Cool Zooms LXIII - The Italian Job Quiz

Answer: bull

In the 3rd century BC, the Taurini were a Celto-Ligurian people who lived in the foothills of the Alps in the upper valley of the Po River, The main settlement became known as Torino (anglicised to Turin), which became the first capital of a unified Italy before the capital moved to Florence and then Rome. The coat of arms features a single prancing bull on a blue background underneath a black crown.

Ferruccio Lamborghini founded Automobili Ferruccio Lamborghini S.p.A. in Bologna in 1963 to compete with Ferrari in the sports car sector. Signor Lamborghini was fascinated with bullfighting, and visited the Seville ranch of Don Eduardo Miura, who bred Spanish fighting bulls. Lamborghini chose to adopt a raging bull as the emblem for the his automobile company. However, unlike the prancing bull on the Torino coat of arms, he chose a design with the bull on all fours about to charge. It is unclear if he thought a prancing bull would be too close to the prancing horse of the Ferrari emblem.

Question submitted by 1nn1, who has been to Turin, but drives something many steps down from an Italian GT sports car.

Answer: typewriter

The Olivetti typewriters were masterfully designed, enough so that the brand warranted exhibits in New York and Paris art museums. The company was launched by the Olivetti family in 1908, and wisely pivoted to computers in the 1960s, producing one of the first programmable calculators. Their headquarters are still in Ivrea, near Turin, but they were purchased by TIM in 2003.

This question was typed in by pusdoc.

Answer: Rigoletto

"Rigoletto" opened triumphantly in Venice's La Fenice in 1851. Based on a play by Victor Hugo, the opera centres on three main characters: the rather promiscuous Duke of Mantua, Rigoletto, his deformed court jester, and Gilda, Rigoletto's daughter. The duke is brazen in his promiscuity and how he makes a point of seducing women and cuckolding their husbands. Rigoletto, for his part, mocks them. Count Monterone, whose daughter had been seduced by the duke, enters the proceedings and confronts the duke as his jester pokes fun at him. As the count is carried away he puts a curse on both the duke and his jester. The curse comes to fruition as Rigoletto's daughter falls in love with the duke, and is killed when she puts herself between the duke and an assassin, hired by the jester, to kill the duke.

This question was composed by Phoenix Rising's resident jester pollucci19 who, for years, thought Rigoletto was a form of Italian pasta.

Answer: Dominicans

The Order of Preachers, also called the Order of Friar Preachers was founded in 1215 by St Dominic to provide priestly support to provinces at need; St Dominic himself travelled with his bishop to support the preaching ministry among an heretical Catharist sect of southern France. This pattern of itinerant missions was taken up by others with a theological teaching vocation and became distinct from the more usual monastic custom of the era.

Santo Domingo de Guzmán, known for short as St Dominic, was a Spanish mendicant preacher born in Castile. He placed great emphasis on theological scholarship and, seeing a need for a team of preachers that could be deployed around Europe, he established courses in theology at various universities to train members in the craft. He founded a system of democratic representative government in Bologna where he died in 1221.

Phoenix Rising member VegemiteKid wandered the internet to find interesting information for this question.

Answer: wine

The village of Prosecco is in the province of Trieste; the grape for its famous wine was, quite obviously, named after it. Having said that, within the European Union, this was renamed as Glera (the grape, not the village) in 2009 and the product does allow up to 15% of the wine content to be other white grape varieties.

Prosecco is a white wine that is generally produced in a spumante (sparkling) or a frizzante (semi-sparkling) style. It is a crisp wine that is best served chilled, and works well as an aperitif.

This question was chilled out by Phoenix Rising's pollucci19 who, when asked how he was progressing with it, proclaimed he'd be finished in a prosecco.

Answer: limestone

The Dolomite Mountains are part of the Southern Limestone Alps in northeastern Italy. Extending from the northern border of the Puster Valley to the southern Sugana Valley, and from the River Adige in the west to the Piave Valley in the east, these mountains form a formidable physical barrier between Italy, southern Austria, and Switzerland, with only a few passes to allow road transport to connect Italy with its two northern neighbours.

In 1792, French mineralogist Déodat Gratet de Dolomieu (1750-1801) discovered the limestone in this region was different to that in other parts of the world. Later the composition of what was to be called dolomite (and in turn the mountains were named after the mineral) was due to some of the calcium in limestone being displaced by magnesium to form a different compound. The source of the magnesium was groundwater, causing calcite to be replaced by dolomite, the mineral. The rock composed of the mineral was also called dolomite.

