page_title: Italophilia
section_title: Modern era
hierarchical_section_title: Italophilia / Modern era
caption_attribution_description: English: Saint Peter's Basilica and Square
context_page_description: Italophilia is the admiration, appreciation or emulation of Italy, its people, ideals, civilization and culture. Its opposite is Italophobia.
  The extent to which Italian civilization has shaped Western civilization and, by extension, the civilization of the whole world, is widely recognized and acknowledged. Appreciation of the legacy of Italic ideals, civilization and culture has existed for many centuries, into the present day.
context_section_description: In 1861 Italy was united for the first time since the fall of the Roman Empire and became a modern industrialized country, where the tradition of creativity, scientific achievement and excellence in manufacturing continued.
  Giuseppe Garibaldi, a central figure in achieving Italian independence, was called the "Hero of Two Worlds" because of his military enterprises to achieve independence for countries in South America as well. Garibaldi was admired by many of the greatest intellectuals of his time, such as Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, and George Sand.
  Maria Montessori, born in 1870, was a physician and educator who became known around the world for the educational method that bears her name, and for her writings on pedagogy. Her methods are in use today in schools throughout the world.
  Toward the end of the 19th century, mathematicians Gregorio Ricci-Curbastro and Tullio Levi-Civita developed tensor calculus, which provided the mathematical framework for Einstein's General Theory of Relativity in the early 20th century.
  In the early 20th century Pirandello, a Nobel Laureate, was the first European playwright to radically question the structures of traditional theatre. Since then, film directors and writers such as Fellini, Antonioni, Pasolini, Calvino, Eco and Fo have been recognized around the world.  Italian neorealism in films, beginning after the second world war, had a great impact on audiences around the world, and established a new philosophy of filmmaking adopted worldwide.
  The legacy of Italian scientists Fermi (nuclear power), Meucci (telephone), and Marconi (radio), whose discoveries and inventions transformed the world, is widely recognized.  Galileo Ferraris (1847 to 1897) was one of the pioneers of AC power and an inventor of the three-phase induction motor.  His work on the induction motor and power transmission systems are widely regarded as technological achievements of the highest rank.  At the same time that German scientists were making major advancements in physics, beginning with Max Planck, Italian scientists like Fermi's Via Panisperna group in Rome were making important fundamental discoveries in physics as well.
  The first public flight of a jet-engined aircraft was that of the Italian Caproni Campini N.1 prototype on August 27, 1940.  Italy was the fourth country in the world to build nuclear power plants, starting in 1955 (now decommissioned due to a popular referendum in 1987), and the third, after The United States and The Soviet Union, to launch a scientific earth satellite in the 1964 San Marco programme, using an American Scout missile as the launch vehicle. The Broglio Space Centre, located on a sea platform offshore the Kenya coast is the only example of a spacecraft launch center built on a floating sea platform.
  Italian companies have developed products that are of fundamental importance in contemporary society, such as the Olivetti-developed transistorized mainframe computer systems (Olivetti Elea) and, in 1964, one of the world's first commercial desktop electronic programmable calculators, the Programma 101, invented by Pier Giorgio Perotto.
  
  Today, Italy is admired throughout the world for its design, particularly in the areas of fashion and manufactured goods. Italian fashions by Gucci, Benetton, Armani, Valentino, Prada, Dolce & Gabbana, Ferragamo and Versace are known worldwide.  In automobile design, the brand names Ferrari, Lamborghini and Maserati are known and admired throughout the world. In Britain in the 1960s the emerging mod subculture championed Italian and French design, with mods adopting the Vespa GS and the Lambretta LI 150 motor scooters as their preferred means of transport as well as wearing Italian-designed clothes and shoes, and had a lasting effect - Britain remains Vespa's largest market outside of Italy. Italian design and manufacturing in furniture, architecture and interior design is appreciated worldwide.  Architects like Renzo Piano have designed important modern buildings such as Centre Pompidou in Paris and Kansai International Airport in Osaka. Arc
caption: St. Peter's Square, in the Vatican City
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