location view of the garden of the villa medici
The euro ( sign : €; code : EUR ) is the official currency of the eurozone , which consists of 19 of the member states of the European Union : ___MASK61___ , Belgium , Cyprus , ___MASK48___ , Finland , France , Germany , Greece , Ireland , Italy , Latvia , Lithuania , Luxembourg , Malta , the Netherlands , ___MASK52___ , Slovakia , Slovenia , and Spain . The currency is also officially used by the institutions of the European Union and four other European countries , as well as unilaterally by two others , and is consequently used daily by some 337 million Europeans . Outside of Europe , a number of overseas territories of EU members also use the euro as their currency . The European Union ( ___MASK33___ ) is a political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe . It has an area of , and an estimated population of over 510 million . The ___MASK33___ has developed an internal single market through a standardised system of laws that apply in all member states . ___MASK33___ policies aim to ensure the free movement of people , goods , services , and capital within the internal market , enact legislation in justice and home affairs , and maintain common policies on trade , agriculture , fisheries , and regional development . Within the ___MASK83___ Area , passport controls have been abolished . A monetary union was established in 1999 and came into full force in 2002 , and is composed of 19 ___MASK33___ member states which use the euro currency . ___MASK44___ , officially the French Republic , is a country with territory in western Europe and several overseas regions and territories . The European , or metropolitan , area of ___MASK44___ extends from the ___MASK23___ to the ___MASK85___ and the North Sea , and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean . Overseas ___MASK44___ include French Guiana on the South American continent and several island territories in the Atlantic , Pacific and Indian oceans . ___MASK44___ spans and had a total population of almost 67 million people as of January 2017 . It is a unitary semi - presidential republic with the capital in Paris , the country ' s largest city and main cultural and commercial centre . Other major urban centres include Marseille , Lyon , Lille , Nice , Toulouse and Bordeaux . The Pincian Hill is a hill in the northeast quadrant of the historical ___MASK66___ of Rome . The hill lies to the north of the Quirinal , overlooking the Campus Martius . It was outside the original boundaries of the ancient city of Rome , and was not one of the Seven hills of Rome , but it lies within the wall built by Roman Emperor Aurelian between 270 and 273 . ___MASK35___ is a city and special " comune " ( named " ___MASK36___ Capitale ") in Italy . ___MASK35___ is the capital of Italy and of the Lazio region . With 2 , 870 , 336 residents in , it is also the country ' s largest and most populated " comune " and fourth - most populous city in the European Union by population within city limits . The Metropolitan City of ___MASK35___ has a population of 4 . 3 million residents . The city is located in the central - western portion of the Italian Peninsula , within Lazio ( Latium ), along the shores of Tiber river . The Vatican City is an independent country geographically located within the city boundaries of ___MASK35___ , the only existing example of a country within a city : for this reason ___MASK35___ has been often defined as capital of two states . The ( plural : "") is a basic administrative division in ___MASK12___ , roughly equivalent to a township or municipality . ___MASK75___ , officially the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic in ___MASK34___ . It consists of 26 cantons , and the city of Bern is the seat of the federal authorities . The country is situated in Western - Central ___MASK34___ , and is bordered by Italy to the south , ___MASK44___ to the west , ___MASK71___ to the north , and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east . ___MASK75___ is a landlocked country geographically divided between the Alps , the Swiss Plateau and the Jura , spanning an area of . While the Alps occupy the greater part of the territory , the Swiss population of approximately eight million people is concentrated mostly on the plateau , where the largest cities are to be found : among them are the two global cities and economic centres Zürich and Geneva . ___MASK14___ , officially ___MASK14___ State or the State of ___MASK14___ , is a walled enclave within the city of ___MASK35___ . With an area of approximately 44 hectares ( 110 acres ), and a population of 842 , it is the smallest State in the world by both area and population , but formally it is not sovereign , sovereignty being held by the Holy See , the only entity of public international law that has diplomatic relations with almost every country in the world . The Spanish Golden Age (, " Golden Century ") is a period of flourishing in arts and literature in ___MASK58___ , coinciding with the political rise of the Spanish ___MASK55___ dynasty . " El Siglo de Oro " does not imply precise dates and is usually considered to have lasted longer than an actual century . It begins no earlier than 1492 , with the end of the " Reconquista " ( Reconquest ), the sea voyages of Christopher Columbus to the New World , and the publication of Antonio de Nebrija ' s " Gramática de la lengua castellana " ( Grammar of the Castilian Language ). Politically , it ends no later than 1659 , with the Treaty of the Pyrenees , ratified between France and ___MASK55___ ___MASK58___ . The last great writer of the period , Pedro Calderón de la Barca , died in 1681 , and his death usually is considered the end of " El Siglo de Oro " in the arts and literature . Las Meninas ( Spanish for The Ladies - in - Waiting ) is a 1656 painting in the ___MASK74___ in Madrid , by Diego Velázquez , the leading artist of the Spanish Golden Age . Its complex and enigmatic composition raises questions about reality and illusion , and creates an uncertain relationship between the viewer and the figures depicted . Because of these complexities , " Las Meninas " has been one of the most widely analyzed works in Western painting . Ottorino Respighi ( 9 July 187918 April 1936 ) was an Italian violinist , composer and musicologist , best known for his three orchestral tone poems " Fountains of ___MASK35___ " ( 1916 ), " Pines of ___MASK35___ " ( 1924 ), and " Roman Festivals " ( 1928 ). His musicological interest in 16th -, 17th - and 18th - century music led him to compose pieces based on the music of these periods . He also wrote several operas , the most famous being " La fiamma ". Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez (; baptized on June 6 , 1599August 6 , 1660 ) was a Spanish painter , the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV , and one of the most important painters of the Spanish Golden Age . He was an individualistic artist of the contemporary Baroque period , important as a portrait artist . In addition to numerous renditions of scenes of historical and cultural significance , he painted scores of portraits of the Spanish royal family , other notable European figures , and commoners , culminating in the production of his masterpiece " Las Meninas " ( 1656 ). The Tiber ( Latin " Tiberis ", Italian "") is the third - longest river in ___MASK12___ , rising in the Apennine Mountains in Emilia - Romagna and flowing through Umbria and Lazio , where it is joined by the Aniene river , to the Tyrrhenian Sea , between ___MASK76___ and Fiumicino . It drains a basin estimated at . The river has achieved lasting fame as the main watercourse of the city of Rome , founded on its eastern banks . Lazio (; ) is one of the 20 administrative regions of ___MASK12___ , situated in the ___MASK72___ peninsular section of the country . With almost 5 . 9 million residents and a GDP of more than 170 billion euros , Lazio is the second most populated region of ___MASK12___ ( having approximately the same in population as ___MASK8___ ), and has the second largest economy of the nation . Its capital is ___MASK35___ , capital and largest city of ___MASK12___ . The church of the Santissima Trinità dei Monti , often called merely the Trinità dei Monti ( French : " La Trinité - des - Monts ") is a Roman Catholic late Renaissance titular church in ___MASK35___ , central Italy . It is best known for its commanding position above the Spanish Steps which lead down to the Piazza di Spagna . The church and its surrounding area ( including the Villa Medici ) are the responsibility of the French State . A mediterranean climate or dry summer climate is the climate typical of the lands in the Mediterranean Basin . The lands around the ___MASK23___ form the largest area where this climate type is found , but it also is found in most of coastal California , in parts of Western and ___MASK99___ , in southwestern South Africa , sections of Central ___MASK81___ , and in ___MASK72___ Chile . The Villa Medici is a mannerist villa and an architectural complex with a garden contiguous with the larger Borghese gardens , on the Pincian Hill next to Trinità dei Monti in ___MASK35___ , Italy . The Villa Medici , founded by Ferdinando I de ' Medici , Grand Duke of Tuscany and now property of the French State , has housed the French Academy in ___MASK35___ since 1803 . A musical evocation of its garden fountains features in Ottorino Respighi ' s " Fontane di ___MASK36___ ". View of the Garden of the Villa Medici is a small painting by Diego Velázquez of the garden at the Villa Medici in ___MASK35___ , with some figures standing watching an unseen event , possibly the works behind the scaffolding in the middle of the building in the background . It is now in the Prado . There is some controversy as to its date , with some scholars believing it was made during the artist ' s first trip to Italy ( 1629 - 31 ) and others feeling its advanced technique must mean it belongs to his second trip ( 1649 - 51 ) . There is another version with similar features and the same title , and the two are of similar size and vary little in their