This question was submitted by Phoenix Rising member JAM6430.

Answer: eel

Four major basins and a number of smaller ones make up the Valli di Comacchio. These are the Valles Lido di Magnavacca, the Fossa di Porto, the Campo, and the Fattibello. They form a significant wetland area in Italy that has been recognised by the Ramsar Convention as being internationally important and, as a result, has been designated a Special Protection Area. These wetlands are home to the largest variety of bird life in Italy, housing in excess of 300 species, including flamingos, herons and egrets.

The name, Valli di Comacchio, appropriately means "fish basins of Comacchio" but it is its eels that have made the region famous. In autumn, thanks to prevailing easterly and southerly winds, sea water enters the lagoons. This water carries more oxygen and is less cold which entices the ells into the lagoons where they are trapped in elaborate structures called grisole. Come spring, the grisole are removed so that the young eels can be released to repopulate the lagoon. Sadly the lagoons, today, are less than a quarter of their size in the eighteenth century, thanks to land reclamation projects, and, as a result, the eel trade is no longer the bustling industry that it once was.

This Italian job has gotten to the author of this question, Phoenix Rising's pollucci19, that he broke out into song... "When you scuba dive, and an eel grabs your thigh... that's a moray".

Answer: Giotto

Born near Florence, Giotto di Bondone (1267-1337) was a contemporary of Dante Alighieri, and the most influential Italian painter of the Late Middle Ages. Though he also worked as an architect, designing the spectacular belltower of Florence's cathedral, he is best known for his work as a painter, which includes the fresco cycles of Assisi and Padua, as well as a number of large panel paintings. Giotto broke with the Byzantine tradition of depicting the human figure, and introduced a form of perspective (which would be perfected in the Renaissance) that stemmed directly from his habit of drawing from life.

The frescoes in the Upper Basilica of Assisi, depicting stories from the life of St Francis (probably executed in the final years of the 13th century), were for a long time attributed to Giotto and renowned Florentine painter Cimabue (whose pupil Giotto was believed to have been), though in recent times Giotto's authorship has been disputed. On the other hand, there is no doubt about the authorship of the Scrovegni Chapel frescoes, executed around 1305: the cycle, depicting stories from the life of the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ, is widely considered to be Giotto's masterpiece. Other later fresco cycles by Giotto (though badly damaged) are found in the Franciscan basilica of Santa Croce in Florence.

Donatello - who was a sculptor rather than a painter - was active in the 15 century, while Raphael and Titian were both active in the 16th century.

This question was painstakingly executed by art buff LadyNym.

Answer: tombs

The Etruscan civilization flourished in the Italian peninsula from around 900 BC to the late 1st century BC, when the last Etruscan cities were absorbed by Rome. The heyday of this fascinating civilization, which greatly influenced both the Greeks and the Romans, was around the same time as the foundation of Rome (ca. 750 BC). The three confederations of Etruscan city-states were located in the Po Valley, in present-day Tuscany, Latium, and Umbria (central Italy), and on the coast of Campania; they also expanded into Corsica. Though the Etruscans were often at war with the Romans, there was also a lot of peaceful cultural, social, and religious interaction between the two peoples.

Etruscan society was highly developed for the time, as evidenced by the many artifacts that can admired in Italian museums and archeological sites. However, the vast majority of the architectural structures that remain are tombs, which were built of stone, or cut inside the rock. The necropolises of Tarquinia and Cerveteri (both of them located in Latium) contain stone buildings and tumuli, as well as burial chambers carved into the soft tufa rock; some of these tombs, mainly in Tarquinia, are decorated with stunning wall paintings. Very little is left of Etruscan temples but some foundations, and almost nothing of palaces, houses, or aqueducts (which the Etruscans, unlike the Romans, built underground).

This question was authored by LadyNym, who warmly recommends visiting any of the Etruscan sites or museums in Italy. You won't regret it!

Answer: extraterritorial

The Latin preposition "extra", widely used as a prefix in English and other languages, originally meant "outside" or "beyond", and all the possible answers to the question contain the idea of being "outside" something. The concept of extraterritoriality in international law relates to the state of being exempted from the jurisdiction of local law. While it originally applied mainly to individuals, now it also applies to physical places, such as embassies and consulates, military bases, and ships in international waters.

