica had no right to dispose of the property thus entrusted to it; but in 1862 an act was passed by which it transferred all its real property to the national domain, and was credited with a corresponding amount by the exchequer. The property could now be disposed of like the other property of the domain; and except in Sicily, where the system of emphyteusis was adopted, the church lands began to be sold by auction. To encourage the poorer classes of the people to become landholders, it was decided that the lots offered for sale should be small, and that the purchaser should be allowed to pay by five or ten yearly instalments. By a new act in 1866 the process of secularization was extended to the whole kingdom. All the members of the suppressed communities received full exercise of all the ordinary political and civil rights of laymen; and annuities were granted to all those who had taken permanent religious vows prior to the 18th of January 1864. To priests and choristers, for example, of the proprietary or endowed orders were assigned £24 per annum if they were upwards of sixty years of age, £16 if upwards of 40, and £14, 8s. if younger. The Cassa Ecclesiastica was abolished, and in its stead was instituted a Fondo pel Culto, or public worship fund. From the general confiscation were exempted the buildings actually used for public worship, as episcopal residences or seminaries, &c., or which had been appropriated to the use of schools, poorhouses, hospitals, &c.; as well as the buildings, appurtenances, and movable property of the abbeys of Monte Casino, Della Cava dei Tirreni, San Martino della Scala, Monreale, Certosa near Pavia, and other establishments of the same kind of importance as architectural or historical monuments. An annuity equal to the ascertained revenue of the suppressed institutions was placed to the credit of the fund in the government 5% consols. A fourth of this sum was to be handed to the communes to be employed on works of beneficence or education as soon as a surplus was obtained from that part of the annuity assigned for the payment of monastic pensions; and in Sicily, 209 communes entered on their privileges as soon as the patrimony was liquidated. Another act in 1867 decreed the suppression of certain foundations which had escaped the action of previous measures, put an extraordinary tax of 30% on the whole of the patrimony of the church, and granted the government the right of issuing 5% bonds sufficient to bring into the treasury £16,000,000, which were to be accepted at their nominal value as purchase money for the alienated property. The public worship endowment fund has relieved the state exchequer of the cost of public worship; has gradually furnished to the poorer parish priests an addition to their stipends, raising them to £32 per annum, with the prospect of further raising them to £40; and has contributed to the outlay incurred by the communes for religious purposes. The monastic buildings required for public purposes have been made over to the communal and provincial authorities, while the same authorities have been entrusted with the administration of the ecclesiastical revenues previously set apart for charity and education, and objects of art and historical interest have been consigned to public libraries and museums. By these laws the reception of novices was forbidden in the existing conventual establishments the extinction of which had been decreed, and all new foundations were forbidden, except those engaged in instruction and the care of the sick. But the laws have not been rigorously enforced of late years; and the ecclesiastical possessions seized by the state were thrown on the market simultaneously, and so realized very low prices, being often bought up by wealthy religious institutions. The large number of these institutions was increased when these bodies were expelled from France.

On the 30th of June 1903 the patrimony of the endowment fund amounted to £17,339,040, of which only £264,289 were represented by buildings still occupied by monks or nuns. The rest was made up of capital and interest. The liabilities of the fund (capitalized) amounted to £10,668,105, of which monastic pensions represented a rapidly diminishing sum of £2,564,930. The chief items of annual expenditure drawn from the fund are the supplementary stipends to priests and the pensions to members of suppressed religious houses. The number of persons in receipt of monastic pensions on the 30th of June 1899 was 13,255; but while this item of expenditure will disappear by the deaths of those entitled to pensions, the supplementary stipends and contributions are gradually increasing. The following table shows the course of the two main categories of the fund from 1876 to 1902-1903:—

Roman Charitable and Religious Fund.—The law of the 19th of June 1873 contained special provisions, in conformity with the character of Rome as the seat of the papacy, and with the situation created by the Law of Guarantees. According to the census of 1871 there were in the city and province of Rome 474 monastic establishments (311 for monks, 163 for nuns), occupied by 4326 monks and 3825 nuns, and possessing a gross revenue of 4,780,891 lire. Of these, 126 monasteries and 90 convents were situated in the city, 51 monasteries and 22 convents in the “suburbicariates.” The law of 1873 created a special charitable and religious fund of the city, while it left untouched 23 monasteries and 49 convents which had either the character of private institutions or were supported by foreign funds. New parishes were created, old parishes were improved, the property of the suppressed religious corporations was assigned to charitable and educational institutions and to hospitals, while property having no special application was used to form a charitable and religious fund. On the 30th of June 1903 the balance-sheet of this fund showed a credit amounting to £1,796,120 and a debit of £460,819. Expenditure for the year 1902-1903 was £889,858 and revenue £818,674.

