Italian (italiano, or lingua italiana) is a Romance language spoken by about 63 million people, primarily in Italy. In Switzerland, Italian is one of four official languages. It is also the official language of San Marino. It is widely spoken in Vatican City, although Latin is the official language. Standard Italian, adopted by the state after the unification of Italy, is based on Tuscan and is somewhat intermediate between Italo-Dalmatian languages of the South and Northern Italian dialects of the North.
Unlike most other Romance languages, Italian has retained the contrast between short and long consonants which existed in Latin. As in most Romance languages, stress is distinctive. Of the Romance languages, Italian is considered to be one of the closest resembling Latin in terms of vocabulary, though Romanian most closely preserves the noun declension system of Classical Latin, and Spanish the verb conjugation system (see Old Latin), while Sardinian is the most conservative in terms of phonology.
It is affectionately called il parlar gentile (the gentle language) by its speakers.
Today, the Italian language is used as a lingua franca in some environments, for example within the Catholic ecclesiastic hierarchy, Italian is known by a large part of members and is used in substitution of Latin in some official documents as well (the presence of Italian as the second official language in the Vatican City indicates not only use in the seat in Rome, but also in the whole world where an episcopal seat is present). Other examples can be found in the sports (football, motor race) and arts (music, opera, visual arts, design, fashion industry).
Source - Wikipeadia.com