Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant documents that can help answer the question.
Query: When did Sardinia become part of Italy?
On 17 March 1861, law no. 4671 of the Sardinian Parliament proclaimed the Kingdom of Italy, so ratifying the annexations of all other Apennine states, plus Sicily, to the Kingdom of Sardinia. The institutions and laws of the Kingdom were quickly extended to all of Italy, abolishing the administrations of the other regions. Piedmont became the most dominant and wealthiest region in Italy and the capital of Piedmont, Turin, remained the Italian capital until 1865, when the capital was moved to Florence. But many revolts exploded throughout the peninsula, especially in southern Italy, and on the island of Sicily, because of the perceived unfair treatment of the south by the Piedmontese ruling class. The House of Savoy ruled Italy until 1946 when Italy was declared a republic by referendum. In this referendum the southern regions, including Sardinia, voted overwhelmingly in favor of the House of Savoy, with the results being 63.8% in favor of maintaining the monarchy.
The Spanish era ended in 1735, when Charles V was crowned king. For the better part of the next century-and-a-half, Sicily was in personal union with the other Southern Italian Kingdom of Naples, with the official residence located in Naples. In 1861, however, Sicily became part of the Kingdom of Italy as a result of the Risorgimento. After the unification of Italy and the Fascist era, a wave of Sicilian nationalism led to the adoption of the Statute of Sicily, under which the island has become an autonomous region. Since 1946, the island enjoys the most advanced special status of all the autonomous regions, which allows the Sicilian residents to keep 100% of the revenue from all the taxes, without giving back any to the central government in Rome.
Modern Italy became a nation-state during the Risorgimento on 17 March 1861, when most of the states of the peninsula and Kingdom of the Two Sicilies were united under King Victor Emmanuel II of the Savoy dynasty, hitherto monarch of the Kingdom of Sardinia, a realm that included Piedmont. The architect of Italian unification was Count Camillo Benso di Cavour, the Chief Minister of Victor Emmanuel. Rome itself remained for a further decade under the Papacy, and became part of the Kingdom of Italy only in 1870. In September of that year, invading Italian troops entered the city, and the ensuing occupation forced Pope Pius IX to his palace where he declared himself a prisoner in the Vatican, as did his successors, until the Lateran Pacts of 1929.
Nowadays Cagliari is the hub of a modern metropolitan area of about half a million inhabitants, with a vibrant and differentiated economy, which makes it the largest and richest community of Sardinia with a standard of living equal to that of the cities of northern Italy and well away from the degradation of those in the south. In addition to being the center of administration of the Autonomous Region and peripheral administrations of the Italian State in Sardinia, it has a major port with a large container terminal, remarkable industrial development in particular with one of the largest oil refineries of Europe, a large university and research centers, high-standard medical facilities, a wide network of large and small commercial assets, a considerable amount of touristic traffic, and one of the most important Italian airports. Cagliari is the metropolis of Sardinia, a role it has continuously maintained for 2500 years.
Sassari ( ; ; ) is an Italian city and the second-largest of Sardinia in terms of population with 127,525 inhabitants, and a Functional Urban Area of about 222,000 inhabitants. One of the oldest cities on the island, it contains a considerable collection of art.
Genoa had been an independent republic for many years, and when Napoleon became Emperor and King of Italy in 1800, it became part of the French Empire. When Napoleon was defeated in 1814, it became part of the Kingdom of Sardinia. At that time Genoa was the most important port and trading center in Italy.
Upon the creation of the Kingdom of Italy under Vittorio Emanuele II (1861), a unified lira was established, at 4.5 grams of silver or 290.322 milligrams of gold. This was a direct continuation of the Sardinian lira. Other currencies replaced by the Italian lira included the Lombardy-Venetia pound, the Two Sicilies piastra, the Tuscan fiorino, the Papal States scudo and the Parman lira. In 1865, Italy formed part of the Latin Monetary Union in which the lira was set as equal to, among others, the French, Belgian and Swiss francs: in fact, until the introduction of the euro in 2002, people speaking the Gallo-Italic dialects in north-western Italy usually called ""franc"" the lira.
Cagliari (, ; ; ; ) is an Italian municipality and the capital of the island of Sardinia, an autonomous region of Italy. Cagliari's Sardinian name "Casteddu" literally means "castle". It has about 155,000 inhabitants, while its metropolitan city (including Cagliari and 16 other nearby municipalities) has more than 431,000 inhabitants. According to Eurostat, the population of the Functional urban area, the commuting zone of Cagliari, rises to 476,974.
