Italy has fostered a long tradition of important scientific discovery, fuelled in the Renaissance by such men as Galileo. Meanwhile, explorers such as Columbus had set off to find new worlds. The spirit of scientific enquiry continued up in the 20th century, with the invention of radio and pioneering work in the field of physics.

Worthy of remark is the contribution of Italians, like Vivaldi and Verdi, to music and opera, while not forgetting that in the 20th century musicians such as Puccini and Pavarotti emerged. But famous people of Italy do not derive only from these fields; the Italian cinema, which after World War II to the mid 70's was blooming, offers a large number of film directors and actors world widely recognized. Moreover athletes, mainly football (soccer) players, are among the famous people of Italy thanks to their success in national and international level.

We have tried to collect, as many of these personalities as possible, and we have created the list below with a photo and some information about each one. But we are also waiting for your help & ideas to enlarge our list and to make this website more informative. Click here to send us information about any personality (actor, singer, painter, scientist, politician, athlete etc) that you believe is not in our list and we will add it in our website.