Italy Facts

The Bank of America was originally the Bank of Italy!

Benito Mussolini fled to Switzerland in 1902 to avoid Italian military service, where he lived as a vagrant and was arrested multiple times before being expelled from the country.

Napoleon had conquered Italy by the time he was twenty-six.

In 2009, archaeologists in Modena, Italy discovered two skeletons buried holding hands for 1,500 years. Originally assumed to be a romantic couple, a 2019 DNA study revealed both individuals were male—making it the first known burial of two men holding hands from antiquity.

There is an island near Italy that was the site of wars, a dumping ground for plague victims, and an insane asylum. It's considered so dangerously haunted that the Italian government does not allow public access.

In 2007, the 6,000-year-old skeletal remains of two people embracing were discovered near Mantua, Italy. Known as the 'Lovers of Valdaro,' they had been buried facing each other with their arms and legs intertwined.

Let's Pizza is the world's first pizza vending machine. Just select your topping, insert coins, and watch your pizza bake!

In Italy, many families celebrate Christmas with the "Urn of Fate" - a large bowl filled with wrapped gifts. Family members take turns drawing presents, but some packages contain joke items or nothing at all, turning gift-giving into a game of chance and laughter.

On a hill in Italy, there's a 200 foot stuffed pink bunny with its entrails spilling out.

Leonardo DiCaprio was named Leonardo because his pregnant mother was looking at a Leonardo da Vinci painting in a museum in Italy when DiCaprio first kicked.

Venice Island was built on a foundation of tree trunks. 1200 years later, those same trunks still support almost all of central Venice.

In April 2024, archaeologists in Pompeii uncovered a 15-metre banqueting hall with jet-black walls and vivid frescoes of Helen of Troy meeting Paris - sealed under volcanic ash since 79 CE. Nearly 2,000 years in the dark, and the dinner party was still on.

Jessica Vincent paid $3.99 for a swirled glass vase at a Goodwill in Hanover County, Virginia. She recognized the "Venini" signature on the bottom and posted it to an Italian glass collecting Facebook group - experts identified it as a rare Carlo Scarpa Pennellate vase from 1942, one of only two known in that color. It sold at Wright auction in Chicago for $107,100.

Luigi Lo Rosso, a junk dealer from Capri, found a rolled-up canvas in a villa cellar in 1962 and hung it in his family’s living room. His wife called it “horrible.” Experts now believe it may be a genuine Picasso - a portrait of Dora Maar created between 1930 and 1936 - and have valued it at up to €6 million.

Michelangelo was sentenced to death in 1530. He hid for two months in a secret coal vault, drawing on the walls. Those drawings - attributed to him but still debated - lay plastered over for 445 years. In 1975, a director found them under a trapdoor. They are still on the walls.

A geologist named Ann Pizzorusso says she solved a 500-year mystery in the Mona Lisa. She matched the rocky landscape behind the subject to Lecco, Italy - the 14th-century Ponte Azzone Visconti bridge, the limestone Alps, and Lake Garlate. Leonardo worked in the Lecco region for years. Not every art historian agrees, but the geological case is hard to argue with.

The Colosseum has a hidden underground corridor that Roman emperors used to enter the arena unseen and avoid assassination. Called the Passage of Commodus, it sat sealed beneath Rome for nearly 2,000 years. On October 27, 2025, it opened to the public for the first time after a year-long restoration. Part of the tunnel still leads toward an unknown destination.

After 40+ years in New York, Willem Dafoe now lives on a small farm outside Rome where he raises 14 alpacas. He bottle-feeds the ones rejected by their mothers and names every single one. The Green Goblin's favourite alpaca is called Hermes.

A worker at Alitalia forgot two digits when updating fares, listing Toronto-to-Cyprus business-class round trips at $39 instead of $2,258. Thousands booked before the error was caught. Alitalia honored the tickets - passengers flew business class for less than a pizza delivery. Two missing digits filled every premium seat.