Cagliari is the 26th largest city in Italy and the largest city on the island of Sardinia.
The lira was established at 4.5 grams of silver or 290.322 milligrams of gold. This was a direct continuation of the Sardinian lira. Other currencies replaced by the Italian lira included the Lombardy-Venetia pound, the Two Sicilies piastra, the Tuscan fiorino, the Papal States scudo and the Parman lira. In 1865, Italy formed part of the Latin Monetary Union in which the lira was set as equal to, among others, the French, Belgian and Swiss francs: in fact, in various Gallo-Italic languages in north-western Italy, the lira was outright called ""franc"". This practice has obviously ended with the introduction of the euro in 2002.
Italy became a Republic in 1946 and, as part of the Constitution of Italy, Sicily was one of the five regions given special status as an autonomous region. Both the partial Italian land reform and special funding from the Italian government's "Cassa per il Mezzogiorno" (Fund for the South) from 1950 to 1984 helped the Sicilian economy. During this period, the economic and social condition of the island was generally improved thanks to important investments on infrastructures such as motorways and airports, and thanks to the creation of important industrial and commercial areas. In the 1980s, the Mafia was deeply weakened by a second important campaign led by magistrates Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino. Between 1990 and 2005, the unemployment rate fell from about 23% to 11%.
On 10 July 1943, a combined force of American and British Commonwealth troops invaded Sicily in Operation Husky. German generals again took the lead in the defence and, although they lost the island, they succeeded in ferrying large numbers of German and Italian forces safely off Sicily to the Italian mainland. With the loss of Sicily, popular support for the war diminished in Italy. On 25 July 1943, the Grand Council of Fascism ousted Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and a new Italian government, led by General Pietro Badoglio and King Victor Emmanuel III, took over in Italy. Although the new government declared that Italy would go on fighting with the Axis, it immediately began secret negotiations with the Allies to end the fighting and to come over to the Allied side. On 3 September, a secret armistice was signed with the Allies at Fairfield Camp in Sicily. The armistice was announced to the public on 8 September. By then, the Allies were on the Italian mainland (landing unopposed because of the armistice). The Germans were aware that the Italy might defect from the Axis and strengthened their forces in Italy in preparation during the time of Italy's secret negotiations with the Allies. In the event, the Italian armed forces were given unclear instructions on how to treat their former German allies. Resistance was therefore slight as the Germans moved in and disarmed the Italians and took control of the northern part of Italy. (The exception to this was the navy that received orders to steam out of reach of the Germans. Therefore, few Italian ships fell into German hands.) The captured Italian soldiers were given the choice of imprisonment or to keep fighting for Germany. A minority choose to fight with the Germans. In the Balkans, that Italy had previously occupied alongside Germany, thousands of Italian soldiers evaded capture and joined the local resistance movements. To circumvent the ban on using prisoners of war as forced labor, the Germans re-designated their Italian prisoners as "military internees" and shipped them to Germany as slave labor.
The United States has warm and friendly relations with Italy. The United States has had diplomatic representation in the nation of Italy and its predecessor nation, the Kingdom of Sardinia, since 1840. However, in 1891 the Italian government severed diplomatic relations and briefly contemplated war against the US as a response to the unresolved case of the lynching of eleven Italians in New Orleans, Louisiana, and there was a break in relations from 1941 to 1943, while Italy and the United States were at war.
Egypt–Italy relations refer to relations between Egypt and Italy. Relations were first established during the period of the Roman Republic, when the Ptolemaic Kingdom frequently interacted with Rome, culminating in the Roman annexation of Egypt in 30 BC. With the dissolution of the Western Roman Empire in 476 AD and Egypt's continuation as a province of the Eastern Roman Empire until the Islamic conquest in 642 AD, there were no independent states of Italy and Egypt, and as such no diplomatic relations. Cultural ties between Egypt and Italy distanced further over time with the Islamisation of Egypt and the strength of Catholicism in Italy. It would not be until Egypt's official independence from the British in 1914 that relations with Italy would be reestablished. With the rise of Mussolini and fascism in Italy and the eventual Italian invasion of Egypt during World War II, relations became severely strained. However, after the war, relations were re-established and the countries now have a cordial relationship. Egypt has an embassy in both Rome and Milan, while Italy has an embassy in both Cairo and Alexandria. Egypt and Italy are both members of the Union for the Mediterranean.