The Holy See owns a number of properties that, as regulated by the Lateran Treaty of 1929, are not subjected to the jurisdiction of the Italian state. In Rome, these properties include three of the four major papal basilicas (the fourth, St Peter, is part of Vatican City), as well as various historic palaces, buildings and other sites. Outside Rome, the Papal Palace of Castel Gandolfo and the area where the antennae of Radio Vaticana are located (Santa Maria di Galeria) also enjoy extraterritorial status. The Historic Centre of Rome was inscribed in the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1980.

This question was written by LadyNym, who is not extraordinary, extravagant, or extra-large.

Answer: Copenhagen

Tivoli Gardens is an amusement park in downtown Copenhagen, Denmark. It opened in 1843, and is the third-oldest operating amusement park in the world. It features several roller coasters, including the well-known wooden roller coaster, Rutschebanen, built in 1914. It has water rides, a tower drop, bumper cars and many other amusement park rides, including an arcade.

Reminiscent of the cynical reference "bread and circuses" from the days of the Roman Empire, the founder of Tivoli is said to have suggested to the then Danish king, Christian VIII, "When people are amusing themselves, they do not think about politics."

Always enjoying an opportunity to ride politicians, one of Phoenix Rising's resident cynics, mike32768, was definitely amused researching Tivoli.

Answer: limoncello

Limoncello is traditionally made from the zest of lemons that grow in the Sorrento region - the oil is leached from the zest using alcohol, and sweetened. I have been amazed at how enormous the lemons are that grow on the Amalfi Coast, so there is lots of zest to turn into this citrusy digestive. It is served after dinner, chilled. The alcohol content is variable, but generally around 25-30%.

This heady question was kindly distilled by pusdoc.

Answer: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

Castel del Monte can be found on the top of hill in the city of Andria in Italy's Apulia region - which runs downs the south-east coast into the country's "heel" area. It was built in around 1240 for the powerful monarch Frederick II who held numerous titles, including Holy Roman Emperor, King of Germany, King of Italy, King of Sicily and King of Jerusalem, at various stages during his lifetime. He gained his "Stupor Mundi" nickname by his contemporaries as a result of both his stubborn nature and efficient management of his vast territories. However, he spent much of his rule in various disputes and wars with the Papacy (getting excommunicated several times) and Pope Gregory IX used the somewhat less complimentary term "Antichrist" to describe him.

The monument is noted for its unusual octagonal design and has survived surprisingly well into the 21st century, although its exterior has been changed over the centuries as its use changed from royal hunting lodge (although its original purpose has been subject to some historical debate) to state prison to being largely abandoned. It was protected as a World Heritage Site in 1996.

This information was hunted down and lodged into this quiz by Phoenix Rising's Fifiona81.

Answer: beech

Beech trees are native to the temperate regions of Europe, Asia and North America; the most common species in the genus is Fagus sylvatica, the European beech. They have smooth, silver-grey bark, and oval-shaped leaves; the small, triangular nuts that appear in autumn are edible, though somewhat bitter in taste. Beeches are tall, high-branching trees, whose timber is widely used in construction and furniture-making; they can grow at relatively northern latitudes, as in the southern regions of Sweden and Norway.

The transnational UNESCO World Heritage site known as Ancient and Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians and Other Regions of Europe comprises 94 forests located in 18 countries, from Spain to Ukraine. The highest concentration of these intact virgin forests dominated by a single tree species is found in the Carpathians, a region shared by Ukraine, Romania, Slovakia and Poland.

The word "beech" is believed to be the source of the English word "book" and its cognates in other Germanic languages: the common explanation for this etymology is that beech wood was used to make rune-tablets.

This question was provided by tree-hugging, book-loving LadyNym.

Answer: The Passion of the Christ

The movie tells the story of the events leading up to Christ's crucifixion and critics were sharply divided. Some saw it as blasphemous, violent and anti-Semitic, whilst others praised it soundly for its spirituality. Either way, it was one of the best-selling movies in 2004, and garnered three Oscar nominations (without success). It starred Jim Caviezel, Maia Morgenstern, and Monica Bellucci.
Matera is in the far south of Italy, not far from the Gulf of Taranto and the Ionian Sea. It is one of the oldest cities in the world. The Sassi (Italian for "stones") are a group of cave dwellings in the southern area of the city, and they were named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1993.

This question was rocked into the quiz by Phoenix Rising team member, ozzz2002.

Answer: Lombards

The Lombards ruled what most of what is now modern Italy from 568 to 774 BCE. The Lombards migrated from Northern Germany into Italy. Although they had been allies of the Byzantine Empire during the Gothic War, their subsequent migration into Italy was opposed by the Empire. Still, King Alboin established the Kingdom of the Lombards, which lasted for 200 years.

