Know it all

The Venetian hotel and casino opened in Las Vegas in 1999. The cost to build the 3,000-room themed resort, complete with a lagoon and gondola rides, was $1.8 billion.

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Do you know which country is the smallest in the world? See answer at end.

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Tuscany is the oldest wine-producing region in Italy. Chianti comes from the Chianti region of Tuscany.

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Michelangelo’s David is the most frequently reproduced statue in the world. The original David is located in Florence, Italy.

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Fashion designer Gianni Versace was born in Reggio Calabria, Italy, in 1946. Versace grew up learning about designing and making clothes from his mother, in her small tailor shop.

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Italian-born Hector Boiardi (1898-1985) opened a restaurant in Cleveland in 1924. His spaghetti sauce was so popular, he sold it in milk bottles for his customers to take home. That was the beginning of his career as Chef Boyardee (after changing the spelling of his name). When he died in 1985, Chef Boyardee products brought in $500 million a year.

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Pasta is an Italian word meaning dough.

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The size of a regulation bocce ball is 4.25 inches in diameter.

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The Leaning Tower of Pisa was built on unstable soil, which is why it leans 14.5 feet to the south.

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The Mona Lisa, by Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci, has been restored many times. X-rays of the painting show that there are three versions of the Mona Lisa under the present one.

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The Mona Lisa is the most valuable object ever insured. The painting is on display at the Louvre Museum in Paris.

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When it ’s noon in Italy, it ’s 3 a.m. in Los Angeles, 6 a.m. in New York, 11 a.m. in London and 9 p.m. in Sidney.

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Street painting, usually done with chalk, has been an art in Europe since the 16th century. In Italy, street painters are called “madonnari” after their historical practice of creating chalk paintings of the Madonna.

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The Italian word biscotti means twice baked. The Italian cookies are baked twice, once after the dough is mixed and again after the cookies are sliced. That’s how they get so crunchy.

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Born Sofia Villani Scicolone in 1934 in Rome, Sophia Loren has been on the cover of “Life” magazine four times, in 1961, 1964 and twice in 1966.

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Sophia Loren won a Best Actress Oscar at the age of 26 for her role in the 1961 war-time drama “Two Women.” It was the first Oscar ever awarded to a woman in a foreign-language film.

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Answer: At 0.2 square miles, Vatican City is the smallest country in the world. In 1929, the Italian government established Vatican City as a sovereign state, governed by the pope. The Swiss Guard is the official guard of the Vatican and the pope.

Know It All is by Kerry McArdle. It runs in the weekend edition of the Daily Journal. Questions? Comments? Email knowitall(at)smdailyjournal.com or call 344-5200 ext. 128.