Can You Ace This History of Italy Quiz? Bravo!

Between the eighth and fifth centuries BCE, the coastal areas of Southern Italy were colonized by Greek city-states. The region was known as “Magna Graecia,” meaning “Greater Greece.”

King Umberto II ascended the throne on May 9, 1946. He was deposed just a month later after the Italian people voted in favor of a republic.

Located in Sorrento, Valle Dei Mulini, or Valley of the Mills, is a collection of ruins at the bottom of a deep crevasse that resulted from a volcanic eruption some 35,000 years ago. In the 13th century, locals began to construct flour mills in the valley, as they realized that the steady stream that flowed through it provided a constant source of water, allowing wheat to be ground and sold throughout the region. When pasta mills later took over the milling of flour, these flour mills and other buildings in the valley were abandoned and fell into ruin. They’ve stood empty since the 1940s, covered in vines and shrubbery.

Italy's first-ever national park, Gran Paradiso, was established in order to protect the ibex, a long-horned wild goat. King Vittorio Emanuele II was the first to declare this region of northwest Italy a royal reserve, aiming to save the animal from extinction after overhunting, and in 1919, his grandson donated the land to the Italian state for the creation of a national park. Three years later, the park was officially established by the government, becoming the first national park in Italy. Covering 270 square miles, the park contains the tallest mountain located entirely in Italy, Gran Paradiso peak.

During its height in 117 CE, the Roman Empire was huge, encompassing an area of roughly 5 million square kilometers over Europe, Africa, and Asia. With such a wide area of influence, it was inevitable that ruling such a territory would become difficult due to differences in culture, large distances, and the time it took to travel between locations. When Diocletian became emperor in 284 CE, he recognized that the large size of the Roman Empire was a problem, and that it was too large for just one person to rule. So, he took the revolutionary approach of dividing the empire in half. He ruled as emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire (aka the Byzantine Empire), and appointed Maximian as his co-emperor to rule the West.

The Via Appia, as it was known in Latin, was the first major ancient Roman road. It was constructed starting in 312 BCE in order to connect the territory east and south of Rome. At first, the road ran for only 130 miles to the city of Capua. By 244 BCE, however, the Via Appia had been extended to Brundisium (now Brindisi), located on the heel of Italy's boot. Mentions of the Appian Way and its importance often appear in ancient Roman literature — the poet Statius called it "longarum regina viarum," or "the queen of long roads." Portions of the road still exist today.

You've heard of Pompeii, but how much do you know about Herculaneum? Pompeii's Italian neighbor was also struck by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, which bathed the surrounding Roman cities in lava, ash, and mud in 79 CE. Pompeii was hit a few days before the wealthy town of Herculaneum, allowing more of its residents to pack up and evacuate. Still, the town was buried in 60 feet of mud and ash, preserving everything in the city, right down to a library full of manuscripts. Rediscovered in 1738, Herculaneum's ruins are still being excavated today.

Odoacer, the first barbarian king of Italy, declared himself king during the waning days of the Roman Empire. Odoacer was a Germanic warrior who originally joined the Roman army and moved up through the ranks. After the Western Roman emperor was overthrown by the Roman general Orestes, Odoacer took advantage of the moment to lead his people in a revolt against Orestes in 476 CE. Odoacer exiled Orestes' son Emperor Romulus Augustus and declared himself king of Italy. Odoacer respected the status of the Eastern Roman emperor Zeno but handled Italy's administration on his own. His reign is considered the end of the Roman Empire.

Before adopting the euro in 2002, Italy used the lira as its currency. Charlemagne introduced Europe to the lira in the eighth century, basing it on the pound of silver, but it wasn't until the 16th century that lira coins were actually produced. The Kingdom of Sardinia was the first Italian state to use the lira, and after all of Italy was unified, the entire country adopted the currency. In the mid-19th century, the lira was redefined under the decimal system, which made 100 centesimi equal to 1 lira.

Murano glass is famous for its vibrant colors and funky shapes, the result of a glass-blowing process that dates back to Roman times. The glassmaking history of this sleepy island near Venice started in 1291, when the Venetian government ordered the city's glassmakers to move their craft there to avoid the possibility of fire outbreak in the main part of the city. The artisans then rediscovered the remnants of ancient Roman glassware and perfected their technique, in which minerals are added to the molten glass to give it a different hue.

In the sixth century BCE, the Romans constructed a drainage system to carry stormwater from central Rome to the Tiber River. They called it "Cloaca Maxima," which translates literally to "the greatest sewer." This sewer system was later expanded to drain the waste from latrines and public baths, and then again under Augustus Caesar in the first century CE to include water and waste from 11 nearby aqueducts. The Cloaca Maxima remained in use for centuries, and parts of it survive today, making it one of the world's oldest sewer systems still in use.

In 1530, Michelangelo retreated to Florence, Italy, to escape the wrath of Pope Julius II. He stayed in a hidden room beneath the Basilica di San Lorenzo, which belonged to the Medici family. (Ironically, Michelangelo was also hiding from the Medicis.) Having designed the chapel himself, he remained well-hidden, and spent his days sketching in charcoal on the walls, including self-portraits, images of Christ, and even sketches of the Sistine Chapel ceiling he had completed two decades earlier. After eventually emerging from hiding, Michelangelo kept his chapel room a secret. It remained that way for more than 400 years — until it was discovered in 1976 by the director of the Museum of the Medici Chapel.

