Italy
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
7correct to beat the crowd
94 free Italy trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
48 free Italian trivia questions with answers. Ready to test your knowledge of Italy? This Italy trivia quiz covers Italian culture, history, geography, food, football and iconic landmarks, from Rome and Venice to the regions most visitors never reach. Whether you're an Italy enthusiast or just curious about this Mediterranean nation, these 94 questions will challenge what you know about the boot-shaped country. Every answer is checked against a reliable source and shows its citation once you have answered.
30 of 94 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which city was the Kingdom of Italy's capital right before Rome took the job in 1871?
Florence
Florence served as the Kingdom of Italy's capital from 1865 to 1871, after Turin (1861–65) and before the government moved to Rome.
Q 02Which common object is often used to describe the shape of the Italian peninsula?
A boot
Italy is famously shaped like a boot, lo Stivale in Italian, with Apulia forming the heel and Calabria the toe.
Q 03Which mountain range runs 1,200 km down the spine of peninsular Italy?
Apennines
The Apennines run some 1,200 km as parallel smaller chains, joining the Ligurian Alps in the northwest and ending at Reggio di Calabria at the toe.
Q 04Which Roman emperor started building the Colosseum, though he never saw it finished?
Vespasian
Vespasian began the Colosseum around AD 72; his son Titus inaugurated it in AD 80, so the Flavian dynasty gave it its formal name, the Flavian Amphitheatre.
Q 05Which Renaissance 'non-painter' carved David and frescoed the Sistine Chapel ceiling?
Michelangelo
Michelangelo, who saw himself as a sculptor, finished David in 1504 and painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling between 1508 and 1512.
Q 06What currency did Italy give up for the Euro in 2002?
Lira
The Lira was introduced by the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy in 1807 at par with the French franc, and served as Italy's currency from 1861 until 2002.
Q 07Which of these countries shares a land border with Italy?
Switzerland
Italy shares land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, and Slovenia.
Q 08Which volcano's eruption in AD 79 buried the Roman towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum?
Mount Vesuvius
Mount Vesuvius erupted in AD 79, burying Pompeii and Herculaneum along with Oplontis and Stabiae under ash and pyroclastic flows.
Q 09Which is the longest river in Italy, running 652 kilometres eastward from the Cottian Alps?
Po
Counting the right-bank tributary the Maira brings the length to 682 kilometres.
Q 10Which sovereign enclave inside Rome was created by the Lateran Treaty of 1929?
Vatican City
Vatican City was created by the 1929 Lateran Treaty between Mussolini's Italy and the Holy See; at about 44 hectares it is the world's smallest sovereign state.
Q 11Which active stratovolcano on Sicily's east coast, about 3,400 metres high, is Italy's tallest peak south of the Alps?
Mount Etna
Mount Etna is about two and a half times the height of the next largest of Italy's four active volcanoes, and its exact summit shifts with each eruption.
Q 12Roughly how many bridges link the islands of Venice's historic centre?
Around 470
The islands sit in the Venetian Lagoon, an enclosed bay between the mouths of the Po and the Piave.
Q 13The Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed under Victor Emmanuel II on 17 March of which year, marking unification?
1861
1861 was the year, a decade before Rome itself joined the kingdom; Victor Emmanuel II became its first king.
Q 21How many FIFA World Cups had Italy won by the end of 2022?
4
The wins came in 1934, 1938, 1982 and 2006, though the Azzurri failed to qualify for both 2018 and 2022.
Q 22Angelo Moriondo's 1884 patent, an espresso-machine ancestor, pushed water through the coffee with what?
Steam
Moriondo's 1884 machine used steam pressure from a boiler to force hot water through coffee in bulk; Luigi Bezzera's 1901 Milan patent made single cups practical.
Q 23Which poet is known in Italy as il Sommo Poeta and called the father of the Italian language?
Dante Alighieri
Dante Alighieri wrote the Divine Comedy in his native Tuscan rather than Latin and died in exile in Ravenna in 1321, where his tomb stands.
Q 14Roughly how many people live in Italy, the EU's third most populous member?
59 million
Italy's 2021 census counted about 59 million residents, placing it behind Germany and France but ahead of Spain within the EU.
Q 15The pizza Margherita's tomato, mozzarella and basil are said to represent what?
The colours of the Italian flag
Red tomato, white mozzarella and green basil are said to echo the colours of the Italian flag; legend credits Neapolitan pizzaiolo Raffaele Esposito with making it for Queen Margherita in 1889.
Q 16Which cheese, aged at least a year in a few northern provinces, is the 'king of cheeses'?
Parmigiano Reggiano
Parmigiano Reggiano, aged at least 12 months, may only be made in Parma, Reggio Emilia, Modena and parts of Bologna and Mantua.
Q 17Garibaldi's Expedition of the Thousand landed in 1860 at which western Sicilian port?
Marsala
The Thousand landed at Marsala on 11 May 1860, six days after sailing from Quarto near Genoa, opening the conquest of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.
Q 18In which city did Garibaldi's Italian Legion first acquire its famous red shirts?
Montevideo
Garibaldi's Italian Legion in Montevideo adopted red shirts in the 1840s, buying cheap stock meant for Buenos Aires slaughterhouses; he brought the look back to Italy in 1848.
Q 19The Leaning Tower of Pisa was built to house what for the neighbouring cathedral?
Its bells
Its three-metre foundation in soft subsoil began tilting during construction, which dragged on for 199 years.
Q 20Coins tossed into the Trevi Fountain in Rome are collected and given to whom?
The Caritas charity
The coins, roughly 3,000 euros a day, are swept up and handed to the Catholic charity Caritas, which spends them on Rome's poor.
Q 24La Scala's opera season traditionally opens on 7 December, the feast day of which saint?
Ambrose
Ambrose is Milan's patron; the house itself opened in 1778 with a Salieri opera on the site of a demolished church.
Q 25Guglielmo Marconi shared the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics for work in which field?
Wireless telegraphy
Marconi shared the 1909 prize with Karl Ferdinand Braun for contributions to wireless telegraphy; in 1901 he claimed to receive the letter S sent from Cornwall to Newfoundland.
Q 26Which Italian physicist, born in Como, is credited with inventing the electric battery?
Alessandro Volta
Alessandro Volta, born in Como in 1745, built the voltaic pile in 1799–1800, the first true battery; the volt is named for him, and he also identified methane.
Q 27The name of the Vespa scooter is the Italian word for which insect?
Wasp
Vespa is Italian for wasp, a name Enrico Piaggio reportedly chose for the 1946 scooter's narrow waist and buzzing engine; Roman Holiday (1953) turned it into a global icon.
Q 28The dessert name 'tiramisu' translates roughly to what?
Pick me up
Tiramisù means 'pick me up' (tirami su); the mascarpone and coffee-soaked savoiardi dessert is usually traced to Le Beccherie restaurant in Treviso around 1970.
Q 29Under what condition did Galileo spend the rest of his life after his 1633 conviction?
House arrest
Galileo was sentenced to house arrest and spent his last years at his villa in Arcetri near Florence, where he wrote Two New Sciences, published in 1638.
Q 30San Marino, the tiny republic surrounded by Italy, is led by two Captains Regent who serve for how long?
Six months
Tradition holds that the state was founded by Saint Marinus in 301, making it the world's oldest surviving republic.