Constitution and Government.—The Vatican palace itself (with St Peter’s), the Lateran palace, and the papal villa at Castel Gandolfo have secured to them the privilege of extraterritoriality by the law of 1871. The small republic of San Marino is the only other enclave in Italian territory. Italy is a constitutional monarchy, in which the executive power belongs exclusively to the sovereign, while the legislative power is shared by him with the parliament. He holds supreme command by land and sea, appoints ministers and officials, promulgates the laws, coins money, bestows honours, has the right of pardoning, and summons and dissolves the parliament. Treaties with foreign powers, however, must have the consent of parliament. The sovereign is irresponsible, the ministers, the signature of one of whom is required to give validity to royal decrees, being responsible. Parliament consists of two chambers, the senate and the Chamber of Deputies, which are nominally on an equal footing, though practically the elective chamber is the more important. The senate consists of princes of the blood who have attained their majority, and of an unlimited number of senators above forty years of age, who are qualified under any one of twenty-one specified categories—by having either held high office, or attained celebrity in science, literature, &c. In 1908 there were 318 senators exclusive of five members of the royal family. Nomination is by the king for life. Besides its legislative functions, the senate is the highest court of justice in the case of political offences or the impeachment of ministers. The deputies to the lower house are 508 in number, i.e. one to every 64,893 of the population, and all the constituencies are single-member constituencies. The party system is not really strong. The suffrage is extended to all citizens over twenty-one years of age who can read and write and have either attained a certain standard of elementary education or are qualified by paying a rent which varies from £6 in communes of 2500 inhabitants to £16 in communes of 150,000 inhabitants, or, if peasant farmers, 16s. of rent; or by being sharers in the profits of farms on which not less than £3, 4s. of direct (including provincial) taxation is paid; or by paying not less than £16 in direct (including provincial) taxation. Others, e.g. members of the professional classes, are qualified to vote by their position. The number of electors (2,541,327) at the general election in 1904 was 29% of the male population over twenty-one years of age, and 7.6% of the total population—exclusive of those temporarily disfranchised on account of military service; and of these 62.7% voted. No candidate can be returned unless he obtains more than half the votes given and more than one-sixth of the total number on the register; otherwise a second ballot must be held. Nor can he be returned under the age of thirty, and he must be qualified as an elector. All salaried government officials (except ministers, under-secretaries of state and other high functionaries, and officers in the army or navy), and ecclesiastics, are disqualified for election. Senators and deputies receive no salary but have free passes on railways throughout Italy and on certain lines of steamers. Parliaments are quinquennial, but the king may dissolve the Chamber of Deputies at any time, being bound, however, to convoke a new chamber within four months. The executive must call parliament together annually. Each of the chambers has the right of introducing new bills, as has also the government; but all money bills must originate in the Chamber of Deputies. The consent of both chambers and the assent of the king is necessary to their being passed. Ministers may attend the debates of either house but can only vote in that of which they are members. The sittings of both houses are public, and an absolute majority of the members must be present to make a sitting valid. The ministers are eleven in number and have salaries of about £1000 each; the presidency of the council of ministers (created in 1889) may be held by itself or (as is usual) in conjunction with any other portfolio. The ministries are: interior (under whom are the prefects of the several provinces), foreign affairs, treasury (separated from finance in 1889), finance, public works, justice and ecclesiastical affairs, war, marine, public instruction, commerce, industry and agriculture, posts and telegraphs (separated from public works in 1889). Each minister is aided by an under-secretary of state at a salary of £500. There is a council of state with advisory functions, which can also decide certain questions of administration, especially applications from local authorities and conflicts between ministries, and a court of accounts, which has the right of examining all details of state expenditure. In every country the bureaucracy is abused, with more or less reason, for unprogressiveness, timidity and “red-tape,” and Italy is no exception to the rule. The officials are not well paid, and are certainly numerous; while the manifold checks and counterchecks have by no means always been sufficient to prevent dishonesty.

Titles of Honour.—The former existence of so many separate sovereignties and “fountains of honour” gave rise to a great many hereditary titles of nobility. Besides many hundreds of princes, dukes, marquesses, counts, barons and viscounts, there are a large number of persons of “patrician” rank, persons with a right to the designation nobile or signori, and certain hereditary knights or cavalieri. In the “Golden Book of the Capitol” (Libro d’Oro del Campidoglio) are inscribed 321 patrician families, and of these 28 have the title of prince and 8 that of duke, while the others are marquesses, counts or simply patricians. For the Italian orders of knighthood see [Knighthood and Chivalry]: Orders of Knighthood. The king’s uncle is duke of Aosta, his son is prince of Piedmont and his cousin is duke of Genoa.