execution and manner of depicting the garden . Landscape painting was rare in Spanish painting of this time , with most commissions being religious works or portraits , and so Velázquez was somewhat cut off from the mainstream of French and Italian landscape art as practised by Claude Lorrain or Poussin for example ) , making his use of an oil sketch rather than an easel - painted work unusual . Such a revolution put him 200 years ahead of the Impressionist painters in choosing landscape as a topic , then showing interest in light , nature and their interconnectedness , and finally in his pictorial technique ( abandoning detail to stain rather than paint , with little touches of the brush better appreciated stood further back from the painting than too close to it ) . Velázquez thus showed that he was not only a good painter for his mastery of technique but also his innovation , ahead of its time and nationally and internationally revolutionising other painters ' way of painting . The ___MASK23___ ( pronounced ) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean , surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land : on the north by Southern Europe and ___MASK10___ , on the south by North Africa , and on the east by the Levant . The sea is sometimes considered a part of the Atlantic Ocean , although it is usually identified as a separate body of water . ___MASK12___ , officially the Italian Republic , is a unitary parliamentary republic in ___MASK34___ . Located in the heart of the ___MASK23___ , ___MASK12___ shares open land borders with France , Switzerland , Austria , Slovenia , San Marino and Vatican City . ___MASK12___ covers an area of and has a largely temperate seasonal climate and Mediterranean climate ; due to its shape , it is often referred to in ___MASK12___ as " lo Stivale " ( the Boot ). With 61 million inhabitants , it is the fourth most populous EU member state . San Marino , officially the Republic of San Marino , also known as the Most Serene Republic of San Marino , is an enclaved microstate surrounded by ___MASK12___ , situated on the Italian Peninsula on the northeastern side of the Apennine Mountains . Its size is just over , with a population of 33 , 562 . Its capital is the City of San Marino and its largest city is Dogana . San Marino has the smallest population of all the members of the Council of ___MASK34___ . Latium is the region of ___MASK72___ western Italy in which the city of ___MASK35___ was founded and grew to be the capital city of the Roman Empire . Latium was originally a small triangle of fertile , volcanic soil on which resided the tribe of the Latins or Latians . It was located on the left ___MASK4___ ( east and south ) of the Tiber river , extending northward to the Anio river ( a left - ___MASK4___ tributary of the Tiber ) and southeastward to the Pomptina Palus ( Pontine Marshes , now the Pontine Fields ) as far south as the Circeian promontory . The right ___MASK4___ of the Tiber was occupied by the Etruscan city of Veii , and the other borders were occupied by Italic tribes . Subsequently , ___MASK35___ defeated Veii and then its Italic neighbors , expanding Latium to the Apennine Mountains in the northeast and to the opposite end of the marsh in the southeast . The modern descendant , the Italian " Regione " of Lazio , also called " Latium " in Latin , and occasionally in modern English , is somewhat larger still , but not as much as double the original Latium . The Baroque ( or ) is often thought of as a period of artistic style that used exaggerated motion and clear , easily interpreted detail to produce ___MASK100___ , tension , exuberance , and grandeur in sculpture , painting , architecture , literature , dance , theater , and music . The style began around 1600 in Rome and Italy , and spread to most of Europe . The Italian Peninsula or Apennine Peninsula (" Penisola appenninica ") is the ___MASK72___ and the smallest of the three large peninsulas of ___MASK7___ ( between the Iberian Peninsula and the Balkan Peninsula ). It extends from the Po Valley in the north to the ___MASK72___ ___MASK23___ in the south . The peninsula ' s shape gives it the nickname " lo Stivale " ( the Boot ). Three smaller peninsulas contribute to this characteristic shape , namely Calabria ( the " toe "), Salento ( the " heel ") and Gargano ( the " spur "). ___MASK42___ , officially the Republic of ___MASK42___ ( Slovene : , abbr .: " RS "), is a nation state in southern Central ___MASK34___ , located at the crossroads of main European cultural and trade routes . It is bordered by Italy to the west , Austria to the north , ___MASK45___ to the northeast , ___MASK91___ to the south and southeast , and the Adriatic Sea to the southwest . It covers and has a population of 2 . 06 million . It is a parliamentary republic and a member of the United Nations , European Union , and NATO . The capital and largest city is Ljubljana . The French Academy in ___MASK35___ is an Academy located in the Villa Medici , within the Villa Borghese , on the Pincio ( Pincian Hill ) in ___MASK35___ , Italy .