Between 1851 and 1860, the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, an independent Italian state until 1859 when it joined the United Provinces of Central Italy, produced two postage stamp issues which are among the most prized classic stamp issues of the world, and include the most valuable Italian stamp. The Grand Duchy of Tuscany was an independent Italian state from 1569 to 1859, but was occupied by France from 1808 to 1814. The Duchy comprised most of the present area of Tuscany, and its capital was Florence. In December 1859, the Grand Duchy officially ceased to exist, being joined to the duchies of Modena and Parma to form the United Provinces of Central Italy, which was annexed by the Kingdom of Sardinia a few months later in March 1860. In 1862 it became part of Italy, and joined the Italian postal system.
Known in Italy as Pietro Leopoldino, Leopold I was the only progressive reformer to rule Tuscany. He abolished the last vestiges of serfdom, encouraged trade and industry, and reformed the bureaucracy. During his long reign Tuscany became one of the most prosperous states in Italy. On 30 November 1786, he promulgated a penal reform making Tuscany the first sovereign state to abolish the death penalty. In this time period Tuscany was also known as a "Guild". Ferdinand III was deposed by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1801 so that Tuscany could be given to the Bourbon Dukes of Parma as compensation for the loss of their duchy. During this brief period, the Grand Duchy of Tuscany was known as the Kingdom of Etruria. Tuscany/Etruria was annexed by Napoleonic France in 1807.
In 1744 the Italian war became serious. Prior to the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714) Spain and Austria had been ruled by the same (Habsburg) royal house. Consequently, the foreign policies of Austria and Spain in regards to Italy had a symmetry of interests and these interests were usually opposed to the interests of Bourbon controlled France. However, since the Treaty of Utrecht and the end of the War of the Spanish Succession, the childless last Habsburg monarch (Charles II) had been replaced by the Bourbon grandson of the French king Louis XIV Philip of Anjou, who became Philip V in Spain. Now the symmetry of foreign policy interests in regards to Italy existed between Bourbon France and Bourbon Spain with Habsburg Austria usually in opposition. King Charles Emmanuel of Savoy had followed the long-established foreign policy of Savoy of opposing Spanish interference in northern Italy. Now in 1744, Savoy was faced with a grandiose military plan of the combined Spanish and French armies (called the Gallispan army) for conquest of northern Italy.
The lira was made the official currency of Italy in 1861 after the Italian unification, however stopped being used in 2002. The euro coinage system entered circulation in Italy in 2002 and is currently the official currency.
In 1797 the Republic was occupied by the French revolutionary army of Napoleon Bonaparte, who overthrew the old elites which had ruled the city for all of its history, and replaced them with a popular republic known as the Ligurian Republic, under the watchful care of Napoleonic France. After Bonaparte's seizure of power in France, a more conservative constitution was enacted, but the Ligurian Republic's life was short—in 1805 it was annexed by France, becoming the "départements" of Apennins, Gênes, and Montenotte. Following the capture of the city by British troops between 17 and 22 April 1814, local elites encouraged by the British agent Lord William Bentinck proclaimed the restoration of the old Republic, but it was decided at the Congress of Vienna that Genoa should be given to the Kingdom of Sardinia. British troops suppressed the republic on 26 December 1814 and then evacuated the city, which Sardinia annexed on 7 January 1815.
The origins of modern banking can be traced to medieval and early Italian Renaissance, to the rich cities in the north like Florence, Lucca, Siena, Venice and Genoa. The Bardi and Peruzzi families dominated banking in 14th century Florence, establishing branches in many other parts of Europe. One of the most famous Italian banks was the Medici Bank, set up by Giovanni di Bicci de' Medici in 1397. The earliest known state deposit bank, Banco di San Giorgio (Bank of St. George), was founded in 1407 at Genoa, Italy, while Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena, founded in 1472, is the oldest surviving bank in the world. 