Justice.—The judiciary system of Italy is mainly framed on the French model. Italy has courts of cassation at Rome, Naples, Palermo, Turin, Florence, 20 appeal court districts, 162 tribunal districts and 1535 mandamenti, each with its own magistracy (pretura). In 13 of the principal towns there are also pretori who have exclusively penal jurisdiction. For minor civil cases involving sums up to 100 lire (£4), giudici conciliatori have also jurisdiction, while they may act as arbitrators up to any amount by request. The Roman court of cassation is the highest, and in both penal and civil matters has a right to decide questions of law and disputes between the lower judicial authorities, and is the only one which has jurisdiction in penal cases, while sharing with the others the right to revise civil cases.

The pretori have penal jurisdiction concerning all misdemeanours (contravvenzioni) or offences (delitti) punishable by imprisonment not exceeding three months or by fine not exceeding 1000 lire (£40). The penal tribunals have jurisdiction in cases involving imprisonment up to ten years, or a fine exceeding £40, while the assize courts, with a jury, deal with offences involving imprisonment for life or over ten years, and have exclusive jurisdiction (except that the senate is on occasion a high court of justice) over all political offences. Appeal may be made from the sentences of the pretori to the tribunals, and from the tribunals to the courts of appeal; from the assize courts there is no appeal except on a point of form, which appeal goes to the court of cassation at Rome. This court has the supreme power in all questions of legality of a sentence, jurisdiction or competency.

The penal code was unified and reformed in 1890. A reform of late years is the condanna condizionale, equivalent to the English “being bound over to appear for judgment if called upon,” applied in 94,489 cases in 1907. In civil matters there is appeal from the giudice conciliatore to the pretore (who has jurisdiction up to a sum of 1500 lire = £60) from the pretore to the civil tribunal, from the civil tribunal to the court of appeal, and from the court of appeal to the court of cassation.

The judges of all kinds are very poorly paid. Even the first president of the Rome court of cassation only receives £600 a year.

The statistics of civil proceedings vary considerably from province to province. Lombardy, with 25 lawsuits per 1000 inhabitants, holds the lowest place; Emilia comes next with 31 per 1000; Tuscany has 39; Venetia, 42; Calabria, 144; Rome, 146; Apulia, 153; and Sardinia, 360 per 1000. The high average in Sardinia is chiefly due to cases within the competence of the conciliation offices. The number of penal proceedings, especially those within the competence of praetors, has also increased, chiefly on account of the frequency of minor contraventions of the law referred to in the section Crime. The ratio of criminal proceedings to population is, as a rule, much higher in the south than in the north.

A royal decree, dated February 1891, established three classes of prisons: judiciary prisons, for persons awaiting examination or persons sentenced to arrest, detention or seclusion for less than six months; penitentiaries of various kinds (ergastoli, case di reclusione, detenzione or custodia), for criminals condemned to long terms of imprisonment; and reformatories, for criminals under age and vagabonds. Capital punishment was abolished in 1877, penal servitude for life being substituted. This generally involves solitary confinement of the most rigorous nature, and, as little is done to occupy the mind, the criminal not infrequently becomes insane. Certain types of dangerous individuals are relegated after serving a sentence in the ordinary convict prisons, and by administrative, not by judicial process, to special penal colonies known as domicilii coatti or “forced residences.” These establishments are, however, unsatisfactory, being mostly situated on small islands, where it is often difficult to find work for the coatti, who are free by day, being only confined at night. They receive a small and hardly sufficient, allowance for food of 50 centesimi a day, which they are at liberty to supplement by work if they can find it or care to do it.

Notwithstanding the construction of new prisons and the transformation of old ones, the number of cells for solitary confinement is still insufficient for a complete application of the penal system established by the code of 1890, and the moral effect of the association of the prisoners is not good, though the system of solitary confinement as practised in Italy is little better. The total number of prisoners, including minors and inhabitants of enforced residences, which from 76,066 (2.84 per 1000 inhabitants) on the 31st of December 1871 rose to a maximum of 80,792 on the 31st of December 1879 (2.87 per 1000), decreased to a minimum of 60,621 in 1896 (1.94 per 1000), and on the 31st of December 1898 rose again to 75,470 (2.38 per 1000), of whom 7038, less than one-tenth, were women. The lowness of the figures regarding women is to be noticed throughout. On the 31st of December 1903 it had decreased to 65,819, of which 6044 were women. Of these, 31,219 were in lockups, 25,145 in penal establishments, 1837 minors in government, and 4547 in private reformatories, and 3071 (males) were inmates of forced residences.

