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Persistendo il maltempo, tutta la città è rimasta bloccata.

Persistendo il maltempo, tutta la città è rimasta bloccata.
The bad weather persisting, the whole city remained blocked.
From Lesson 330:Independent gerund clauses·Italian

Questions & Answers about Persistendo il maltempo, tutta la città è rimasta bloccata.

Why does il maltempo come after persistendo instead of before it?
When using an absolute gerund (where the gerund has a different subject than the main clause), Italian strongly prefers putting the explicit subject after the gerund. While in English we say 'The bad weather persisting', Italian naturally flips the order to Persistendo il maltempo.
Can I translate persistendo here as 'because it persisted'?
Yes! The absolute gerund is often used to show cause. You could rewrite the first half of this sentence as Poiché persisteva il maltempo (Since the bad weather persisted) and the meaning would be exactly the same.
Why are there two feminine singular endings in è rimasta bloccata?
The verb rimanere (to remain) takes essere as its helping verb, so its past participle (rimasta) must agree with the feminine singular subject la città. The word bloccata is an adjective describing the city, so it must also take the feminine singular -a ending.
Why do we need the article la in tutta la città?
In Italian, when tutto (all/the whole) modifies a noun, it must be followed by the definite article. You cannot say tutta città; it always has to be tutta la città (literally: 'all the city').

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