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 440 ITALIC RACES seems to warrant the now generally received opinion that the Umbrians, Oscans, and Latins, or at least the most important element of them, as well as the Sabines and their descendants, were branches of one race, or form a distinct and independent group of races belonging to the Aryan or Indo-European family. LAN- GUAGES. The Italic group of languages is di- vided into two distinct classes, the Umbro- Samnite or Umbro-Oscan and the Latin. Os- can and Umbrian bear about the same relation to Latin as the Ionic bears to the Doric dialect in Greek, and the differences between Oscan and Umbrian are no greater than those between Sicilian and Spartan Doric. The most ancient if not the only extant Umbrian record of im- portance is the celebrated Iguvine or Eugubian inscription on seven bronze plates found in 1444 at Gubbio, the ancient Iguvium in Umbria. It is now in the town hall of Gubbio. The Oscan, Samnite, or Sabellian language is preserved only in a few inscriptions. The Cippus Abel- laniu, which dates from shortly after the second Punic war, contains a treaty of alliance between the citizens of Abella and the neighboring town of Nola, where it is now preserved. The Ta- bula Bantina is a bronze tablet found in 1790 at Oppido, 8 m. from Banzi, an ancient town of Apulia. This tablet furnished the starting point for the study of these languages, as it contains an inscription in both Latin and Oscan. Another bronze tablet was recently discovered at Agnone, in northern Samnium, which con- tains a dedication of various sacred offerings. The Oscan langnage prevailed extensively in Campania, and numerous inscriptions have come to light at Hercnlaneum and Pompeii, several of which have been copied and translated, and all of them are published from time to time in the official reports of the progress of the exca- vations. The language of the Latins was spo- ken before the emigration of the Samnites by the Ausonians in Campania, by the Itali proper in Lucania and Bruttium, and probably also by the Siculians in the eastern portion of Sicily. In Latium proper it was developed, through the influence of the Etruscans and Umbro- Samnites, into the Latin language, which be- came the prevailing speech of Italy and was finally known as the Roman language (lingua ftomana), and gave rise to the modern dialects now described as the Romance languages. (See LATIN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE, and RO- MANCE LANGUAGES.) For the Umbrian lan- guage, see Grotefend, Rudimenta Lingua Umbrica (Hanover, 1835-'9) ; Aufrecht and Kirchhoff, Die wnbruchen Sprachdenkmiiler erlautert (Berlin, 1849-'51) ; and Huschke, Die iguvischen Tafeln, containing a grammar and glossary (Leipsic, 1859). For the Oscan language, see Grotefend, Rudimenta Lingua Oscce (Hanover, 1839); Mommsen, OsMsclie Studien (Berlin, 1845) ; Kirchhoff, Das Stadt- recht von Bantia (Berlin, 1853) ; Huschke, Die osJcuehen und alelliscnen Sprachdenk- maler (Elberfeld, 1856), which contains also a ITALY grammar and glossary of the language. For comparative purposes, see Mommsen, Die un- teritalischen Dialecte (Leipsic, 1850); Corssen, I)e Volscorum Lingua (Naumburg, 1858), and several articles in Kuhn's Zeiticnrift fur ver- gleichende Sprachtcissenschaft; and Corpus In- scriptionum Latinarum Consilio et Auctoritate Academim Litterurum Jiegice Borussicw editum (Berlin, 1869 et seq.). ITALY, a kingdom of southern Europe, com- prising the Italian peninsula and the islands of Sardinia and Sicily, between lat. 36 38' and 46 40' K, and Ion. 6 30' and 18 33' E. The island of Corsica and the district of Nice (which encloses the independent principality of Mona- co) belong geographically to Italy, but politi- cally to France ; the republic of San Marino is also included in Italy geographically, but is an independent state. The origin of the name It- aly is differently explained by ancient writers. According to Timseus and Varro, it is derived from (ToWf, calf or ox, meaning a country in which cattle abound; while Thucydides and Dionysius of Halicarnassus assume the exist- ence of a mythical king named Italus, to whom the country owes its name. The kingdom is bounded N. W. by France, N. by Switzerland and Austria, N. E. by Austria, E. by the Adri- atic and the Ionian sea, and S. and W. by the Mediterranean. The total area of the kingdom was officially estimated in the work Italia Eco- nomica (Rome, 1873) at 114,409 sq. m., while other official publications of the Italian gov- ernment give 114,850 and 114,372 sq. m. ; the population, according to the first complete cen- sus, taken Dec. 31, 1871, amounted to 26,801,- 154. Italy has been until recently merely a geographical and ethnographical division of Eu- rope, but not a political unit. During the mid- dle ages it was divided into independent com- monwealths, republican and monarchical, which were constantly changing in name, number, and extent. The treaty of Vienna (1815) di- vided the Italian territory into the kingdoms of Sardinia and the Two Sicilies, the States of the Church, the grand duchy of Tuscany, the duchies of Parma, Lucca, and Modena, the Lom- bardo-Venetian kingdom (which was united with Austria), the republic of San Marino, and the principality of Monaco. Lucca ceased to be an independent state in 1847; the king of Sardinia in 1859 and 1860 annexed Lombardy, Parma, Modena, Tuscany, a part of the Papal States, and the Two Sicilies, and in February, 1861, assumed the title king of Italy. In 1866 Venetia was incorporated with Italy, and in 1870 the remainder of the Papal States. The kingdom is at present (1874) divided into 69 provinces, which are again subdivided into districts (circondarii) and communes. The names of the principal old divisions are still in common use, though they have no longer any political significance. The following table ex- hibits the area, number of districts, number of communes, and population of the provinces and large historic divisions, ancient and modern :