Crime.—Statistics of offences, including contravvenzioni or breaches of by-laws and regulations, exhibit a considerable increase per 100,000 inhabitants since 1887, and only a slight diminution on the figures of 1897. The figure was 1783.45 per 100,000 in 1887, 2164.46 in 1892, 2546.49 in 1897, 2497.90 in 1902. The increase is partly covered by contravvenzioni, but almost every class of penal offence shows a rise except homicide, and even in that the diminution is slow, 5418 in 1880, 3966 in 1887, 4408 in 1892, 4005 in 1897, 3202 in 1902; and Italy remains, owing to the frequent use of the knife, the European country in which it is most frequent. Libels, insults, &c., resistance to public authority, offences against good customs, thefts and frauds, have increased; assaults are nearly stationary. There is also an increase in juvenile delinquency. From 1890 to 1900 the actual number rose by one-third (from 30,108 to 43,684), the proportion to the rest of those sentenced from one-fifth to one-fourth; while in 1905 the actual number rose to 67,944, being a considerable proportionate rise also. In Naples, the Camorra and in Sicily, the Mafia are secret societies whose power of resistance to authority is still not inconsiderable.

Procedure, both civil and criminal, is somewhat slow, and the preliminary proceedings before the juge d’instruction occupy much time; and recent murder trials, by the large number of witnesses called (including experts) and the lengthy speeches of counsel, have been dragged out to an unconscionable length. In this, as in the intervention of the presiding judge, the French system has been adopted; and it is said (e.g. by Nathan, Vent’ anni di vita italiana, p. 241) that the efforts of the juge d’instruction are, as a rule, in fact, though not in law, largely directed to prove that the accused is guilty. In 1902 of 884,612 persons accused of penal offences, 13.12% were acquitted during the period of the instruction, 30.31 by the courts, 46.32 condemned and the rest acquitted in some other way. This shows that charges, often involving preliminary imprisonment, are brought against an excessive proportion of persons who either are not or cannot be proved to be guilty. The courts of appeal and cassation, too, often have more than they can do; in the year 1907 the court of cassation at Rome decided 948 appeals on points of law in civil cases, while no fewer than 460 remained to be decided.

As in most civilized countries, the number of suicides in Italy has increased from year to year.

The Italian suicide rate of 63.6 per 1,000,000 is, however, lower than those of Denmark, Switzerland, Germany and France, while it approximates to that of England. The Italian rate is highest in the more enlightened and industrial north, and lowest in the south. Emilia gives a maximum rate of 10.48 per 100,000, while that of Liguria and Lazio is little lower. The minimum of 1.27 is found in the Basilicata, though Calabria gives only 2.13. About 20% of the total are women, and there is an increase of nearly 3% since 1882 in the proportion of suicides under twenty years of age.

Army.—The Italian army grew out of the old Piedmontese army with which in the main the unification of Italy was brought about. This unification meant for the army the absorption of contingents from all parts of Italy and presenting serious differences in physical and moral aptitudes, political opinions and education. Moreover the strategic geography of the country required the greater part of the army to be stationed permanently within reach of the north-eastern and north-western frontiers. These conditions made a territorial system of recruiting or organization, as understood in Germany, practically impossible. To secure fairly uniform efficiency in the various corps, and also as a means of unifying Italy, Piedmontese, Umbrians and Neapolitans are mixed in the same corps and sleep in the same barrack room. But on leaving the colours the men disperse to their homes, and thus a regiment has, on mobilization, to draw largely on the nearest reservists, irrespective of the corps to which they belong. The remedy for this condition of affairs is sought in a most elaborate and artificial system of transferring officers and men from one unit to another at stated intervals in peace-time, but this is no more than a palliative, and there are other difficulties of almost equal importance to be surmounted. Thus in Italy the universal service system, though probably the best organization both for the army and the nation, works with a maximum of friction. “Army Reform,” therefore, has been very much in the forefront of late years owing to the estrangement of Austria (which power can mobilize much more rapidly), but financial difficulties have hitherto stood in the way of any radical and far-reaching reforms, and even the proposals of the Commission of 1907, referred to below, have only been partially accepted.

The law of 1875 therefore still regulates the principles of military service in Italy, though an important modification was made in 1907-1908. By this law, every man liable and accepted for service served for eight or nine years on the Active Army and its Reserve (of which three to five were spent with the colours), four or five in the Mobile Militia, and the rest of the service period of nineteen years in the Territorial Militia. Under present regulations the term of liability is divided into nine years in the Active Army and Reserve (three or two years with the colours) four in the Mobile Militia and six in the Territorial Militia. But these figures do not represent the actual service of every able-bodied Italian. Like almost all “Universal Service” countries, Italy only drafts a small proportion of the available recruits into the army.