Aside from being delicious, Italy's pizza Margherita has patriotic roots. As the story goes, on a visit to Naples in 1889, Queen Margherita di Savoia was presented with a pizza that aimed to celebrate the recent unification of Italy and its new red, white, and green flag. The dish was the creation of Napoli pizza chef Raffaele Esposito at Pizzeria Brandi. He used ingredients to match the Italian flag — white mozzarella, red tomato sauce, and bright green basil — and named it after the queen.

Garibaldi was a colorful figure who spent time as a sailor and a freedom fighter while exiled in South America during the 1840s. His desire to unify the city-states of Italy — with several controlled by the pope and the Germanic Holy Roman emperor — was controversial at the time. In 1860, after returning to Italy, Garibaldi led an army of "redshirts" to conquer Sicily, before turning north to take Naples. The two were united under the Kingdom of Sardinia, which later became the Kingdom of Italy.

Beginning in the late 14th century, the political stability and banking success of the city-state of Florence initiated a cultural golden age that spread throughout Western Europe. Wealthy families and aristocrats commissioned sculptures, paintings, essays, music, and other types of art, leading to some of history's most famous works, including Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" and Michelangelo's David. Italian painters Raphael, Giovanni Bellini, and Pietro Perugino were among the notable artists of the time; Amedeo Modigliani, on the other hand, painted in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, long after the end of the Renaissance.

The last true king of Italy was Victor Emmanuel III, who took power unexpectedly upon the assassination of his father in 1900. After a power struggle in the 1940s between Emmanuel and Mussolini's fascists, the king was reduced to little more than a figurehead. In 1946, Italy held a vote to determine whether the country would continue as a monarchy or a republic. The latter option won, forcing the former king into exile.

Hannibal's bold route saw him travel northwest through Gaul and the Alps to Italy. Since no primary sources from Carthage (on the northern coast of Africa) survived, much of Hannibal's 218 BCE trek is shrouded in mystery, but historians believe it took his army (which included thousands of men, horses, and elephants) about five months to make the trip, over mountainous terrain as high as 8,000 feet.

Marco Polo left Italy as a teenager in 1271, embarking on a decades-long journey with his father and uncle along the famous Silk Road trade corridor. All three of them served as emissaries for the Mongol Empire, but Marco formed an especially strong connection with Emperor Kublai Khan. His role as a messenger and tax collector for Khan let him travel freely through Asia.

Located on the east coast of Sicily, Syracuse was founded by Corinthians in 734 BCE. Over the next several centuries, it was ruled by a series of Greek autocrats including Dionysius and Agathocles. During this time, Syracuse fought a series of wars against Carthage (in North Africa) until, in 215 BCE, the longtime rivals teamed up against Rome. Their efforts were unsuccessful, and Syracuse became a southern capital of the Roman Republic in 211 BCE.

Before 79 CE, Pompeii was a popular resort town on the southwestern coast of modern-day Italy. In August or October of that year, however, nearby Mount Vesuvius erupted, sending millions of tons of ash and lava into the air and eventually blanketing the city. The thick layer of ash preserved Pompeii well enough that its discovery in 1748 helped kick off the antiquity-inspired neoclassical movement in Europe.

Machiavelli wrote his most famous work in exile after the Medicis took over Florence in 1512. The book describes a cold, calculating approach to power and political maneuvering, in which the ends justify the means used to achieve them. "The Prince" was so influential that the term "Machiavellian" was coined in psychology to describe a person who manipulates others strategically.

The founding of the Florence-based Medici Bank in 1397 by Gionvanni di Bicci de' Medici was the beginning of a financial dynasty that allowed the family to become one of the wealthiest in the world. The Medicis are famous for using their tremendous fortune for the patronage of famous Renaissance artists and thinkers.

Founded in 1088, the University of Bologna is considered the oldest university in the Western world. The second oldest is Oxford University in England.

The Risorgimento was the process of Italian reunification, which began in the early 19th century and culminated in six of the Italian city-states coming together to create the Kingdom of Italy in 1861.

Italian inventor Andrea Amati designed the modern violin in the early 16th century.

In the late 13th century, the island of Sicily (and later, most of Southern Italy) became part of the Spanish Empire, and remained under Spanish rule until 1713.

The Trevi Fountain is one of the most famous landmarks in Rome. Visitors toss around 1.2 million euros’ worth of coins into the Baroque fountain every year.

The Etruscans were Italy’s most powerful pre-Roman society, thriving in Northern Italy in the early Iron Age (around the eighth century to the third century BCE).

At just 0.2 square miles, Vatican City is the smallest country in the world. The sovereign state is an enclave within the city of Rome.

The clue is in the name: The Leaning Tower of Pisa can be found in Pisa, Italy, a beautiful medieval city around 60 miles from Florence.

The Renaissance was born in Florence in the 14th century. It was there that great Italian minds including Michelangelo, Galileo Galilei, and Leonardo da Vinci developed a new era of philosophy, art, literature, and culture. This "new age" was nothing like the dark Middle Ages; it infused a sense of enlightenment throughout Europe (although the "Age of Enlightenment" wouldn't come until the 18th century).