One of the best examples of Lombard architecture can be seen in the church of Santa Sofia at Benevento, built in the 8th century. Lombard Tempietto at Cividale del Friuli and the Monastery of San Salvatore at Brescia also bear Lombard influences.

The Lombard originally called themselves the Winnili, which is generally translated as "the Wolves". After a victory over the Vandals they changed their name to Lombards, a reference to their distinctively long beards.

The information in this question was designed and drafted by Phoenix Rising member tazman6619.

Answer: Genoa

Approximately one third of Shakespeare's plays are set in Italy, or at least the imaginative amalgam of myth and reality that is Shakespeare's Italy. As a creative genius, Shakespeare probably drew inspiration from his circle of influence (the other artists and travelers he rubbed shoulders with), and there is evidence that he borrowed extensively from existing work to form the basis of his craft.

"The Taming of the Shrew" is based in Padua and Verona. Verona is also the setting for "Romeo and Juliet" and "The Two Gentlemen of Verona", although the latter is set predominantly in Milan. Messina is the setting for "Much Ado About Nothing" and part of "Antony and Cleopatra".

While Shakespeare apparently overlooked Genoa in his plays, it has a long and storied history as one of the most important port cities on the Mediterranean. In 2007, a system of streets (Strade Nuove or "New Streets") and palaces (Palzzi dei Rolli or "Palaces of the Lists") in the center of Genoa were listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

This question was penned by JCSon of Phoenix Rising who met a lovely young lady from Italy. Genoa?

Answer: heat ray

The heat ray consisted of a multitude of mirrors, all focused on a spot on a wooden ship, causing it to catch fire. The popular "Mythbusters" show tried to replicate the invention, but only with limited success. Getting a couple of hundred large mirrors to focus on one point for a sustained period of time proved to be next to impossible. The heat ray was allegedly used against a Roman fleet at the siege of Syracuse in 212 BC, but if it was so successful, why was it never used again?

The iron claw was another war weapon, where a huge man-powered machine was used to grab enemy ships and destroy them. The screw pump was introduced to the Greeks by Archimedes, but appears to be invented by the Egyptians, for use in agriculture. The water clock was improved on by Archimedes, but it had been initially devised by Babylonians and Chinese many centuries earlier.

Archimedes seems to be the archetypical "mad scientist", but many of his ideas and theories are still in use today. His work in mathematics include the concept of "pi", a pre-emptive use of calculus, and his well-known statement and calculations on levers. ("If you give me a lever and a place to stand, I can move the world"). He even calculated the number of grains of sand in the known universe as 8 vigintillion (8×10^63).

He also came up with the principle of displacement when he realised that an object would displace an amount of water equal to its own volume. Unfortunately, his brainwave struck when he was in the bath, and he announced his exciting discovery by running through the streets, naked.

This question was written by Phoenix Rising's ozzz2002, who regards Archimedes as one of the cleverest people ever to walk on Earth.

Answer: Hephaestus

The active stratovolcano Mt Etna is on the east coast of the island of Sicily. With regular and fiery eruptions, the mountain features heavily in both Greek and Roman mythology. In both, the blacksmithing forge of Vulcan (Roman) and Hephaestus (Greek) was used to craft items for the gods. The diverse artifacts created by Hephaestus included Hermes' winged helmet and sandals, a chariot for Helios, the golden bow and arrows for Apollo, and Aphrodite's belt. He also molded Pandora out of clay. According to one legend, due to a deformed foot from birth, Hephaestus was cast out of Olympus by Zeus. and sent to his forge under Mt Etna.

This question was crafted by MikeMaster99 who enjoys learning more about Greek mythology but also wishes that there was some consistency in the legends as all the variations make writing "Interesting Information" more challenging!

Answer: bikini

Bikinis shot to the forefront of fashionable beachwear in 1946, a swimsuit consisting of two triangles of fabric to cover a bust and two, slightly larger triangles, assembled to cover (often barely) the bottom part of a person. Named after the Bikini Atoll, where the world's first nuclear tests took place, it ultimately became as explosively controversial as its namesake, with women around the world having fierce allegiance to either a one-piece or two-piece costume.

The mosaics of Piazza Armerina in the Villa Romana del Casale are considered to be outstanding. Varied and intricate, the mosaics date back to 4AD, and are excellent examples of Roman workmanship. The "bikini"-clad ladies are seen performing sporting activities clad in their two-piece costumes.

Phoenix Rising's smpdit has never had a bikini-ready body, and prefers larger pieces of fabric, thank you very much.