The following table shows the operation of the law of 1875, with the figures of 1871 for comparison:—

Thus, on the 30th of September 1871 the various categories of the army included only 2% of the population, but on the 30th of June 1898 they included 10%. But in 1901 the strength of the active army and reserve shows a marked diminution, which became accentuated in the year following. The table below indicates that up to 1907 the army, though always below its nominal strength, never absorbed more than a quarter of the available contingent.

The serious condition of recruiting was quickly noticed, and the tabulation of each year’s results was followed by a new draft law, but no solution was achieved until a special commission assembled. The inquiries made by this body revealed an unsatisfactory condition in the national defences, traceable in the main to financial exigencies, and as regards recruiting a new law was brought into force in 1907-1908.

One specially difficult point concerned the effectives of the peace-strength army. Hitherto the actual time of training had been less than the nominal. The recruits due to join in November were not incorporated till the following March, and thus in the winter months Italy was defenceless. The army is always maintained at a low peace effective (about one-quarter of war establishment) and even this was reduced, by the absence of the recruits, until there were often only 15 rank and file with a company, whose war strength is about 230. Even in the summer and autumn a large proportion of the army consisted of men with but a few months’ service—a highly dangerous state of things considering the peculiar mobilization conditions of the country. Further—and this case no legislation can cover—the contingent, and (what is more serious) the reserves, are being steadily weakened by emigration. The increase in the numbers rejected as unfit is accounted for by the fact that if only a small proportion of the contingent can be taken for service, the medical standard of acceptance is high.

The new recruiting scheme of 1907 re-established three categories of recruits,[4] the 2nd category corresponding practically to the German Ersatz-Reserve. The men classed in it have to train for six months, and they are called up in the late summer to bridge the gap above mentioned. The new terms of service for the other categories have been already stated. In consequence, in 1908, of 490,000 liable, some 110,000 actually joined for full training and 24,000 of the new 2nd category for short training, which contrasts very forcibly with the feeble embodiments of 1906 and 1907. These changes threw a considerable strain on the finances, but the imminence of the danger caused their acceptance.

The peace strength under the new scheme is nominally 300,000, but actually (average throughout the year) about 240,000. The army is organized in 12 army corps (each of 2 divisions), 6 of which are quartered on the plain of Lombardy and Venetia and on the frontiers, and 2 more in northern Central Italy. Their headquarters are: I. Turin, II. Alessandria, III. Milan, IV. Genoa, V. Verona, VI. Bologna, VII. Ancona, VIII. Florence, IX. Rome, X. Naples, XI. Bari, XII. Palermo, Sardinian division Cagliari. In addition there are 22 “Alpini” battalions and 15 mountain batteries stationed on the Alpine frontiers.

The war strength was estimated in 1901 as, Active Army (incl. Reserve) 750,000, Mobile Militia 320,000, Territorial Militia 2,300,000 (more than half of the last-named untrained). These figures are, with a fractional increase in the Regular Army, applicable to-day. When the 1907 scheme takes full effect, however, the Active Army and the Mobile Militia will each be augmented by about one-third. In 1915 the field army should, including officers and permanent cadres, be about 1,012,000 strong. The Mobile Militia will not, however, at that date have felt the effects of the scheme, and the Territorial Militia (setting the drain of emigration against the increased population) will probably remain at about the same figure as in 1901.

The army consists of 96 three-battalion regiments of infantry of the line and 12 of bersaglieri (riflemen), each of the latter having a cyclist company (Bersaglieri cyclist battalions are being (1909) provisionally formed); 26 regiments of cavalry, of which 10 are lancers, each of 6 squadrons; 24 regiments of artillery, each of 8 batteries;[5] 1 regiment of horse artillery of 6 batteries; 1 of mountain artillery of 12 batteries, and 3 independent mountain batteries. The armament of the infantry is the Männlicher-Carcano magazine rifle of 1891. The field and horse artillery was in 1909 in process of rearmament with a Krupp quick-firer. The garrison artillery consists of 3 coast and 3 fortress regiments, with a total of 72 companies. There are 4 regiments (11 battalions) of engineers. The carabinieri or gendarmerie, some 26,500 in number, are part of the standing army; they are recruited from selected volunteers from the army. In 1902 the special corps in Eritrea numbered about 4700 of all ranks, including nearly 4000 natives.

Ordinary and extraordinary military expenditure for the financial year 1898-1899 amounted to nearly £10,000,000, an increase of £4,000,000 as compared with 1871. The Italian Chamber decided that from the 1st of July 1901 until the 30th of June 1907 Italian military expenditure proper should not exceed the maximum of £9,560,000 per annum fixed by the Army Bill of May 1897, and that military pensions should not exceed £1,440,000. Italian military expenditure was thus until 1907 £11,000,000 per annum. In 1908 the ordinary and extraordinary expenditure was £10,000,000. The demands of the Commission were only partly complied with, but a large special grant was voted amounting to at least £1,000,000 per annum for the next seven years. The amount spent is slight compared with the military expenditure of other countries.