Unicredit is one of the largest bank in Europe by capitalization and Assicurazioni Generali is the seventh in the world by total assets
Differently from the Holy See, in existence for almost two thousand years, the Vatican City was not a sovereign state until the 20th century. In the 19th century the annexation of the Papal States by the Kingdom of Sardinia, and the subsequent establishment of the Kingdom of Italy, was not recognized by the Vatican. However, by the Lateran treaty of 1929, the Kingdom of Italy recognized Vatican City as an independent state, and "vice versa". Since then, the elected monarch of the Vatican City state has been the current pope. The pope still officially carries the title "King of the Ecclesiastical State" (in Latin: Rex Status Ecclesiæ).
Italy had captured the predominantly Greek-inhabited Dodecanese Islands in the Aegean Sea from the Ottoman Empire in the Italo-Turkish War of 1912. It had occupied them since, after reneging on the 1919 Venizelos–Tittoni agreement to cede them to Greece. When the Italians found that Greece had been promised land in Anatolia at the Paris Peace Conference, 1919, for aid in the defeat of the Ottoman Empire during the First World War, the Italian delegation withdrew from the conference for several months. Italy occupied parts of Anatolia which threatened the Greek occupation zone and the city of Smyrna. Greek troops were landed and the Greco-Turkish War (1919–22) began with Greek troops advanced into Anatolia. Turkish forces eventually defeated the Greeks and with Italian aid, recovered the lost territory, including Smyrna. In 1923, Mussolini used the murder of an Italian general on the Greco-Albanian border as a pretext to bombard and temporarily occupy Corfu, the most important of the Ionian Islands.
Part of Italy, particularly the kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia (officially "Kingdom of Sardinia"), was independent, but central Italy was still ruled by the Pope and Lombardy, while Venice and much of the north was ruled by Austria. Other states were de jure independent (e.g. the Duchy of Parma or the Grand Duchy of Tuscany) but de facto totally under Austrian influence. Napoleon III had fought with the Italian patriots against the Austrians when he was young, and his sympathy was with them, but the Empress, most of his government and the Catholic Church in France supported the Pope and the existing governments. The British Government was also hostile to the idea of promoting nationalism in Italy. Despite the opposition in his government and in his own palace, Napoleon III did all that he could to support the cause of Piedmont-Sardinia. The King of Piedmont-Sardinia, Victor Emmanuel II, was invited to Paris in November 1855, and given the same royal treatment as Queen Victoria.
The French Revolutionary Wars began in April 1792 when the Austrian Empire and Kingdom of Prussia declared war on the newly instituted French Republic. Although the Kingdom of Sardinia, split between Piedmont in Northern Italy and the large Mediterranean island of Sardinia, was not part of this coalition, it was identified as a primary target of French military operations. The island of Sardinia was agriculturally rich and strategically important in the Mediterranean, and it was felt in France that its capture would intimidate the mainland part of the Kingdom and the other nations of the Italian peninsula, and spread republicanism beyond the borders of France. Moreover, a successful attack on the island was thought to be easily achievable, and orders were given for an expeditionary force to assemble at Toulon, the principal French Mediterranean naval base.
From 1700 to 1720, the Kingdom of Sardinia, as a part of the Spanish empire, was disputed between two dynasties, the Habsburgs and the Bourbons. With the death of Charles II, the last of the Spanish Habsburgs, on 1 November 1700, the throne passed to Duke Philip of Anjou (Philip V), although the Emperor Leopold I also had a claim. Leopold was especially desirous of obtaining the Spanish inheritance in the Southern Netherlands and in Italy, which included Sardinia. With the failure of France to abide by the Second Partition Treaty, the other European powers lined up on the side of the Habsburgs. The Treaty of the Hague (7 September 1701) allotted to the Emperor the Spanish possessions in Italy. Imperial troops invaded Italy to seize them, and the War of the Spanish Succession began.
During the period when Freemasonry was first established in Italy, Savoy and Piedmont were part of the Kingdom of Sardinia. In 1749 in Chambery, a lodge was founded on the basis of a license from the provincial grand master for Savoy and Piedmont issued by the Grand Lodge of London in 1739 to the Marquis de Bellegarde François Noyel. In 1752, the same lodge took the name of the Mother Grand Lodge, with the power to create other lodges in all the territories of the Kingdom of Sardinia and, in fact, in 1765 three of them were created, including one in Turin. The latter assumed such importance as to be accorded, in 1773, autonomy from the Grand Lodge at Chambery. In Piedmont, a lodge was also present in Novi Ligure. After French domination, the regions were handed back to Sardinia in 1814, and Freemasonry repressed.