The Alpine frontier is fortified strongly, although the condition of the works was in many cases considered unsatisfactory by the 1907 Commission. The fortresses in the basin of the Po chiefly belong to the era of divided Italy and are now out of date; the chief coast fortresses are Vado, Genoa, Spezia, Monte Argentaro, Gaeta, Straits of Messina, Taranto, Maddalena. Rome is protected by a circle of forts from a coup de main from the sea, the coast, only 12 m. off, being flat and deserted.

Navy.—For purposes of naval organization the Italian coast is divided into three maritime departments, with headquarters at Spezia, Naples and Venice; and into two comandi militari, with headquarters at Taranto and at the island of Maddalena. The personnel of the navy consists of the following corps: (1) General staff; (2) naval engineers, chiefly employed in building and repairing war vessels; (3) sanitary corps; (4) commissariat corps, for supplies and account-keeping; (5) crews.

The matériel of the Italian navy has been completely transformed, especially in virtue of the bill of the 31st of March 1875. Old types of vessels have been sold or demolished, and replaced by newer types.

In March 1907 the Italian navy contained, excluding ships of no fighting value:—

The four modern ships—the “Vittorio Emanuele” class, laid down in 1897—have a tonnage of 12,625, two 12-in. and twelve 8-in. guns, an I.H.P. of 19,000, and a designed speed of 22 knots, being intended to avoid any battleship and to carry enough guns to destroy any cruiser.

The personnel on active service consisted of 1799 officers and 25,000 men, the former being doubled and the latter trebled since 1882.

Naval expenditure has enormously increased since 1871, the total for 1871 having been about £900,000, and the total for 1905-1906 over £5,100,000. Violent fluctuations have, however, taken place from year to year, according to the state of Italian finances. To permit the steady execution of a normal programme of shipbuilding, the Italian Chamber, in May 1901, adopted a resolution limiting naval expenditure, inclusive of naval pensions and of premiums on mercantile shipbuilding, to the sum of £4,840,000 for the following six years, i.e. from 1st July 1901 until 30th June 1907. This sum consists of £4,240,000 of naval expenditure proper, £220,000 for naval pensions and £380,000 for premiums upon mercantile shipbuilding. During the financial year ending on the 30th of June 1901 these figures were slightly exceeded.

Finance.—The volume of the Italian budget has considerably increased as regards both income and expenditure. The income of £60,741,418 in 1881 rose in 1899-1900 to £69,917,126; while the expenditure increased from £58,705,929 in 1881 to £69,708,706 in 1899-1900, an increase of £9,175,708 in income and £11,002,777 in expenditure, while there has been a still further increase since, the figures for 1905-1906 showing (excluding items which figure on both sides of the account) an increase of £8,766,995 in income and £5,434,560 in expenditure over 1899-1900. These figures include not only the categories of “income and expenditure” proper, but also those known as “movement of capital,” “railway constructions” and “partite di giro” which do not constitute real income and expenditure.[6] Considering only income and expenditure proper, the approximate totals are:—

The financial year 1862 closed with a deficit of more than £16,000,000, which increased in 1866 to £28,840,000 on account of the preparations for the war against Austria. Excepting the increases of deficit in 1868 and 1870, the annual deficits tended thenceforward to decrease, until in 1875 equilibrium between expenditure and revenue was attained, and was maintained until 1881. Advantage was taken of the equilibrium to abolish certain imposts, amongst them the grist tax, which prior to its gradual repeal produced more than £3,200,000 a year. From 1885-1886 onwards, outlay on public works, military and colonial expenditure, and especially the commercial and financial crises, contributed to produce annual deficits; but owing to drastic reforms introduced in 1894-1895 and to careful management the year 1898-1899 marked a return of surpluses (nearly £1,306,400).

The revenue in the Italian financial year 1905-1906 (July 1, 1905 to June 30, 1906) was £102,486,108, and the expenditure £99,945,253, or, subtracting the partite di giro, £99,684,121 and £97,143,266, leaving a surplus of £2,540,855.[7] The surplus was made up by contributions from every branch of the effective revenue, except the “contributions and repayments from local authorities.” The railways showed an increase of £351,685; registration transfer and succession, £295,560; direct taxation, £42,136 (mainly from income tax, which more than made up for the remission of the house tax in the districts of Calabria visited by the earthquake of 1906); customs and excise, £1,036,742; government monopolies, £291,027; posts, £41,310; telegraphs, £23,364; telephones, £65,771. Of the surplus £1,000,000 was allocated to the improvement of posts, telegraphs and telephones; £1,000,000 to public works (£720,000 for harbour improvement and £280,000 for internal navigation); £200,000 to the navy (£132,000 for a second dry dock at Taranto and £68,000 for coal purchase); and £200,000 as a nucleus of a fund for the purchase of valuable works of art which are in danger of exportation.

The state therefore draws its principal revenues from the imposts, the taxes and the monopolies. According to the Italian tributary system, “imposts,” properly so called are those upon land, buildings and personal estate. The impost upon land is Taxation. based upon the cadastral survey independently of the vicissitudes of harvests. In 1869 the main quota to the impost was increased by one-tenth, in addition to the extra two-tenths previously imposed in 1866. Subsequently, it was decided to repeal these additional tenths, the first being abolished in 1886 and the rest in 1887. On account of the inequalities still existing in the cadastral survey, in spite of the law of 1886 (see Agriculture, above), great differences are found in the land tax assessments in various parts of Italy. Land is not so heavily burdened by the government quota as by the additional centimes imposed by the provincial and communal authorities. On an average Italian landowners pay nearly 25% of their revenues from land in government and local land tax. The buildings impost has been assessed since 1866 upon the basis of 12.50% of “taxable revenue.” Taxable revenue corresponds to two-thirds of actual income from factories and to three-fourths of actual income from houses; it is ascertained by the agents of the financial administration. In 1869, however, a third additional tenth was added to the previously existing additional two-tenths, and, unlike the tenths of the land tax, they have not been abolished. At present the main quota with the additional three-tenths amounts to 16.25% of taxable income. The imposts on incomes from personal estate (ricchezza mobile) were introduced in 1866; it applies to incomes derived from investments, industry or personal enterprise, but not to landed revenues. It is proportional, and is collected by deduction from salaries and pensions paid to servants of the state, where it is assessed on three-eighths of the income, and from interest on consolidated stock, where it is assessed on the whole amount; and by register in the cases of private individuals, who pay on three-fourths of their income, professional men, capitalists or manufacturers, who pay on one-half or nine-twentieths of their income. From 1871 to 1894 it was assessed at 13.20% of taxable income, this quota being formed of 12% main quota and 1.20% as an additional tenth. In 1894 the quota, including the additional tenth, was raised to the uniform level of 20%. One-tenth of the tax is paid to the communes as compensation for revenues made over to the state.

Taxes proper are divided into (a) taxes on business transactions and (b) taxes on articles of consumption. The former apply principally to successions, stamps, registrations, mortgages, &c.; the latter to distilleries, breweries, explosives, native sugar and matches, though the customs revenue and octrois upon articles of general consumption, such as corn, wine, spirits, meat, flour, petroleum, butter, tea, coffee and sugar, may be considered as belonging to this class. The monopolies are those of salt, tobacco and the lottery.

Since 1880, while income from the salt and lotto monopolies has remained almost stationary, and that from land tax and octroi has diminished, revenue derived from all other sources has notably increased, especially that from the income tax on personal estate, and the customs, the yield from which has been nearly doubled.

It will be seen that the revenue is swollen by a large number of taxes which can only be justified by necessity; the reduction and, still more, the readjustment of taxation (which now largely falls on articles of primary necessity) is urgently needed. The government in presenting the estimates for 1907-1908 proposed to set aside a sum of nearly £800,000 every year for this express purpose. It must be remembered that the sums realized by the octroi go in the main to the various communes. It is only in Rome and Naples that the octroi is collected directly by the government, which pays over a certain proportion to the respective communes.

The external taxation is not only strongly protectionist, but is applied to goods which cannot be made in Italy; hardly anything comes in duty free, even such articles as second-hand furniture paying duty, unless within six months of the date at which the importer has declared domicile in Italy. The application, too, is somewhat rigorous, e.g. the tax on electric light is applied to foreign ships generating their own electricity while lying in Italian ports.

The annual consumption per inhabitant of certain kinds of food and drink has considerably increased, e.g. grain from 270 ℔ per head in 1884-1885 to 321 ℔ in 1901-1902 (maize remains almost stationary at 158 ℔); wine from 73 to 125 litres per head; oil from 12 to 13 ℔ per head (sugar is almost stationary at 7¼ ℔ per head, and coffee at about 1 ℔); salt from 14 to 16 ℔ per head. Tobacco slightly diminished in weight at a little over 1 ℔ per head, while the gross receipts are considerably increased—by over 2¼ millions sterling since 1884-1885—showing that the quality consumed is much better. The annual expenditure on tobacco was 5s. per inhabitant in 1902-1903, and is increasing.

The annual surpluses are largely accounted for by the heavy taxation on almost everything imported into the country,[8] and by the monopolies on tobacco and on salt; and are as a rule spent, and well spent, in other ways. Thus, that of 1907-1908 was devoted mainly to raising the salaries of government officials and university professors; even then the maximum for both (in the former class, for an under-secretary of state) was only £500 per annum. The case is frequent, too, in which a project is sanctioned by law, but is then not carried into execution, or only partly so, owing to the lack of funds. Additional stamp duties and taxes were imposed in 1909 to meet the expenditure necessitated by the disastrous earthquake at the end of 1908.

The way in which the taxes press on the poor may be shown by the number of small proprietors sold up owing to inability to pay the land and other taxes. In 1882 the number of landed proprietors was 14.52% of the population, in 1902 only 12.66, with an actual diminution of some 30,000. Had the percentage of 1882 been kept up there would have been in 1902 600,000 more proprietors than there were. Between 1884 and 1902 no fewer than 220,616 sales were effected for failure to pay taxes, while, from 1886 to 1902, 79,208 expropriations were effected for other debts not due to the state. In 1884 there were 20,422 sales, of which 35.28% were for debts of 4s. or less, and 51.95 for debts between 4s. and £2; in 1902 there were 4857 sales, but only 11.01% for debts under 4s. (the treasury having given up proceeding in cases where the property is a tiny piece of ground, sometimes hardly capable of cultivation), and 55.69% for debts between 4s. and £2. The expropriations deal as a rule with properties of higher value; of these there were 3217 in 1886, 5993 in 1892 (a period of agricultural depression), 3910 in 1902. About 22% of them are for debts under £40, about 49% from £40 to £200, about 26% from £200 to £2000.

Of the expenditure a large amount is absorbed by interest on debt. Expenditure. Debt has continually increased with the development of the state. The sum paid in interest on debt amounted to £17,640,000 in 1871, £19,440,000 in 1881, £25,600,000 in 1891-1892 and £27,560,000 in 1899-1900; but had been reduced to £23,100,409 by the 30th of June 1906. The public debt at that date was composed as follows:—

The debt per head of population was, in 1905, £14, 16s. 3d., and the interest 13s. 5d.

In July 1906 the 5% gross (4% net), and 4% net rente were successfully converted into 3¾% stock (to be reduced to 3½% after five years), to a total amount of £324,017,393. The demands for reimbursement at par represented a sum of only £187,588 and the market value of the stock was hardly affected; while the saving to the Treasury was to be £800,000 per annum for the first five years and about double the amount afterwards.

Currency.—The lira (plural lire) of 100 centesimi (centimes) is equal in value to the French franc. The total coinage (exclusive of Eritrean currency) from the 1st of January 1862 to the end of 1907 was 1,104,667,116 lire (exclusive of recoinage), divided as follows: gold, 427,516,970 lire; silver, 570,097,025 lire; nickel, 23,417,000 lire; bronze, 83,636,121 lire. The forced paper currency, instituted in 1866, was abolished in 1881, in which year were dissolved the Union of Banks of Issue created in 1874 to furnish to the state treasury a milliard of lire in notes, guaranteed collectively by the banks. Part of the Union notes were redeemed, part replaced by 10 lire and 5 lire state notes, payable at sight in metallic legal tender by certain state banks. Nevertheless the law of 1881 did not succeed in maintaining the value of the state notes at a par with the metallic currency, and from 1885 onwards there reappeared a gold premium, which during 1899 and 1900 remained at about 7%, but subsequently fell to about 3% and has since 1902 practically disappeared. The paper circulation to the debit of the state and the paper currency issued by the authorized state banks is shown below:—

Banks.—Until 1893 the juridical status of the Banks of Issue was regulated by the laws of the 30th of April 1874 on paper currency and of the 7th of April 1881 on the abolition of forced currency. At that time four limited companies were authorized to issue bank notes, namely, the National Bank, the National Bank of Tuscany, the Roman Bank and the Tuscan Credit Bank; and two banking corporations, the Bank of Naples and the Bank of Sicily. In 1893 the Roman Bank was put into liquidation, and the other three limited companies were fused, so as to create the Bank of Italy, the privilege of issuing bank notes being thenceforward confined to the Bank of Italy, the Bank of Naples and the Bank of Sicily. The gold reserve in the possession of the Banca d’Italia on September 30th 1907 amounted to £32,240,984, and the silver reserve to £4,767,861; the foreign treasury bonds, &c. amounted to £3,324,074, making the total reserve £40,332,919; while the circulation amounted to £54,612,234. The figures were on the 31st of December 1906: