History of the word italy

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The etymology of the name of Italy has been the subject of reconstructions by linguists and historians. Considerations extraneous to the specifically linguistic reconstruction of the name have formed a rich corpus of solutions that are either associated with legend (the existence of a king named Italus) or in any case strongly problematic (such as the connection of the name with the grape vine, vitis in Latin).^[1]

One theory is that that the name derives from the word Italói, a term with which the ancient Greeks designated a tribe of Sicels who had crossed the Strait of Messina and who inhabited the extreme tip of the Italic Peninsula, near today’s Catanzaro.^[2] This is attested by the fact that the ancient Greek peoples who colonized present-day Calabria by integrating with the pre-existing peoples, referred to themselves as Italiotes, that is, inhabitants of Italy.^[3] This group of Italian people had worshiped the simulacrum of a calf (vitulus, in Latin), and the name would therefore mean «inhabitants of the land of calves».^[2] In any case, it is known that in archaic times the name indicated the part located in the extreme south of the Italian Peninsula.^[3]

The name of Italy originally applied only to the tip of the Italian boot.^[3] As time progressed, the name «Italia» was extended further and further north until it reached the Alps in Roman times and became synonymous with the whole Italian geographical region.^[4]

Hypothesis on etymology[edit]

The myth of Italus[edit]

The region, which is now called Italy, formerly held the Oenotrians; some time their king was Italus, and then they changed their name to Italics; succeeding Morgete, they were called Morgetes; later came a Siculus, who divided the peoples, who were then Morgeti and Sicels; and Italics were those who were Oenotrians

There are various legends about the character of Italus, king of the Oenotrians who, according to the myth, lived 16 generations before the Trojan War; the name «Italy» derives from him.^[6] Given first to the region corresponding to his kingdom, that is almost all of Calabria with the exception of the northern area. King Italus converted the Oenotrians from a nomadic people to a permanent one, establishing them in the extreme offshoot of the European coasts, in the current isthmus of Catanzaro between the Gulf of Squillace to the east and the Gulf of Saint Euphemia to the west.^[7] The capital of his kingdom, according to Strabo, was Pandosia Bruzia, today probably corresponding to the city of Acri.

According to Strabo, Antiochus of Syracuse (5th century BC) already spoke of the borders of Italy in his work On Italy,^[8] which identified it with the ancient Oenotrians. At that time it extended from the Strait of Sicily to the Gulf of Taranto (to the east) and the Gulf of Posidonia (to the west).^[9]

Italy as the land of calves[edit]

Not all ancient authors adhered to the mythological version. Marcus Terentius Varro who, citing Timaeus, derives the word Italia from calves («Italia a Vitulis«) for the abundance and beauty of the calf (Vitulus in Latin; Vitlu in Osco-Umbrian) in the region.^[10] The passage from the Vitalia form to Italia can in this case be explained by the simple fall of the initial consonant by means of classical Greek, in which the letter V is absent.^[11]

Other proposals that motivate the name beyond a real linguistic analysis can be remembered that of Domenico Romanelli, who, based on the ancient but never fully accepted the hypothesis that it was related to the bulls (taurus in Latin), explained it with the fact that those who came from the sea from the west saw bull-like silhouettes in the Bruttia and Japigia peninsulas.^[12]

In ancient times the lands of present-day Calabria were known as Italy.^[13] The ancient Greeks indicated the origin of the name in Ouitoulía from the word «Italói» (plural of Italós), a term with which the Achaeans settlers who arrived in the lands of present-day Calabria ambiguously designated the Vitulis, a population that inhabited the lands of current southern Calabria whose ethnonym was etymologically related to the word indicating the bull, an animal sacred to the Vitulis. The ancient Greek italós is of Italic derivation from the Osco-Umbrian uitlu, precisely bull (see the Latin uitellus, form with diminutive suffix meaning calf).^[13] Ouitoulía thus came to mean «land of the Vitulis» or «land of the bulls».^[13] In support of this hypothesis, it is highlighted that in the southern part of the Calabrian peninsula, and in the Sicilian coast of the Strait of Messina, there are toponyms of Magna Graecia origin (some translated into Latin by the Normans) probably belonging to the most ancient etymology of the land of the bulls (of cattle). These include Tauriana, a city destroyed by the Saracens in the 10th century whose name survives today in the municipalities of Gioia Tauro, Taurianova, and Terranova Sappo Minulio, Bova, Bovalino and Itala.

The similarity with the name «Italy» of the last toponym, «Itala», is evident. Danish archaeologist and philologist Frederik Poulsen, in a study on the origin of the name «Italia», claimed that it was used for the first time in the 5th century BC, precisely with reference to the territory south of Messina where Itala is situated and where a population of the Oenotrians lived, which had a bull as its emblem («Vitulus«).^[14] With the arrival of the ancient Greeks, the consonant V was eliminated from the word Vitulus, which disappeared in classical Greek, and only the word «Itulus» remained.^[11]

From the Oenotrians, the populations of the Italics, Morgetes and Sicels would then be distinguished. Subsequently, according to Poulsen, the name «Italy» was extended to the whole peninsula.

Catch from the Oenotrians, formerly Oenotria: now, as it is famous, having taken the name of Italus, Italy is called

— Virgil, Aeneid III, 165

Poulsen’s thesis, however, seems to be questioned by the fact that the oldest documentable toponymic form for Itala is that of Gitala, as shown by a donation diploma from Count Roger of 1093. The name would then undergo many variations over the centuries: Quitala, Gitalas, Gytalas, Kitala, Hitala and finally Itala.^[15]

Greek origin[edit]

In ancient Greek tradition the name revived the theory of expansion from south to north in that the ancient Greeks would gradually apply the name «Italy» to an ever wider region, until the time of the Roman conquest, when it was extended to the entire peninsula.^[3]

For some linguists who supported this theory, the name would be based on a hypothetical ancient Greek form such as Aιθαλία (Aithalìa) which in its initial part Aith- (typical of words referring to fire) would contain a reference to the volcanic dimension of the lands of the peninsula. This meaning would resist for example in the name of Etna, in ancient Greek «Aitna«. This proposal had already been advanced by Gabriele Rosa, according to whom the first ancient Greeks who arrived in the peninsula would have called it precisely:^[16]

Aιθαλια (Italy) volcanic, or flaming and sooty, for the same reason that the islands of Elba (Ilva), Lemnos and Chios, full of forges, said Aιθαλια

— Gabriele Rosa

Rosa, however, did not address and clarify the strictly linguistic arguments that had led him to such a solution, thus leaving his proposal in the pre-scientific dimension.^[1]

It was mainly Silvestri who recovered this theory, assuming three ancient Greek or Proto-Greek bases («Aitalía», «Eitalía», and «Etalía») in order to give scientific basis to the proposal. According to this theory, Italy would originally have meant «fiery land», «land of the fiery sunset» (or «land of the West»), or «smoking land».^[17]

Etruscan origin[edit]

This theory is opposed by that which, with a solution that has authoritative precedents and yet little remembered in its most recent revival, proposes an Etruscan solution of the name of Italy;^[18] it is a reconstruction that deems the «Greek» hypothesis inadmissible and implies conclusions symmetrically opposed to the latter, such as the fact that the name has spread from north to south.

Oscan origin[edit]

The ultimate etymology of the name is uncertain, in spite of numerous suggestions.^[1] According to the most widely accepted explanation, Latin Italia^[19]
may derive from Oscan víteliú, meaning «[land] of young cattle» (c.f. Latin vitulus «calf», Umbrian vitlu), via ancient Greek transmission (evidenced in the loss of initial digamma).^[20] The bull was a symbol of the southern Italic tribes and was often depicted goring the Roman wolf as a defiant symbol of free Italy during the Social War.^[21] On the coinage of the Social War, dating back to 90 BC, found in the ancient city of Corfinium (in Abruzzo), there is a personification of Italy as a goddess, accompanied by a legend that reproduces her name, ITALIA, in the Latin alphabet, or the equivalent VITELIU^[22] (Víteliú = Italy) in the Oscan alphabet. This is the first epigraphic testimony of the use of the name Italia.^[23]

Semitic origin[edit]

Another theory, rather contested, suggests that Italy derives from «Atalu», an Akkadian word (Semitic language like Phoenician) reconstructed by the scholar Giovanni Semerano, which would mean «land of sunset».^[24]

Conclusions[edit]

It can be observed that the notion of Italy is a dynamic and plural notion, in progress until the 3rd century BC. In fact, in the conception of Italy a Greek Italy (limited to the southern Italy), another Etruscan (separated from the Apennines, from the Gallic and ancient Greek world), and probably also a first Roman Italy, which initially coincided with the large western coastal region between northern Etruria and the ager Campanus, and which then absorbed the others.^[25]

Evolution of the territory called «Italy»[edit]

Italia, the ancient name of the Italian Peninsula, which is also eponymous of the modern republic, originally applied only to the «tip» of the Italian «boot» (in modern Calabria).^[3]

According to Antiochus of Syracuse, it included only the southern portion of the Bruttium peninsula:^{[26][27][28][29]} the actual province of Reggio Calabria and part of the modern provinces of Catanzaro and Vibo Valentia. The town of Catanzaro has a road sign (in Italian) also stating this fact.^[30] But by this time, Oenotria and Italy had become synonymous and the name also applied to most of Lucania as well. Coins bearing the name Víteliú in Oscan (𐌅𐌝𐌕𐌄𐌋𐌉𐌞) were minted by an alliance of Italic peoples (Sabines, Samnites, Umbrians and others) competing with Rome in the 1st century BC.^[3]

The ancient Greeks gradually came to apply the name Italia to a larger region, but it was during the Roman Republic, in 264 BC, that the territory called «Italy» was extended to the Italian Peninsula south of the Arno and Rubicon rivers, to then include, thanks to the addition of Sulla in 81 BC, also Liguria, the addition of Caesar in 45 BC of Cisalpine Gaul and even Istria in 7 AD, this latest addition by Augustus.^[31] The term «Italy» also included Liguria up to the Varo river and Istria up to Pola.^[9] All its inhabitants were considered Italic and Roman.^[9]

The northern area of Cisalpine Gaul was occupied by Rome in the 220s BC and became considered geographically and de facto part of Italy,^[32] but remained politically and de jure separated. It was legally merged into the administrative unit of Italy in 42 BC by the triumvir Augustus as a ratification of Caesar’s unpublished acts (Acta Caesaris).^{[33][34][35][36][37]}

Under Emperor Diocletian the Roman region called «Italia» was further enlarged with the addition in 292 AD of the three big islands of the western Mediterranean Sea: Sicily (with the Maltese archipelago), Sardinia and Corsica, coinciding with the whole Italian geographical region.^[4]

The borders of Roman Italy, Italia, are better established. Cato’s Origines, the first work of history composed in Latin, described Italy as the entire peninsula south of the Alps.^[38] According to Cato and several Roman authors, the Alps formed the «walls of Italy».^[39]

The Latin term Italicus was used to describe «a man of Italy» as opposed to a provincial. For example, Pliny the Elder notably wrote in a letter Italicus es an provincialis? meaning «are you an Italian or a provincial?».^[40]
The adjective italianus, from which are derived the Italian (and also French and English) name of the Italians, is medieval and was used alternatively with Italicus during the early modern period.^[41]

After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, which was caused by the invasion of the Ostrogoths, the Kingdom of Italy was created. After the Lombard invasions, «Italia» was retained as the name for their kingdom, and for its successor kingdom within the Holy Roman Empire, which nominally lasted until 1806, although it had de facto disintegrated due to factional politics pitting the empire against the ascendant city republics in the 13th century.^[42]

See also[edit]

• History of Italy

References[edit]

External links[edit]

• Origin of the name «Italia»

What is the Etymology of Italia (Italy)?

Question: What is the Etymology of Italia (Italy)?

What Is the Etymology of Italia? Did Hercules Found Italy?

I received an email including the following:

«Something seldom mentioned when discussing ancient Rome is that Romans never referred to themselves as Italian any more than one mentions the Italian Empire. Italia and Roma have distinct meanings often seen from different poles. It is believed that the word Italia comes from an older word — Vitulis — which may mean ‘sons of the bull god’ or ‘the bull king.’ This was first limited to the southern part of the peninsula.

I am taking the email as an explicit request that I include an article addressing the question «what is the etymology of Italia (Italy)?» I hadn’t done so because there is no definitive answer.

Answer: Here are some of the theories on the etymology of Italia (Italy):

1. Italia (Italy) may come from a Greek word for calf:
   

   » But Hellanicus of Lesbos says that when Hercules was driving the cattle of Geryon to Argos a calf escaped from the herd, while he was by now travelling through Italy, and in its flight traversed the whole coast and, swimming over the strait of sea in between, reached Sicily. Hercules constantly enquired of the inhabitants wherever he came as he pursued the calf if anyone had seen it anywhere, and when the people there, who knew little of the Greek tongue, called the calf uitulus (as it is still called) in their native language when indicating the animal, he named the whole country that the calf had crossed Vitulia, after the animal.«»A Yoke Connecting Baskets: «Odes» 3.14, Hercules, and Italian Unity,» by Llewelyn Morgan; The Classical Quarterly (May, 2005), pp. 190-203.

2. Italia (Italy) may come from an Oscan word or be connected with a word related to cattle or a proper name (Italus):
   

   » Italy from L. Italia, perhaps from a Gk. alteration of Oscan Viteliu «Italy,» but originally only the southwestern point of the peninsula, traditionally from Vitali, name of a tribe that settled in Calabria, whose name is perhaps somehow connected with L. vitulus «calf,» or perhaps the country name is directly from vitulus as «land of cattle,» or it might be from an Illyrian word, or an ancient or legendary ruler Italus.«Online Etymology

3. Italia (Italy) may come from an Umbrian word for calf:
   

   » [T]he symbol of the Italics in revolt at the time of the Social War (91-89 bc) is well known: the bull crushes the Roman she-wolf on the coins of the insurgents with the legend víteliú. There is a complex network of implicit references here (Briquel 1996): first the etymology, distorted but current, which made out of Italy «land of the calves» (Italia/Ouphitouliôa < calf/vitlu Umbr.); then the reference to the civilizing epic of Hercules, who brings back the oxen of Geryon through the peninsula; finally the allusion to the legendary Samnite origins.«A Companion to Roman Religion. Edited by Jörg Rüpke (2007)

4. Italia (Italy) may come from an Etruscan word for a bull:
   

   » [Heracles] went through Tyrrhenia [Greek name for Etruria]. One bull broke away (aporregnusi) from Rhegium, and quickly fell into the sea and swam to Sicily. Having crossed the neighboring land-called Italy from this (for the Tyrrheni called a bull an italos)-it came to the field of Eryx, who ruled the Elymi.«»Systematic Genealogies in Apollodorus’ Bibliotheca and the Exclusion of Rome from Greek Myth,» by K. F. B. Fletcher; Classical Antiquity (2008) 59-91.

Written by an unknown author

Presentation

This booklet is a simple collection of historical, linguistic and literary information on the name ‘Italy’ beginning in the sixth century BC.

The key point is that I wanted to have an overview on the history of the name ‘Italy’ but could not find an adequate synopsis, therefore I tried to summarize the essential points of the subject myself.

And why was I looking for an overview of the history of the name ‘Italy’? Because today many people are convinced that Italy is an “artificial” nation, created in 1861 following an event known as the “Risorgimento”, which supposedly forcibly united different regions with separate traditions and languages ​​(which we today call dialects) and imposed a new language called Italian, which until then was almost unknown. This contradicts everything we were taught in school, yet many people today actually believe this to be true. Evidently they are unaware of the fact that the history depicting Italy as a cultural unity dates several centuries before 1861. Those who are aware of this fact then argue that this concerned only a small intellectual elite and that the vast majority of the population remained alien.

In order to avoid falling into the trap of extreme patriotic rhetoric, I began to give credence to the modern claim that there is no concrete foundation for the idea of Italy. And yet I would often hear or read random historical information that seemed to confirm the validity of the classic view which considers Italy an ancient cultural entity. These renewed confirmations left me perplexed.

After a couple of years the information I had patiently collected had become quite large, so I set about verifying its reliability: as it turned out, the information was true and well documented. After reorganizing and restructuring the information, I discovered that it formed a coherent overall article. Italy emerged as a cultural unity with ancient traditions and a true national dignity.

Many of these historical facts seem to have been forgotten by people today, but that does not mean they are less real or less verifiable. As we shall see, the traditional view that we were taught in school is not at all naive or simplistic, but in fact is more realistic than the alternative interpretation prevalent today among the moderns, who tend to underestimate the importance of the idea of Italy or even deny it altogether.

We will resume this discussion in the final chapter, after reading 200 different points on the history of the name ‘Italy’.

Chapter 1 – Brief History of the Name ‘Italy’ in 30 Points

1 — The name Italy was first used in the sixth century BC and initially referred only to the region we now call Calabria.

2 — In the fifth century BC the historian Antiochus of Syracuse wrote an essay on Italy, which by this time already included all the southern regions. According to Antiochus, Italy derived its name from the legendary King Italus.

3 — In the third century BC, the name Italy had already spread to the central regions and thus included almost the entire peninsula, understood in the geographical sense of the term.

4 — According to some Roman authors of the second century BC, the name Italy also included the northern regions. The Alps are in fact the highest mountains in Europe and almost make Italy like an island separated from the rest of the continent.

5 — Around 90 BC the Italians minted the first coins in history showing the name ‘Italy’, written in Roman characters which we still use today. In 88 BC the Italian tribes who rebelled against Rome obtained Roman citizenship.

6 — In 81 BC Sulla gave the name ‘Italy’ an official political meaning, forming an entity which included the peninsular regions and Liguria.

7 — In 45 BC Julius Caesar added the other northern regions to the territory of Italy.

8 — In 27 BC Emperor Augustus organized Italy into 11 regions (see point 99). A few years later the historian and geographer Strabo said: “Now all the Italians are Romans”. The rest of the Roman Empire was divided into provinces, which did not have Roman citizenship. At this time Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica were still provinces outside of Italy. In this period Virgil wrote the Aeneid, in which he celebrates Italy and the origin of Rome (see point 181). Just above the modern Principality of Monaco the Romans built the Tropaeum Alpium (Trophy of the Alps) which bears the inscription: “Huc usque Italia, abhinc Gallia” (“Here ends Italy, here begins Gaul”).

9 — In 77 AD Pliny the Elder described Italy in the third book of his “Natural History” and stated: “This is Italy, sacred to the gods” (see point 183).

10 — In the year 292 AD Italy was reorganized as the “Dioecesis Italiciana”, which also included Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica.

11 — In the fifth century AD the Roman Empire collapsed under the barbarian invasions and was reduced merely to Italy. In 476 AD Odoacer officially put an end to the Empire and was declared King of Italy: thus began the Middle Ages. In 493 the Ostrogoth Theodoric deposed Odoacer and became King of Italy in his place.

12 — Between 535 and 553 Emperor Justinian reconquered Italy and said: “Italia non provincia sed Domina provinciarum” (“Italy is not a province, but the mistress of provinces”).

13 — In 568 the Longobards invaded much of Italy, causing it to lose its territorial unity and in the following decades Italy was broken up between the Byzantines (with capital in Ravenna) and Longobards (with capital in Pavia). The regions of Romagna, Istria, Marche, the area of Rome, much of the South, Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica remained in the hands of the Byzantines.

Most of the north (except Romagna and Istria), Tuscany, the Duchy of Spoleto and the Duchy of Benevento (which included Abruzzo, the interior of Campania and Lucania) became Longobard possessions.

14 — In the 800’s Charlemagne formed the Holy Roman Empire, which included the Kingdom of Italy. The Empire, however, soon began to lose territory: between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the Holy Roman Empire only included Germany with a few neighboring areas and northern-central Italy. Moreover, several Italian cities began to proclaim their autonomy: this is how the Free Communes and the Maritime Republics were born. In 1176 the Lombard League (consisting of several northern Italian cities supported by the Pope and Sicily) temporarily defeated Emperor Frederick Barbarossa.

15 — Around 1220 Emperor Frederick II, grandson of Barbarossa, became King of Italy and Sicily. The “Sicilian School”, the first poetic school of Italian literature, was born at his court in Palermo. The Sicilian poets did not write in Latin, which very people few understood by then, but in the “vulgar tongue”, i.e. the language of the people (albeit more polished). The result was a language very similar to modern Italian, which was later taken up by the Stil Novo poets, including Dante.

16 — Dante Alighieri sought to create an “illustrious vernacular” common to all the regions of Italy, and to do this he extracted the best from the authors who had written in the vernacular up to that point in time. In “De Vulgari Eloquentia” he described the 14 main regional dialects of Italy and highlighted the common features upon which a unified “illustrious vernacular” must be based (see points 40; 41; 156; 157). In the “Divine Comedy” and other writings Dante left behind a heritage and exemplary archetype of the “illustrious vernacular”. Therefore his work is complete both from a theoretical and a practical point of view and in fact codified the Italian language. In some of his writings, he also described the sad situation in which Italy found itself during his lifetime (see points 63 and 183).

17 — Beginning in 1300 the “illustrious vernacular” of Dante, i.e. the Italian language, spread more and more, and by the 1500’s began to replace Latin as the official language of the various Italian States.

18 — In 1503 an event took place known as the Challenge of Barletta: 13 Italian knights challenged 13 French knights who had disparaged Italians. The incident was reported by Guicciardini in his “History of Italy” (1535-1539) and was celebrated by Massimo D’Azeglio in the novel “Ettore Fieramosca da Capua” (1833). The duel ended in a landslide victory for the Italians (see points 124 and 125).

19 — Italian art during the Renaissance (and more generally from 1300 to the 1600’s) produced incomparable works of beauty. Among the giants of painting, sculpture and architecture we may cite Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Titian, Palladio, Caravaggio and Bernini. Today Italy holds 60% of the world’s artistic heritage. All other nations combined (which includes countries like Greece, Egypt, India, China, France, Spain, etc.) possess the remaining 40%. Italy is also the country with the largest number of sites declared as UNESCO “World Heritage” sites, with a total of 51, closely followed by China who has 50. Returning to the Renaissance, Leonardo was also a mathematician and engineer and must be considered the predecessor of Galileo Galilei, the founder of modern science. Among philosophers it is inevitable to recall Giordano Bruno and Tommaso Campanella, whose importance was decisive for the birth of modern philosophy. The Italian Renaissance also counts many prominent mathematicians.

20 — Italy, which for 15 centuries had been the beacon of European civilization, began to decline in the first decades of the 1600’s (see point 133). Other nations instead progressed rapidly towards high levels of civilization and well-being (especially France, England and the Germanic States).

21 — Despite the cultural and civil decline of Italy, in the seventeenth century the Italian language became the standard language of music. Even today most of the terms used by musicians around the world are Italian (despite pressure from the English language in modern music). (See points 54; 167; 168).

22 — At the end of the 1700’s the first signs of the Italian Risorgimento began to manifest. In 1797 in Reggio Emilia one of the satellite states created in Italy by Napoleon, the Cispadane Republic, adopted the tricolor flag, which later became the flag of Italy. The Roman Republic (1798) and the Neapolitan Republic (1799) are also considered the first signs of the Italian Risorgimento.

23 — In 1802, Napoleon proclaimed himself President of Italy, and then King of Italy in 1805. But his Kingdom of Italy only included the north (and also Dalmatia) and lasted a few years. In 1814 the same Napoleon, a prisoner on the island of Elba, declared his desire to unify Italy (see point 139).

24 — In 1814 Joachim Murat, King of Naples and brother of Napoleon, praised the unification and independence of Italy in the “Proclamation of Rimini” (see points 140 and 141). But a few months later, the Congress of Vienna reverted all these changes. The Austrian Minister Metternich extinguished the hopes of the Italian patriots with a statement that is now often abbreviated as follows: “Italy is only a geographical expression”. In reality the original statement of Metternich is much longer and less dramatic (see point 143).

25 — Our historical overview will skip over much of the Risorgimento, which strictly-speaking lasted from 1847 to 1870, but in a broader sense can be extended from 1797 to 1918. But we will insert some basic facts and make some significant clarifications on certain facts that are often forgotten today (see points 25-28 and 145-148).

In 1848 the Milanese rebelled against the Austrian rulers and managed to drive them from the city (Five Days of Milan). Immediately after, Piedmont undertook the first War of Independence against Austria to liberate all of Lombardy-Venetia, but the Austrians gained the upper hand and reconquered Milan. This war remains a cornerstone of the Risorgimento, and is notable for the involvement of the Lombard people, and is also notable because of the participation of volunteers from other Italian regions, such as Tuscany and Campania (see point 145).

26 — In the Second War of Independence, fought in 1859 against Austria with the support of Napoleon III’s France, Piedmont conquered Lombardy and annexed the other regions of central and northern Italy. In 1860 the Expedition of the Thousand, led by Garibaldi, conquered southern Italy. Some people today believe that the Thousand were almost all northerners; indeed there were many from Lombardy and Venetia, but all regions of Italy were represented. At least two hundred men were from the south (see point 146).

27 — In 1861 at Turin the Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed (although it did not yet include Rome or the Triveneto). In 1866, with the Third War of Independence, Italy conquered Veneto (but not Trento or Trieste). Then in 1870 it conquered Rome, which became the capital of Italy.

28 — In the following decades the “unredeemed” cities of Trento and Trieste, which remained under Austrian rule, aspired to union with Italy. This led to Italy entering the First World War (1915) in order to liberate these territories.

29 — First World War: the victory date was November 4, 1918. In addition to Trieste and Trentino, Italy obtained the Carso and Istria, home to a Slav minority, and Alto Adige, also known as South Tyrol, corresponding to the current province of Bolzano (see point 149).

30 — Following the Second World War, in 1945 Italy suffered territorial cuts: some small areas to the West, annexed by France (Briga, Tenda, and other very small areas), and very large areas in the East, annexed by Yugoslavia (Carso, Istria, Dalmatia). (See point 150.)

Chapter 2 – Brief History of the Italian Language in 30 Points

31 — The Italian language was born in the Middle Ages following the gradual decline of Latin. This new language was known as “vulgar”, i.e. the language spoken by the people, but was later cleaned and refined by Dante, who for this reason described it as “an illustrious vulgar”. De Sanctis, in his “History of Italian Literature”, said that our language was the natural heir of the language spoken in ancient Rome by the popular classes, with additional influences from the preexisting Italic languages (which already had several similarities between them).

32 — The earliest writings in the “vulgar tongue” appeared around the year 800: the “Riddle of Verona” and the three “Pisan documents”.

33 — The first true and proper writing in the vernacular is the “Placiti Cassinesi” (March 960), in which the statement of a witness during a trial is reported (see point 151).

34 — Italian literature includes some authors before Dante, such as St. Francis of Assisi, who in 1224 wrote the famous “Canticle of the Creatures” (see point 152).

35 — In the thirteenth century several authors of the various Italian regions (northern, central and southern) wrote in their “vulgar tongue”: the most important are the Sicilians, starting with Cielo d’Alcamo, followed by the Tuscans.

36 — The “Sicilian School”, the first poetic school of Italian literature, flourished in Palermo. Its greatest exponent was Giacomo (or Jacopo) da Lentini (1200-1250), inventor of the sonnet. Other important poets were Rinaldo D’Aquino, Pietro della Vigna, Guido or Odo delle Colonne, Giacomino Pugliese, Protonotaro da Messina, Folco di Calabria, Arrigo Testa di Arezzo (they were not all Sicilians: some came from other regions of Italy). The language was quite polished and was already very similar to the modern Italian language (see point 153).

37 — Among the 13th century authors there were also poets from northern Italy, such as Bonvesin della Riva, Giacomino da Verona and others; and also poets from central Italy, such as Jacopone da Todi, Cecco Angiolieri, Guittone d’Arezzo and other Tuscans (see points 154 and 155).

38 — The “Dolce Stil Novo” poetic movement flourished between 1250 and 1300, especially in Tuscany and Bologna. The main representatives of this style were Guido Cavalcanti, Guido Guinizzelli and Dante Alighieri. They recognized the value of the Sicilian School and continued the development of a national “vernacular” language, to replace Latin, which was the language of academia and very difficult to replace.

39 — The poets of the Sicilian School were already writing in a very “Italianate” vernacular. It is sufficient to read the example of “Maniscalchia di li caualli” in point 160, which is quite understandable, almost like reading something written today.

40 — Dante Alighieri (Florence, 1265-1321) represents a milestone for literature and for the Italian language, which he tried to “standardize” and succeeded perfectly in his goal. His work is in fact complete both from the theoretical point of view (“De Vulgari Eloquentia”) and practical point of view (“Divine Comedy” and other writings in in the vernacular).

The “De Vulgari Eloquentia”, written in Latin in the year 1304, illustrates the potentiality of the new “illustrious vernacular” common to all Italian regions. The works in the vernacular, written by Dante as early as 1283, give Italians a vast heritage that would remain an example for all subsequent centuries. In his early years he was a poet of the “Stil Novo”. His first complete work was the “Vita nuova” of 1292. But the poem that made him immortal was the “Divine Comedy”, written between 1304 and 1320, in which he describes his journey into Hell and Purgatory (through which he is guided by Virgil) and then to Paradise.

In this chapter, which deals with the linguistic aspects of Italy, we will talk mainly about the “De Vulgari Eloquentia” (DVE).

41 — The “De Vulgari Eloquentia” (DVE, year 1304) is a short treatise written in Latin, which was the standard academic practice of the time (the use of Latin in Italy and Europe did not die out completely until after 1700). In the DVE Dante explained the usefulness of writing in the vernacular or “vulgar tongue”, i.e. the language spoken and understood by the people, so long as it was an “illustrious vernacular”, meaning a sanitized and far-reaching tongue; not a local dialect, but a language common to all of Italy. Dante clearly indicated the boundaries of the new “illustrious vernacular”, which correspond exactly to the geographical borders of Italy (in this work he uses the words “Ytalia” or “Latium” as synonyms for Italy). He then described the 14 primary dialects of Italy, of which 7 are spoken to the east of the Apennines and 7 are spoken to the west, highlighting their common features and openly exposing their flaws: in fact, he analyzed them one by one and criticized their cruder aspects, and even condemned the exclusive use of “local vocabulary” which was not used in other regions. He stressed, however, that each “vernacular” contains within itself something “illustrious”, albeit in a virtual, partial and immature form, not yet fully developed.

42 — According to Dante, the regional language farthest away from the national language was Sardinian. This is also recognized today by all linguists (with the exception of the dialects in northern Sardinia, which are clearly Italic and related to Corsican). Dante added, however, that the Sardinians, even if you wanted to trace their origins to some other people, can in fact only be associated with Italians, saying that they “imitate Latin like monkeys imitate men”. This statement has sometimes been taken as an insult by some Sardinians: but in reality Dante criticized the other regions just as harshly (including his own region of Tuscany). The apparent bitterness of Dante in reality concealed a deep attachment to Italy, without which he would certainly not have written the DVE. For further reading see point 157.

43 — After Dante, Italian literature was illuminated by two great Tuscans, who adopted Dante’s “illustrious vernacular”: Francesco Petrarca (Arezzo, 1304-1374), who traveled a lot between Italy and southern France (see point 184), and Giovanni Boccaccio (Republic of Florence, 1313-1375), who lived in Naples for a long time (in the sonnet “Napoli e Firenze” he revealed that he wanted to stay there, but his father called him back to Florence). Thanks to these great authors, in the following centuries the new Italian language became identified with “Tuscan”, even though Dante had denied (in his DVE) that this illustrious language was or should be called “Tuscan”, since he himself had adopted much of it from poets and writers from other regions (see point 157). It should be stressed that there were also important Tuscan authors in the 1400’s (such as Luigi Pulci, Angelo Poliziano and Lorenzo the Magnificent).

44 — To give an idea of a regional language in the 1300’s before it was “Tuscanized”, we can quote what the Romans shouted to the cardinals in 1378 when they had to elect a new Pope (which was the shortest conclave in history): “Romano lo volemo, o almanco Italiano.” They elected Bartolomeo da Prignano, Archbishop of Bari, who took the name Urban VI.

45 — In the 1400’s other Italian writers wrote in a vernacular that was definitely “illustrious” but not quite “standardized” on the lines indicated by Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio (i.e. it was not a “Tuscanised” vernacular). An important example, reported in point 161, is Masuccio Salernitano, pseudonym of Tommaso Guardati (Salerno, 1410-1475), who wrote a story about Mariotto and Ganozza (novella 33 of his “Novellino”) based on a Sienese legend. This in turn inspired Luigi Da Porto (1524) to write “Romeo and Giulietta”, which was later taken by William Shakespeare (1591).

46 — Historically, the first non-Tuscan author who adopted the language codified by Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio, was Jacopo Sannazzaro, a Neapolitan writer originally from Lombardy (Naples, 1456-1530), author of “Arcadia”. Another major Neapolitan scholar of the era, Giovanni Pontano, wanted to write only in Latin, and therefore did not attain to greater fame. Returning to Sannazzaro, he eliminated the “pure Neapolitanisms” from his writings and adapted the words to the standard “Tuscan”. For this reason he is considered an author of fundamental importance, whereas others (like Masuccio Salernitano) are judged too “impure” and regional (see points 161 and 162). Another author who was almost a contemporary of Sannazzaro was the Emilian Matteo Maria Boiardo (Scandiano, 1441-1494), author of “Orlando Innamorato”.

47 — Giangiorgio (or Giovan Giorgio) Trissino (Vicenza, 1478-1550), famous for his epic poem “Italy Liberated From the Goths” (1547) and for having discovered the architectural genius Andrea Palladio, highlighted the enormous importance of Dante’s “De Vulgari Eloquentia”, which ironically had remained in relative obscurity due to the huge popularity of the “Divine Comedy”. Trissino remembered well that the Italian language was not to be “Tuscan”, but a language common to all regions, as Dante himself had explicitly stated. (See points 157 and 164).

48 — Around 1530, Emperor Charles V claimed he spoke “Italian to women, French to men, Spanish to God, German to his horse”. A curious note: it might be a strange coincidence, but today German is a language universally used to teach dogs (perhaps it has some special power over animals?), while Italian is the universal language of music (see points 54; 167; 168).

49 — The friar and philosopher Giordano Bruno (Nola, 1548-1600) wrote several works in Latin and Italian. Among the works in Italian are the comedy “Candelaio”, published in 1582 in Paris, and “Sei dialoghi filosofici”, published in 1584 in London. We only mention these texts by Bruno because it demonstrates that the Italian language was already well known centuries before the unification of Italy, it was even known internationally. Indeed, these texts were written in Italian in the 1500’s (when Latin was still widely used in philosophy), moreover he was an author from the south (where Latin persisted even longer) and his works were published abroad (Paris and London). Yet today some people argue that before the unification of Italy (in 1861) the Italian language was unknown even in Italy and that it only began to really spread from 1954 onward, thanks to television. In reality these superficial and hasty claims confuse two completely different issues. It is true that the widespread dissemination of the illustrious language among the popular classes was lacking for centuries and was a well known social problem. But it is dishonest to deny the existence of an Italian cultural reality which can boast a centuries-old tradition. This theme will be taken up again in the closing statement.

50 — In 1583 in Florence the Accademia della Crusca (generally abbreviated as La Crusca) was founded for the purpose of codifying the Italian language along the tradition of Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio. One of the first activities of La Crusca was the drafting of the “Vocabolario”, which was printed in 1612 in Venice. Despite some controversy (especially for its excessive “Florentinism”), the Vocabolario was a great success, not only in Italy but also abroad, and it was adopoted by other countries as a model for drafting national vocabularies in their own languages, such as French, Spanish, German and English. Fortunately the rigor of La Crusca did not prevent the spread of regional vocabularies, thus contributing to the wealth of the Italian language. Recall for example that best known words in the world today are “Pizza”, a Neapolitan word, and “Ciao”, a word of Venetian origin (see point 164).

51 — Although La Crusca was excessive in its rigorism and in its “Florentinist” tendencies, some authors exaggerated in the opposite direction and tried to damage La Crusca’s reputation because they preferred to write in their regional dialect, instead of the standardized language promoted by La Crusca. The most notable case was that of Giambattista Basile (Naples, 1575-1632), a man of great talent who wrote a few works in standard Italian and many more works in the Neapolitan vernacular. On the other hand, his countryman Giambattista Marino (Naples, 1569-1625) wrote in standard Italian; he was a huge success all throughout Italy and became one of the greatest poets of the 1600’s (see point 163). His pompous style (called “Marinism”), however, was not liked by everyone: for example, Francesco Fulvio Frugoni (Genoa, 1620-1689) in his “Cane di Diogene” wrote a satirical pamphlet entitled “Contro la lingua del ‘600” (“Against the Language of the 1600’s”), in which he criticized the changes and transformations of Italian literature during his time due to rampant “Marinism”.

52 — In point 19 we recalled the heights reached by the Italian artists of the Renaissance. Another typically Italian phenomenon born in this era and which lasted for a couple of centuries is the “Commedia dell’Arte”, a form of popular theater based on improvisation and very famous masks (such as the Bergamasque Arlecchino, the Neapolitan Pulcinella and many others). The companies that represented him traveled throughout Italy and abroad, and influenced the theatrical tradition of various European nations (especially the French).

53 — Shortly after 1700 the use of Latin disappeared permanently (even in the south of Italy, where it had continued longer). One of the last works in Latin dates back to 1710 and is the “De antiquissima italorum sapientia” (“On the Ancient Wisdom of the Italians”) by the philosopher Giambattista Vico (Naples, 1668-1744). In subsequent years Vico wrote exclusively in Italian. Even “official” writings were now written in Italian. For example, in 1723 Pietro Giannone (Ischitella, 1676-1748) wrote “Istoria civile del Regno di Napoli” in Italian.

54 — Already before 1700, the Italian language was internationally affirmed as the “language of music”. In fact, musical terms are almost entirely Italian (only a minority are French, German or Latin). Think of all the internationally renowned words, such as a “concerto”, “finale”, “opera”, “orchestra”, “pianoforte” (in English “piano”), “adagio”, “andante”, “allegro”, “crescendo”, “da capo”, “forte”, etc. Even today most musical terms are still Italian. The importance of the Italian language to music is not limited only to musical notation or instrument names: often Italian was used also for the song lyrics: for example Mozart, like other foreign authors, preferred to write operas with a “libretto” in Italian (see points 167 and 168).

55 — Between 1600 and 1900 Italians excelled in instrumental classical music (Cimarosa, Scarlatti, Vivaldi, Paganini), but they were overshadowed by German composers. However, the Italians completely dominated opera (Rossini, Donizetti, Verdi, Bellini, Puccini).

56 — Carlo Goldoni (Venice, 1707-1793) wrote famous comedies, both in the Venetian dialect and in the national Italian language. The Italian language was used by Goldoni in order that his work may be understood by people all over Italy. For example, in the comedy “La bottega del Caffè”, despite being set in Venice, the protagonists did not speak Venetian, but communicated in Italian. Goldoni was invited to Paris by the Tèâtre-Italien (Italian Theatre) and remained there for the last years of his life.

57 — It would be impossible to cite quotes here by all the foreign authors who wrote in Italian before the unification of Italy (obviously without considering the musicians, see point 168). If we limit ourselves just to idealist philosophy, there are so many references. For example, the American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson often reported words or phrases in Italian (for example in his book “Nature”, written in 1836). Also in the texts of the German idealists such as Schelling and Hegel (written between 1790 and about 1820) there are various quotes about Italy and the Italians. Schelling acknowledged that his philosophy was mostly derived from Giordano Bruno (see point 49). Hegel believed that the German people had inherited the mission to civilize the world, but also acknowledged the merits of other peoples: the culture of the French; the “aristocratic individualism” of the English; and the Italians’ “supremacy in the arts”. On the other hand Schopenhauer, the great adversary of the idealists, in 1830 criticized the French language (which at that time was considered the lingua franca and dominated Europe) calling it: “…the most miserable Romance jargon, the worst mutilation of Latin words, a language which should look up with reverence to its much nobler Italian sister…”. In general there were many foreign authors who at that time spoke of Italy and the Italians (see points 75 and 81 points).

58 — Basilio Puoti (Naples, 1782-1847) was a friend of Giacomo Leopardi and one of the greatest Italian language purists. Puoti recommended to his disciples (among whom were Francesco De Sanctis and Luigi Settembrini): “If I tell you to write the true language of Italy, I want you to be accustomed to feeling Italian and having our Fatherland in your heart… I want the Italians to speak like Machiavelli and follow in the footsteps of Ferruccio”. The reference to “Ferruccio” (Francesco Ferrucci, see point 135) was taken up by Mameli in his hymn “Fratelli d’Italia” (see point 195).

59 — Let’s ask ourselves a question perhaps too theoretical, but certainly interesting: if Dante and Tuscan had not existed, would the Italian language have been born? Presumably yes: if we read the numerous examples in Chapter 4, we can deduce that the various vernaculars of the regions of Italy still would have been integrated into a single language (although it would have been a slower and more difficult process). Some people, however, do not share this belief and argue that this reasoning is purely theoretical and has no real validity. But in points 171 and 172 we will rebut these objections.

60 — In the worldwide ranking of languages based on the number of speakers, Italian currently ranks only nineteenth in the world (2004). English is third, after Chinese and Spanish. But when you consider the number people worldwide who are learning different languages, English of course takes the first place, while Italian surprisingly ranks fourth in the world. Further details are provided in point 180.

Chapter 3 – Brief History of the Name ‘Italy’ in Italian Literature in 30 Points

61 — Italy is often cited by ancient Greek and Latin authors (see points 92 and 95). Moreover in the first century BC Italy became the “metropolitan territory” of Rome and therefore was continually mentioned by all authors, including Cicero (philosopher and orator), Julius Caesar (who was also a writer), Virgil (see point 181 ), Strabo (see point 100), Pliny the Elder (see point 182), Pliny the Younger, Lucan (see point 157), and so on.

62 — The Aeneid, the great epic poem written by Virgil (Mantua, 70 BC — 19 BC), mentions Italy countless times, from the very first verse of the First Canto. The first translation into Italian (still very popular) was by Annibale Caro (Civitanova Marche, 1507-1556). (See point 181).

63 — Dante Alighieri (Florence, 1265-1321) conducted a historical study of the dialects of Italy in “De Vulgari Eloquentia”, written in 1304 (see points 156 and 157). Dante mentioned Italy in the “Divine Comedy” in the first Canto (Inferno, I, 106) and in Canto VI of the Purgatorio he analyzed the sad situation of Italy in his time:

“Ah, servile Italy, you are sorrow’s hostel… You are no longer the mistress of the provinces, but a brothel!” (Purg. VI, 76-78).

Dante also dealt with this issue in his unfinished work “Convivio” (see points 109 and 183).

64 — Giovanni Boccaccio (Florence, 1313-1375) in Chapter 21 of his “Trattatello in laude di Dante” (1362) emphasized the enormous advantages Dante created by writing in the “vulgar tongue” and not only in Latin:

“Dante…chose to write in the vulgar idiom…that he might be of more general use to his fellow-citizens and to the other Italians; for he knew that if he had written metrically in Latin as the other poets of past times had done, he would only have done service to men of letters, whereas, writing in the vernacular, he did a deed never done before…”

Actually, several other Italian authors had already written in the vernacular before Dante. But Boccaccio was evidently referring to the revolutionary fact of preferring the vernacular to the point of writing a great, ambitious and far-reaching work like the “Divine Comedy”, preceded by a theoretical treatise defending the validity and adequacy of the vulgar tongue (“De Vulgari Eloquentia”).

65 — Petrarch named Italy in at least two very famous poems. In one of them he referred to Italy as “that fair country which the Apennines divide, and the Alps and sea surround” (see point 184).

66 — Fazio degli Uberti (Pisa, 1305-1370) wrote a poem “To the Lords and People of Italy” (“Rime” XVII, ca. 1350).

67 — Matteo Maria Boiardo (Scandiano, 1441-1494), never completed poem “Orlando Innamorato” because of the French invasion of Italy. These are the last verses of the poem: “While I sing, O God redeemer, I see Italy all in flames and fire, brought by these men of Gaul, who with furious rage have come to lay waste to our land”.

68 — Niccolò Machiavelli (Florence, 1469-1527) dedicated to Italy much of his famous political treatise “The Prince” (1505), especially the last three chapters. Especially the last chapter, the 26th, entitled: “An Exhortation to Free Italy from the Hands of the Barbarians”. But already in the second chapter we read: “Consider how in duels and skirmishes involving a few men the Italians are superior in strength, dexterity, and cunning”.

69 — Giangiorgio Trissino (Vicenza, 1478-1550) in 1547 wrote the heroic poem “Italy Liberated From the Goths.” Trissino was also very important to the “language question” (see points 47 and 164).

70 — Francesco Guicciardini, a historian, philosopher and politician (Florence, 1483-1540), wrote the first “History of Italy” in Italian between 1535 and 1539.

71 — Galeazzo di Tarsia (Naples, 1520-1553) around 1540 wrote the sonnet: “Già corsi l’Alpi”, also called “To Italy” (see point 185).

72 — Carlo Innocenzo Frugoni (Genoa, 1692-1768) wrote the sonnet: “Hannibal Admired Italy from the Alps”.

73 — Father Ludovico Antonio Muratori (Vignola, 1672-1750) wrote several historical and literary works on Italy, including “The Literary Republic of Italy”; “On Perfect Italian Poetry” (1730); and “Annals of Italy” (1749). Also famous is a letter dated “Naples, 1703”, which was sent to hundreds of Italian intellectuals.

74 — The philosopher Giambattista Vico (Naples, 1668-1774) wrote several works, both in Italian and in Latin, including “De antiquissima Italorum sapientia” (“On the Ancient Wisdom of the Italians”, 1710), where he laid out some of the cornerstones of his philosophy.

75 — Montesquieu, a French philosopher and writer (Bordeaux, 1689-1755) in 1728 wrote “Journey to Italy”. In 1788, the German poet Goethe (Frankfurt, 1749-1832) also wrote his “Journey to Italy”.

76 — Gian Rinaldo Carli (Capodistria, 1720-1795) in 1765 wrote the article “La patria degli italiani” (“The Fatherland of the Italians”). Carli lamented that the Italians sometimes considered themselves strangers to each other and tended to underestimate themselves and Italy.

77 — Vittorio Alfieri (Asti, 1749-1803), the famous poet, was also a patriot and among other things he said: “It was not untl I left Italy for a long time that I cam to understand and appreciate the Italians”.

78 — Filippo Buonarroti (Pisa, 1761-1837), a descendant of Michelangelo, around 1790 wrote “L’amico della libertà italiana” (“The Friend of Italian Liberty”). Also in 1796 he said that “the frivolous distinctions of being Neapolitan, Milanese, Genoese and Piedmontese have disappeared forever among patriots. We are all part of the same country and the same homeland. All Italians are brothers and should unite in common cause”.

79 — Vincenzo Monti (Alfonsine, 1754-1828) in 1801 wrote the famous poem “For the Liberation of Italy”: “Beautiful Italy, beloved shores…” (see point 191).

80 — Ugo Foscolo (Venetian Greece, 1778-1827), in his work “Dei Sepolcri” (1807) described the tombs of some of the immortal Italians in the Church of Santa Croce in Florence: Niccolò Machiavelli, Michelangelo Buonarroti, Galileo Galilei, Vittorio Alfieri. Today in Santa Croce there are also the tombs of Foscolo, Gioacchino Rossini and others. There is also a monument to Dante, whose real tomb, however, is in Ravenna.

81 — Stendhal, the pseudonym of French writer Henri Beyle (Grenoble, 1783-1842), arrived in Milan in 1800, at 17 years old, and fell in love with Italy. He wrote, among other things: “Roma, Napoli e Firenze” (1817); “Piccola guida per il viaggio in Italia” (1828); “Passeggiate Romane” (1829); and “La Certosa di Parma” (1839).

Other foreign writers who were in love with Italy around 1800 were:

• The French writer Madame de Staël (Paris, 1766-1817), who in 1807 wrote “Corinne ou l’Italie”, in which she described Italy with admiration.
• The English poet Lord Byron (London, 1788-1824) who from 1817 to 1824 lived in different cities of Italy (Venice, Ravenna, Pisa, Livorno, Genoa).
• Another English poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley (Sussex, 1792-1822).

There were many other foreign poets and writers who celebrated Italy between 1500 and 1900.

82 — The great poet Giacomo Leopardi (Recanati, 1798-1837) wrote several works about Italy and the Italians:

• “Oration to the Italians” (1815)
• “First Confessions (from the “Epistolario”, 1817)
• “Discourse of an Italian on Romantic Poetry” (1818)
• “Discourse on the Present State of the Customs of the Italians” (1824)
• The poem “To Italy” (1818): “How and when did you fall from such a height to so low a spot?”.
• The poem “Above the Monument of Dante” (1818): “The beloved, wherever they may be, who burn with love of Italy…” (see points 189, 192 and 193).

83 — In 1821 Alessandro Manzoni (Milano, 1785-1873) wrote an ode entitled “Marzo 1821”: “Never again shall these waters run between foreign banks, never shall barriers rise between Italy and Italy, never again!” (see point 194).

84 — Massimo D’Azeglio (Turin, 1798-1866), writer and politician, wrote “Ettore Fieramosca da Capua” in 1833, inspired by the Challenge of Barletta (see points 124; 125; 126).

85 — The philosopher and politician Vincenzo Gioberti (Turin, 1801-1852) in 1843 wrote “Il primato morale e civile degli Italiani” (“The Moral and Civil Primacy of the Italians”).

86 — Niccolò Tommaseo (Sebenico in Dalmatia, 1802-1874) wrote, among other things: “Dizionario dei sinonimi” (1827); “Dell’Italia” (1835); “Dizionario della lingua italiana” (1858).

87 — In 1847, on the eve of the First War of Independence, Goffredo Mameli (Genoa, 1827-1849) wrote the famous “Canto degli Italiani”, also known as the “Inno di Mameli” or “Fratelli d’Italia”, set to music by Michele Novaro. Today it is the national anthem of Italy (see point 195). Luigi Mercantini (Ripatransone, 1821-1872) wrote the “Canzone italiana” (later known as the Hymn of Garibaldi) and “La spigolatrice di Sapri”.

88 — Ippolito Nievo (Padua, 1831-1861) in 1858 wrote the famous novel “Confessions of an Italian” (see point 197).

89 — Francesco De Sanctis, a politician and philosopher (Morra, 1817-1883), in 1871 wrote the famous “History of Italian Literature”, which also celebrated the political unity of Italy. De Sanctis said that the Italian language is derived from the language spoken by the popular classes of ancient Rome, and upon it an illustrious and prestigious literature was developed.

90 — Edmondo De Amicis (Oneglia, 1846-1908) in 1886 wrote the book “Cuore” (“Heart”) for elementary school children, exalting Italy and the Risorgimento (see points 198 and 199).

Chapter 4 – Expansion on the Arguments Summarized in Chapter 1 (On the History of the Name ‘Italy’)

91 — The name ‘Italy’ began to be used in the sixth century BC and soon exceeded in importance all the other equivalent names: Esperia, Ausonia, Enotria. A notable example of the use of the name is the “Italic School”, founded by Pythagoras in Crotone, in modern Calabria. Initially the name ‘Italy’ indicated only this region, but then it began to spread to other southern regions.

92 — In the fifth century BC the historian Antiochus of Syracuse, who wrote two essays in Greek, one on Sicily and one on Italy, derived the name of Italy from the legendary King Italus. However, modern historians do not share this interpretation and believe instead that the name derives from the word Viteliu, which in the Italic languages of central and southern meant Calf. ‘Italy’ therefore would have meant “Land of Calves” or “Land of Bulls”. It is also very interesting to note the resemblance to the archaic Greek word which meant ‘calf’ or ‘bull’: Italos.

93 — In the third century BC, the name Italy had already spread to the central regions and thus included almost the entire peninsula, understood in the geographical sense of the term, from Calabria and Puglia to Tuscany and Marche.

94 — In the second century BC some Roman authors, such as Polybius and Cato the Elder, defined ‘Italy’ to include the northern regions up to the Alps.

95 — Around the year 100 BC the Italic tribes, who had long been allies of the Romans, asked for Roman citizenship but were denied. Therefore around 90 BC the Italic League formed in opposition to Rome. They placed their capital in the city of Italica (today Corfinio in Abruzzo) and minted silver coins with the name ‘Italy’ (written in Roman characters which we still use today). Note: In the following centuries the name ‘Italy’ (or more rarely ‘Ytalia’) continued to be used on various monuments (as well as in countless written works), such as the Trophy of the Alps built by Emperor Augustus and the Ponte Salario (see points 100 and 109). In 1277 the name appeared for the first time in painting (in the fresco “Ytalia” by Cimabue in the Basilica of St. Francis in Assisi).

96 — In 88 BC Roman citizenship was finally granted to all the Italic populations. Thus ended the “Social War” and the juxtaposition of Rome and Italy, which from now on constituted a single entity. (A curiosity: today in English the adjective ‘Italic’ indicates cursive text, while ‘Roman’ indicates normal text). In 81 BC Sulla gave the name ‘Italy’ an official political meaning, forming an entity which included the peninsular regions and Liguria, but did not yet include the other northern regions. During this time the official boundaries were the Var River to the West (near Nizza or Nice) and the Rubicon to the East (near Rimini). The territory between the Rubicon and the Alps was called “Gallia Cisalpina”, but some Romans had already considered it part of Italy in previous centuries (see point 94).

97 — In 49 BC Julius Caesar, at the head of his army, crossed the Rubicon and marched south without the permission of the Roman Senate, provoking a civil war. Today many history books forget to specify why Caesar was not authorized to cross the Rubicon: it represented the political frontier of Italy (see point 96), which was considered “he metropolitan territory of Rome”. Entering Italy was tantamount to entering Rome itself.

98 — In 45 BC Julius Caesar himself named the Alps as the natural borders of Italy and granted Roman citizenship to all of Gallia Cisalpina, which ceased to exist and officially became part of Italy. The eastern frontier was now identified with the Phormio River (the modern Risano River in Istria, south of Trieste). Of course, to the north the boundaries were the Alps.

99 — In 27 BC Emperor Caesar Augustus moved Italy’s eastern border to the Arsia River, in Istria, and subdivided Italy into 11 regions, whose Latin names were as follows:

I — Latium et Campania;
II — Apulia et Calabria (but the name Calabria corresponded to today’s Salento);
III — Lucania et Bruttium (or Brutium, today’s Calabria);
IV — Samnium;
V — Picenum;
VI — Umbria;
VII — Etruria;
VIII — Aemilia;
IX — Liguria;
X — Venetia et Histria;
XI — Transpadana.

The rest of the Roman Empire was divided into provinces, which did not have Roman citizenship.

Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica were not yet part of Italy, but for the time being remained “provinces”.

100 — Around the birth of Christ, the Greek historian and geographer Strabo stated that “All Italians are Romans now”. Italy was called “Rerum Domina”, or “Master of All Things” (see point 109). During this period the Trophy of the Alps was built (near today’s Principality of Monaco), which bears the follow Roman inscription: “Huc usque Italia, abhinc Gallia” (“Here ends Italy, here begins Gaul”). Beginning with Augustus, Europe and the Mediterranean experienced two centuries of peace and prosperity — something quite unique in world history.

101 — In 77 AD Pliny the Elder described Italy in detail in Book III of his “Natural History” and said: “This is Italy, sacred to the gods” (“Haec Italia Diis Sacra”, Nat. Hist. III, 138). (See point 182). Pliny died two years later in Pompeii during the historic eruption of Mount Vesuvius. In 130, under the Emperor Hadrian, the name ‘Italy’ appeared for the first time on a Roman coin (the older coin from 90 BC was made by the other Italic tribes, see point 95).

102 — In the year 292 AD Emperor Diocletian reorganized Italy as the “Dioecesis Italiciana”, which included Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica, and also included Raetia (the modern Tyrol and surrounding areas): Italy thus reached its greatest territorial expansion, which would remain the traditional concept of “Italy” for all subsequent centuries (except for Tyrol), despite political divisions.

103 — The territory of the Dioecesis Italiciana corresponded almost exactly to the current borders of Italy, but also included the following areas: Tyrol (modern Austria), Canton Ticino (Italian Switzerland), the Carso (modern Slovenia), Istria (modern Slovenia and Croatia), the area around the Principality of Monaco, and the island of Corsica (modern France), and of course San Marino and Vatican City.

104 — Although Italy’s current borders are less extensive than the Dioecesis Italiciana, the power of tradition was so strong that even to this day the Italian language is either an official language or at least widely used in all of those former territories. The linguistic borders of Italy in fact correspond almost exactly with those of the Dioecesis Italiciana, with some exceptions, such as Tyrol (which is today Austrian), Alto Adige (also known as South Tyrol or the Province of Bolzano) and the Aosta Valley (see point 170).

105 — In 313 AD Emperor Constantine granted freedom of worship to Christians. In 330 AD moved his seat from Rome to Byzantium. In 395 AD Emperor Theodosius divided the empire into two parts: the Western Roman Empire, which included Italy and had its capital in Milan (instead of Rome); and the Eastern Roman Empire, which had its capital in Byzantium, later called Constantinople (now Istanbul).

106 — The fifth century AD the Western Roman Empire declined due to the barbarian invasions. The Empire was reduced only to Italy. In 476 AD Odoacer officially put an end to the Western Empire was declared King of Italy: thus began the Middle Ages.

107 — In 493 the Ostrogoth Theodoric deposed Odoacer and became King of Italy in his place.

108 — In 527 Justinian ascended to the throne of Byzantium and aimed to reconstruct the Roman Empire. Between 535 and 553 he reconquered Italy in a war against the Ostrogoths that proved to be disastrous for the country.

109 — In 554 Justinian made Ravenna the capital of Italy and declared: “Italia non provincia sed Domina provinciarum” (“Italy is not a province, but the mistress of provinces”). He thus wanted to show that he was a true heir of Emperor Caesar Augustus (see points 99 and 100). In reality, however, the capital of the Empire remained in Constantinople, and the supremacy of Italy over the imperial provinces remained only nominal. Nonetheless, Justinian’s guidance was useful in re-establishing some semblence of order in Italy after the barbarian invasions (as Dante pointed out in Purgatorio, VI, 88-89, see point 183).

One example of the works carried out in Rome under Justinian is the restoration of the Ponte Salario, which bears the following inscription: “Imperante … Iustiniano … libertate urbis Romae ac totius Italiae restituta” (“Under the rule of Justinian… the liberty of the city of Rome and the whole of Italy was restored”).

110 — In 568 Italian territorial unity formally ended due to the invasion of the Longobards. In the following decades Italy was broken up between the Byzantines (with capital in Ravenna) and the Longobards (with capital in Pavia). The region around Ravenna was called Romània (from which the current name Romagna descends), because at that time the Byzantine Empire was still considered “Roman”. The regions of Istria, Marche, the area of Rome, much of the South, Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica remained in the hands of the Byzantines. Most of the north (except Romagna and Istria), Tuscany, the Duchy of Spoleto and the Duchy of Benevento (which included Abruzzo, the interior of Campania and Lucania) became Longobard possessions.

111 — As seen in the preceding points, Longobardia was not limited merely to the current Lombardy, but included parts of central and southern Italy too. Moreover, the Longobard period was certainly not rosy for Lombardy, contrary to what some people believe today. Naturally the greatest historical time for Lombardy and for all of Italy was the Roman period from the first century BC onward (see points 100 and 186). Milan was even the capital of the Western Roman Empire since 395 AD (see point 105).

112 — The various Byzantine and Longobard-controlled areas, being separated from each other, gradually acquired a degree of autonomy: thus in the seventh century began the process of disintegration and separation of the regions of Italy, which would last more than twelve centuries. But shortly before the year 800 Charlemagne temporarily reunited much of Europe (especially Western Europe) and in the year 800 he was named “Emperor of the Romans” in Rome by the Pope. Thus the “Holy Roman Empire” was born, which included the Kingdom of Italy, with its capital in Pavia. Some of the kings of Italy between 800 and 1000 were Charles the Fat, Berengario I of Friuli, Guido of Spoleto, Lamberto of Spoleto, Louis of Provence, Rudolph II of Burgundy, Hugo of Provence and Otto I of Saxony (Otto’s reign marked the beginning of Italy’s domination by foreigners).

113 — Emperor Charlemagne’s reference to the ancient Roman world was inevitable, as only the Romans had been able to guarantee order, safety and legality to Europe and the Mediterranean, in addition to two ​​“universal” languages common to all peoples (Greek and more especially Latin). Following the barbarian invasions, the Roman tradition ended from a formal point of view, but perhaps not substantial: in fact the invaders (such as the Goths and the Longobards) did not impose a new language, a new alphabet nor new laws on Italy, but instead adopted those of the Romans. The Roman alphabet was adopted by all of Western Europe, because the peoples who lived there did not have their own writing. Indeed, even today our Western countries still use the same characters (with only some minor differences). The same can be said of the laws, which essentially remain those of Rome. Today strangely we tend to denigrate Romanity and only exalt ancient Greek civilization, but they often forget that it was the Romans who expanded and illuminated the whole of Europe and the Mediterranean, and gave to it order and civilization. This debt we owe to Rome was recognized for many centuries, but strangely in recent decades it has been forgotten or even denied. To give just one example, Venice officially called itself the “Roman Republic of Venice” and of course its official language was Latin (until the 1500’s, when the various Italian States adopted the “illustrious vernacular” of Dante, i.e. the Italian language, as the official language).

114 — The Carolingian Empire began a slow disintegration a few decades into the 9th century. The region of Veneto was the scene of a clash with the Byzantine Empire. Sicily, Sardinia, Calabria and Salento were reconquered by the Byzantines. The Arabs occupied Sicily for about a century, after having already occupied Spain (which remained controlled by the Arabs for centuries). Subsequently there were numerous upheavals by the Italians against the Holy Roman Emperors: between the ninth and thirteenth centuries, the Holy Roman Empire began to partially disintegrate and the nation-states of England, Spain and France began to rise. It should be stressed that Italy and Greece are the only two European countries that can boast an ancient origin, rather than a medieval origin. This is a distinguishing feature which is shared by very few other nations in the world: China, Japan, India, Egypt.

115 — Between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the Holy Roman Empire was reduced to the German territories, northern-central Italy, and a few other adjacent areas (the Low Countries and Bohemia). Several Italian cities began to proclaim their autonomy: this is how the Free Communes and the Maritime Republics were born.

116 — Between 1100 and 1300 some of the Italian communes were living in times of prosperity, but in general chaos was widespread and there were confrontations between thosse who opposed the Emperor and those who supported the Emperor, i.e the Guelphs and the Ghibellines. In 1155 Emperor Frederick Barbarossa reconquered much of northern Italy and Tuscany, unifying them in the Kingdom of Italy. Most of central Italy was part of the Papal States (Lazio, Umbria, Marche and Romagna), while southern Italy was part of the Kingdom of Puglia and Sicily, ruled by the Normans.

117 — In 1158 Frederick Barbarossa reigned as “King of Italy” and wore the famous “Iron Crown” in Monza, but his kingdom was unstable and could only count on the loyalty of a few cities, such as Monza, Como, Crema, Lucca, Pisa and Florence. Most of the northern Italian cities were opposed to the Emperor; they demanded more autonomy and argued that they had a right not to be treated as “colonies” of the Empire, according to the famous phrase of Justinian: “Italy is not a province, but the mistress of provinces” (see point 109).

118 — In 1167 some of the Italian cities formed the “Lombard League”, an anti-imperial coalition that also had the support of Venice, the Pope and Sicily. In 1176 the Lombard League defeated Emperor Barbarossa in the Battle of Legnano. This episode was later remembered by Italian patriots as a landmark of national pride against the foreigner, and was remembered also for the explicit reference to the famous phrase of Justinian (see point 109). The Hymn of Mameli contains this passage: “From the Alps to Sicily, Legnano is everywhere” (see point 195). The various Italian cities of this period each aspired to become a “little Rome”, and sought on a local level to revive the civilization, order and prosperity of the ancient Empire, but did not have the capacity to restore political unity.

119 — Around 1220 Frederick II of Swabia, grandson of Frederick Barbarossa, became Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, King of Italy and Sicily. He ruled both the north of Italy (despite the autonomy granted to the communes) and the south, while the Papal States remained independent. In 1237 Frederick II defeated the “Second Lombard League” and captured the famous “Carroccio” (Italian war wagon and symbol of independence). But in the following years his power was reduced thanks to his conflict with the Papacy and the new successes of the Italian communes.

120 — Frederick II of Swabia was a friend of the sciences and the arts. His court in Palermo was one of the major cultural centers of Europe, which, among other things, gave birth to the school of poetry known as the “Sicilian School”. Also in 1224 he founded the University of Naples, the first public university in the world (the first private university, however, was the University of Bologna, whose foundation dates back to 1088, when it held steady courses of Roman Law). Between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries many other universities were founded in Italy, France and England.

Returning to Frederick II: in 1225 he sponsored a mathematical tournament between the Sicilian mathematicians (among them Giovanni da Palermo) and Leonardo Fibonacci da Pisa (who popularized the use of Indian numerals throughout Europe, which we still use today).

121 — The “Sicilian School” marked the real beginnings of Italian literature. In fact the poets of the Sicilian School (including the Emperor himself) did not write in Latin, but in the “vulgar tongue”, i.e. the language spoken by the people (albeit more polished). The result was a language very similar to modern Italian, which was later taken up by the Stil Novo poets of Bologna and Tuscany, including Dante (see points 36 and 153).

122 — Beginning in 1300 the “illustrious vernacular” of Dante, i.e. the Italian language, spread more and more, and by the 1500’s began to replace Latin as the official language of the various Italian States.

123 — It would be impossible to follow the historical developments of Italy between 1300 and 1800, which were even more varied and chaotic than those already enumerated between points 106 and 119. So we will cite just a few important events pertaining to the name ‘Italy’.

124 — In 1503 an event took place known as the Challenge of Barletta; it was another historic event that was later remembered and celebrated during the Risorgimento. In Puglia, thirteen Italian knights challenged thirteen French knights who had insulted Italy. The duel ended in triumph for the Italian knights. The incident was reported by Guicciardini in his “History of Italy” (written between 1535 and 1539) and was celebrated in the novel “Ettore Fieramosca da Capua”, written by Massimo D’Azeglio in 1833.

125 — The names and birthplaces of the thirteen Italian knights were as follows:

— Commander: Ettore Fieramosca da Capua (Campania)
— Vice-Commander: Fanfulla da Lodi (Lombardy)
— Romanello da Forlì and Riccio da Parma (Emilia-Romagna)
— Giovanni Capaccio, Giovanni Brancaleone and Ettore Giovenale (Rome)
— Marco Carellario di Napoli and Mariano Abignente da Sarni (Campania)
— Ludovico Aminale da Terni (Umbria)
— Miale da Troia (Puglia)
— Francesco Salamone and Guglielmo Albimonte (Sicily)

According to tradition, Claudio Graiano di Asti (a mercenary soldier) took the side of the French, which aroused the wrath of Ettore Fieramosca.

[…]

128 — Regarding the County of Nice, for several centuries it was ruled by the House of Savoy, except for the Napoleonic period. The official language was Italian. Many families were from Liguria, like that of Giuseppe Garibaldi, born in Nice to parents of Ligurian origin. Nice was annexed by France in 1860, after the Second War of Italian Independence. With regard to the Principality of Monaco, its original language was clearly Ligurian. They also used Italian. In the last century, however, the French language has been forcibly imposed, causing the distortion of Monaco’s dialect, which is now almost extinct.

129 — The western borders of Italy (on the border with France) are naturally identified by the Alps. As for the coast between Italy and France, the linguistic border was already indicated by Dante in “De Vulgari Eloquentia” (see point 157) and is located along the Var River, near Nice, the last outpost of Ligurian tradition. The other linguistic borders of Italy are more easily defined, as the neighboring languages are not Romance and thus differ completely from Italian: to the north are the German-speaking populations (those of Switzerland and Austria); to the northeast we find the Slavic languages (Slovenian and Croatian); and to the south, on the other side of the Mediterranean Sea, they speak Arabic (Tunisia and Libya).

130 — Returning to the Renaissance, Francesco Guicciardini (Florence, 1483-1540) wrote the “History of Italy” (1535-1539) not in Latin, but in the vulgar tongue (i.e. Italian). During this age there were fewer and fewer works written in Latin, although in the south of Italy the tradition of writing in Latin continued on for a bit longer.

131 — In contrast to the Protestant Reformation (Martin Luther in Germany, Calvin in Switzerland, Henry VIII in England), in Italy the Roman Catholic Church oversaw the “Counter-Reformation” with the Council of Trent from 1545 to 1563. One consequence was the obligation to have a “surname”, which until then was only used by nobility or the rich. Starting in 1564 Catholic parish priests were required to keep baptismal records with names and surnames, in order to avoid inbreeding. The nicknames or second names became hereditary, i.e. they became surnames.

132 — The “Lotto” was founded in the sixteenth century in Genoa (and not in Naples as many believe) and soon spread to all the Italian regions, starting with Tuscany.

The official dates for the Lotto games are as follows:

1556 — Florence
1576 — Genoa (where the Lotto was born and where in fact it was played for almost 50 years)
1600 — Milan
1666 — Rome
1674 — Turin
1682 — Naples
1713 — Palermo (where in fact it was played since 1682)
1733 — Venice

These were the original Lotto “wheels”, to which were added Bari (1866) and Cagliari (1939) after the unification of Italy. Also in 1939 a new Genoese wheel was added, since it had been previously abolished in 1800, perhaps due to the annexation of Liguria to the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia (a curiosity: for some reason there has never been a wheel for Bologna). For some years now the Lotto has spread to foreign countries. Each number carries a different meaning. The most important number, 1, symbolizes Italy.

133 — Italy, which for at least fifteen centuries had been the beacon of European civilization, began to decline in the first decades of the 1600’s, after the Renaissance. While other European countries experienced rapid cultural, civil, scientific and economic progress (especially France and England, but also the Germanic States that still formally belonged to the Holy Roman Empire), Italy remained stagnant in its traditions. It is true that Galileo founded modern science around 1600 (thanks to the legacy of Leonardo da Vinci), but later the Italian scientists were fewer in number compared to the French, English, and Germans.

134 — Let’s suspend for a moment our historical analysis and comment on the situation at the end of the Renaissance. By this point in time, Italy had suffured for centuries under the rule of various foreign populations: first the Germanic tribes, then the Byzantines, Normans, and to a smaller extent the so-called Moors or Saracens (limited to Sicily). In the 1500’s and 1600’s Italy was fought over mainly between France and Spain. During this period there arose an opportunistic expression: “France or Spain, it doesn’t matter, as long as we eat.”

135 — There were, however, several acts of rebellion on the part of the Italians, such as the “Lombard League” in the 1100’s against Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, already mentioned previously. Other potentially relevant revolts were the following:

• The Sicilian Vespers, against French domination: 1281-1282 (see point 198).
• The defense of the Florentine Republic by Francesco Ferrucci (called “il Ferruccio”) against Emperor Charles V around 1530 (see point 58).
• The revolt of Masaniello in Naples: in 1647 the fisherman Tommaso Aniello led a rebellion against the Spanish Habsburg rulers and appointed himself “Captain-General of the most faithful people of Naples”. Soon the Spaniards resumed power, thanks to support from Austria, but the figure of Masaniello, although controversial, was a sensation throughout Europe, and especially in England and Poland. He became an example of liberty and equality, and was even one of the inspirations for the French Revolution.
• In 1746 Balilla Perasso, a young boy from Genoa, threw stones at the Austrian occupiers and triggered a popular uprising that led to the expulsion of the Austrians (with French support). The crisis later forced Genoa to sell Corsica to France in 1768 (one year before the birth of Napoleon). The episode was widely celebrated in Fascism. It was also mentioned in the Hymn of Mameli (see point 195), together with the Lombard League, the Sicilian Vespers and Ferruccio.

136 — At the end of the 1700’s the first signs of the Italian Risorgimento began to manifest. On January 7, 1797 in Reggio Emilia the Cispadane Republic, one of the satellite states created in Italy by Napoleon, adopted the tricolor flag,. The Roman Republic (1798) and the Neapolitan Republic (1799), which were ferociously suppressed by the Bourbons and the English of Horatio Nelson, are also considered the first signs of the Italian Risorgimento.

23 — In 1802, Napoleon proclaimed himself President of Italy, and then King of Italy in 1805. Napoleon was coronated in Milan with the Iron Crown, a symbol of the King of Italy in past centuries (see points 107; 112; 117), and uttered these famous words: “God gave it to me: woe to him who touches it!”. But Napoleon’s Kingdom of Italy only included the north (and also Dalmatia) and lasted just a few years. Meanwhile, Napoleon placed his brother Joachim Murat on the throne of Naples.

138 — By studying Napoleon’s letters one can understand many important things about Italy that are now forgotten. For example, consider the beginning of the following letter, which Napoleon sent to his brother Giuseppe Buonaparte, King of Naples:

“Saint-Cloud, April 21, 1806. To the King of Naples. My brother, light troops like the soldiers of Corsica, who, like the Italian troops, speak the same language, would be excellent for fighting the war against the brigands in Calabria.”

These words of Napoleon demonstrate some important things that today are strangely ignored or even denied:

1) In 1806 the Calabrians understood the Italian language (it sounds silly to have to specify something so obvious, but today many people believe that the Italian language only spread throughout Italy after 1954, with the birth of television!).

2) The Corsicans (like Napoleon himself) also spoke and understood Italian, as was natural, even though Corsica had already been annexed to France since 1768 (see points 172 and 173).

3) The phenomenon of brigandage existed in Calabria already in 1806 and is therefore attributable to the bad government of the Bourbons (who were deposed by Napoleon for a few years). Today, however, many commentators claim that the phenomenon of brigandage in Calabria was due to the Unification of Italy (1861). In reality, brigandage had already existed in Calabria for many decades due to local problems. In 1827 Stendhal even wrote a book about it, entitled “The Brigands in Italy”.

Today, the argument that brigandage was a reaction to the Unification of Italy is often used by those want to claim that Italy is a “fake” nation. Other arguments that people use to support this claim are two famous phrases, deliberately misinterpreted and distorted: one by Metternich, who called Italy a “geographical expression” (see point 143); and the other by D’Azeglio, “we must make the Italians”, which will be discussed in the final chapter. The book “L’Italia non esiste” (“Italy Does Not Exist”) by Sergio Salvi, published in 1996, bases its claim on these types of arguments. These arguments will be taken up in a later chapter. The reader will be able to draw his own conclusions by comparing the hundreds of historical truths mentioned in this booklet with the poor arguments laid out in Salvi’s book.

139 — Napoleon, while imprisoned on the island of Elba, proclaimed in 1814:

“I became great on the throne of France mainly through force of arms… I gave France codes and laws that will live on as long as the world itself… In Rome I will create another and better end of this same glory, as splendid as the first, but not guided by the same principles; less noisy, but certainly more durable and successful because none of them will be able to compare to it. I will turn the divided people of Italy into one single nation… I will give Italy laws more suited to the Italian people. Until now I was only able to implement temporary measures: everything will be done differently from now on: and what I will accomplish will be as eternal as the Empire. Naples, Venice and La Spezia will become immense shipyards of naval construction, and within a few years Italy will have an impressive Navy. I will make Rome a seaport. Within twenty years Italy will have thirty million inhabitants, and will then be the most powerful nation in Europe. No more wars of conquest. I will have a brave and numerous army on whose banners I will write the motto “Woe to him who touches it”, and no one will dare try. After being a Scipio and a Caesar in France, I will be a Camillus in Rome: foreigners will cease trampling on the Campidoglio, never again to return. Under my reign, the ancient majesty of the people and the king will be joined to the civilization of my first empire, and Rome will be equal to Paris, preserving, however, the grandeur of its past memories. In France I was the colossus of war: in Italy I will become the colossus of peace…”

In reality, Napoleon no longer had any power to do anything.

140 — Murat, brother of Napoleon, was King of Naples from 1808 to 1815. His famous proclamation to the Italians (Rimini, March 30, 1815) is still celebrated today:

“Italians! The hour has come to engage in your highest destiny. Providence is summoning you at last to be an independent nation. From the Alps to the strait of Sicily one cry can be heard: ‘The independence of Italy!’ By what right do foreign peoples pretend to deprive you of this independence, which is the first right and blessing of all people? … Away with all foreign domination from the soil of Italy! You were once masters of the world, and you have paid for that perilous glory with twenty centuries of subjugation and slaughter. Let it be your glory now to break free from your masters. Eighty-thousand Italians at Naples hasten to you… I appeal to you, noble and unhappy Italians of Milan, Turin, Venice, Brescia, Modena and Reggio, and all the other illustrious and oppressed regions… Form a strong and binding union with a government of your choice, a truly national representation… an independent Italy.”

141 — While leading his army, Murat conquered some lands from the Austrians in Emilia-Romagna. The victories followed the Proclamation of Pellegrino Rossi, praising the King of Naples and Italian independence: “The Hero [Murat], to whom the eyes of all Italians were fixed… Surrounded by warriors, he flew between us, he raised high the cry of national independence…”

142 — However, Murat was soon forced to succumb to the Restoration imposed by Austria and the other countries: after the Congress of Vienna (1815), the Kingdom of Naples returned to the Bourbons. Most of Italy came under the direct or indirect control of Austria. The Congress of 1815 resulted in disaster for Italy, which was now shattered more than ever. Only in the course of the following decades of the Risorgimento did consciousness slowly begin to rebuild.

143 — Metternich, the Austrian Minister, said that Italy was only “a geographical expression”. This statement is still remembered today by anti-Italians, but it is obvious that Metternich’s phrase is anything but impartial. Furthermore, the original statement is far less dramatic than is usually reported. Here is the full quote: “The word ‘Italy’ is a geographical expression, a qualification concerning language, but which does not have the political value that the efforts of revolutionary ideologists try to impress to it.”

144 — We will skip over much of the Risorgimento. However, by necessity, we will cite some basic facts and add some significant notes that are often forgotten today.

145 — The First War of Independence, following the revolt of the people of Milan against the Austrians (“Five Days of Milan”), was fought in 1848 by Piedmont, with the support of the other Italian States, on the territory of Lombardy-Venetia, an Austrian possession. The war was won by Austria, who took possession of Milan and the whole of Lombardy-Venetia. However, it remains a cornerstone of the Risorgimento, because it involved volunteers from the various Italian regions. It was also important for the battle of Curtatone and Montanara, which saw the sacrifice of hundreds of university students from Naples and Pisa (and some were also from Florence and Siena).

Today some people claim that Lombardy would have been better off under Austrian rule, rather than joining a united Italy. This is convenient to say now, but it ignores the fact that the Austrians were condemned as exploitative rulers by the Italians. Here is an excerpt from a book that was distributed in the elementary schools of Milan since 1815 (written in Italian of course):

“Subjects must behave toward their Sovereign and obey all that he commands in his capacity as Sovereign, just as a faithful servant obeys all that his master commands. … Subjects must regard the Sovereign as their master, because in fact he has a right to be obeyed by them, and because he has the highest domination over substances and over subjected people.”

(From the first edition of “I martiri della Libertà italiana dal 1794 al 1848”, by Atto Vannucci, 1848)

To my knowledge, the Ancient Romans never had such an attitude toward the people who they had subdued. For example, the Gallic chieftain Brennus said to the Romans: “Woe to the vanquished”, but no Roman ever said that to any conquered people. Yet today the Romans are held up as an example of terrible abuse and cruelty, and the immense heritage of civilization they left to the world is forgotten. Today we despise the “Pax Romana” because it was a forced peace, sealed by arms. But at that time the only alternative was war at all levels (even civil war) and civic and material destruction: recall, for example, what happened in Palestine during Jesus’ time, or to Italy during the barbarian invasions, which led to the end of the Empire.

146 — In the Second War of Independence, fought in 1859 against Austria with the support of Napoleon III’s France, Piedmont conquered Lombardy and annexed the other regions of central and northern Italy. In 1860 the Expedition of the Thousand, led by Garibaldi, embarked from Genoa, landed in Sicily and conquered all of southern Italy. Some people today believe that the Thousand were almost all northerners. Indeed, there were many from Lombardy and Venetia, but all regions of Italy were represented. At least two hundred men were from the south: there were many Sicilians, but there were also volunteers from other southern regions. In fact, there were more Campanians than Piedmontese. This is easily verified by consulting the official list published in 1864. In any case, Garibaldi’s Thousand became Twenty-Thousand by the time they reached Volturno, just north of Naples; naturally, almost everyone who joined Garibaldi were all southerners.

147 — In 1861 at Turin the Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed (although it did not yet include Rome or the Triveneto). In 1866, with the Third War of Independence, Italy conquered Veneto (but not Trento or Trieste). However, Napoleon III’s France was opposed to the conquest of Rome (the seat of the Papacy and the official centre of Catholicism and Christianity in general). In 1870, taking advantage of the fall of Napoleon III and the Franco-Austrian War, Italy conquered Rome.

148 — During this same time there was also the Unification of Germany (1871), although three German States did not join: Austria, Luxembourg and Liechtenstein. Before 1815 the Germanic territories were broken up into about 350 different countries, born after the collapse of the Holy Roman Empire, which really took place at the end of the sixteenth century, but was formally ended by Napoleon in 1806. On average, each of these States was half the size of a modern Italian province. The Congress of Vienna in 1815 reduced the number of German States to 38, including Imperial Austria. Before the Unification there were talks of a “Lesser Germany” (without Austria) and a “Greater Germany” (with Austria), but after 1871 Austria remained independent.

149 — Italy, although united, did not yet included the territories of Trento and Trieste, which remained under Austria, despite being Italian by history, language and tradition. At the end of the 1800’s a phenomenon spread throughout those territories known as irredentism (a movement that desired the regions to be reunited with the Italian motherland). All of this finally led to Italy’s entry into World War I in 1915. Despite the famous defeat at Caporetto (October 1917), in the end Italy was victorious. The decisive battle was that of Vittorio Veneto. The date of the victory was November 4, 1918. Trento and Trieste were reunited with Italy. The feeling of Italian redemption remained immortal in the famous “Song of the Piave”, also called “Legend of the Piave”, “24 May” or “The Piave Whispered”, written and set to music by E. A. Mario, the famous author of many other songs (both in Italian and Neapolitan dialect).

The northern borders of Italy were moved well beyond the Trentino, up to the Brenner Pass (the actual Alpine watershed), also annexing the South Tyrol, which we call Alto Adige and which constitutes the current province of Bolzano.

To the east, Italy obtained the Carso, all of Istria, and some smaller territories in Dalmatia. In these areas the population was mixed, partly Italian and partly Slavic (Slovenian and Croatian). In the coastal areas, especially those just south of Trieste (such as Capodistria), the majority of the population was Italian.

Italy was not satisfied with the territories assigned to it by the peace treaties: it was missing part of Istria and the city of Fiume. Indeed, Italy had been promised territories in the Treaty of London, but these promises were broken after the war. Italians thus began to speak of a “mutilated victory”, a concept that was emphasized in subsequent years by Benito Mussolini. The poet Gabriele D’Annunzio led a group of volunteers and even managed to conquer the city of Fiume, which then was effectively annexed to Italy. Other heroic acts by D’Annunzio were the “Buccari Mockery” and the “Flight over Vienna” (the latter episode is described in point 200).

150 — In 1945, after the Second World War, Italy suffered territorial cuts, especially in the East: Istria, Dalmatia and most of the Carso were annexed by Yugoslavia, who had occupied these regions at the end of the war. Many Italians were persecuted and killed merely for their nationality. The fate of Trieste remained in doubt until 1954, when the city finally returned to Italy.

To the West, some small territories were annexed by France, including the proud towns of Briga and Tenda, which both manifested their desire to remain Italian. The French also threatened to annex Ventimiglia, and there was serious civil unrest by the inhabitants who wanted to remain with Italy.

Chapter 5 — Expansion on the Arguments Summarized in Chapter 2 (On the Italian Language) and Small Linguistic Anthology

Before Dante:

151 — The “Carta Capuana” or “Placito di Capua” (March 960), part of the larger “Placiti Cassinesi”, reported the following statement of a witness during a legal trial:

“Sao ke kelle terre, per kelle fini que ki contene, trenta anni le possette parte sancti Benedicti.”

Modern Italian translation:

“So che quelle terre, per quei confini che questa contiene, trent’anni li possedette la parte di San Benedetto.”

As can be seen, this language is much closer to modern Italian language than to Latin. In the following years similar formulas were reported in Teano and Sessa Aurunca (both in northern Campania).

152 — St. Francis of Assisi (Umbria, 1182-1226) wrote in the Umbrian vernacular:

“Altissimu, onnipotente, bon Signore,
tue so’ le laude, la gloria e l’honore et onne benedictione…
Laudato sie, mi’ Signore, cum tucte le tue creature,
spetialmente messor lo frate sole,
lo quale è iorno, et allumini noi per lui.
Et ellu è bellu e radiante cum grande splendore;
de te, Altissimo, porta significatione.
Laudato sì, mi’ Signore, per sora luna e le stelle:
in celu l’ài formate clarite et pretiose et belle.
Laudato si’, mi’ Signore, per frate vento,
et per aere et nubilo et sereno et onne tempo,
per lo quale a le tue creature dài sustentamento.
Laudato si’, mi Signore per sor’acqua,
la quale è multo utile et humile et pretiosa et casta.
Laudato si’, mi’ Signore, per frate focu,
per lo quale ennallumini la nocte:
ed ello è bello et iocundo et robustoso et forte.
Laudato si’, mi’ Signore, per sora nostra matre terra,
la quale ne sustenta et governa,
et produce diversi fructi con coloriti fiori et herba.”

(From “Canticle of the Creatures”, 1224)

153 — Giacomo da Lentini, also called Iacopo or Jacopo (Sicily, 1200-1270), inventor of the “sonnet”, was the leading exponent of the Sicilian School. The language he used was quite polished and very similar to today’s standard Italian. Here is an example from one of his poems:

“Io m’aggio posto in core a Dio servire
com’io potesse gire in paradiso,
al santo loco, ch’aggio audito dire,
u’ si mantien sollazzo, gioco e riso.
Sanza mia donna non vi vorìa gire,
quella ch’ha blonda testa e claro viso,
ché sanza lei non poterìa gaudere,
estando da la mia donna diviso.
Ma no lo dico a tale intendimento,
perch’io peccato ci volesse fare…”

(From “Io m’aggio posto in core”, 1233)

154 — We can also examine the Milanese vernacular used by Bonvesin della Riva (Milan, 1240-1313):

“Fra Bonvesin dra Riva, ke sta im borgo Legnian,
de le cortesie da desco quilò ve dise perman;
de le cortesie cinquanta ke se dén servar al desco
fra Bonvesin dra Riva ve’n parla mo’ de fresco.
La premerana è questa, ke quando tu ve’ a mensa
del pover besonioso imprimamente impensa:
ké, quand tu pasci un povero, tu pasci lo to pastor
ké t’a pasce pos la morte in l’eternal dolzor.
La cortesia segonda: se tu sporzi aqua a le man,
adornamente la sporze, guarda no sii vilan…”

(From “Le belle maniere da usare a tavola”, about 1270)

155 — Let’s compare it to the Roman vernacular of the thirteenth century. “Le miracole de Roma” (“The Miracle of Rome”) was the first tourist guide of Rome written in the vernacular, rather than in Latin. Chapter 8 described the Campidoglio:

“Capitolio, lo quale era capo de lo munno, dove stavano li consoli et li senatori ad regere tutto lo munno. Et lo monte intorno era murato de mura forte et alte. Et sopre la cima de lo monte tutte le mura erano de belle opere adornate, de auro et de vitro. Et infra la rocca de lo palazo de molte belle opere adhornate, de rame, de argento, de auro et de prete pretiose.”

Compared to the modern Roman dialect, this older dialect was a bit closer to southern dialects. For example, the use of ‘munno’ instead of ‘monno’ (modern ‘mondo’), ‘petre’ instead of ‘pietre’, and the article ‘lo’ instead of ‘er’ (modern ‘il’).

From Dante Onward:

156 — In 1304 Dante Alighieri wrote “De Vulgari Eloquentia” (DVE). In Book I, Chapter VIII, Dante examined the various languages of Europe divided them into three groups: Greek-Slavic, Germanic and Latin. He identified the vast Germanic group with the affirmation ‘iò’, which means ‘si’ in Italian and ‘yes’ in English (and is similar to the modern German ‘ja’).

Dante then focused on the Neo-Latin or Romance languages. At that time some people thought that it was possible to create a single vernacular, common to France, Italy and Spain. For example, “The Million” by Marco Polo was co-written by Rustichello da Pisa in 1299 in a strange mixed “Franco-Italian” language (unfortunately the original text has been lost). Following this practice, Dante began his analysis by referring to “vulgar Latin”, as if it were a single language, but he immediately clarified that this was a “tripartite idiom, because the Ispani use ‘oc’, the Franks use ‘oil’ and the Latins use ‘si’.”

Essentially, Dante had already distinguished three different languages: that of the Ispani (which in reality was Provencal); that of the the Franks (i.e. the French); and that of the Latins (i.e. the Italians). Each language had a different way of saying “yes”. During the time of Dante, the French said ‘oil’, but in recent centuries this has changed; the French now say ‘oui’. Meanwhile, Italian has remained unchanged: both in standard Italian and in all the dialects, we still say ‘sì’.

The “Ispani” of Dante were in reality the Occitans/Provencals of modern southern France; the “Franks” were the French of the north; and the “Latins” were Italians. In fact, Dante sometimes used the word “Latium” to describe Italy, while the term “Latin” was a synonym for Italians. Why did Dante call the Provencals “Ispani”? A likely explanation is as follows: First of all, Dante seemed to deny the existence of Castilian (modern Spanish), which uses the word ‘sì’, just like Italian. And yet, Dante identified ‘sì’ as a feature unique to Italy. Also it should be noted that the language of eastern Spain, i.e. Catalan (spoken in Barcelona and ​​throughout Catalonia and Andorra) is similar to Provencal, the language of modern southern France. These two facts might explain why Dante was induced to mistakenly (or improperly) identify the “Ispani” with Occitans/Provencals.

It is interesting to note that in the “Divine Comedy”, when Dante met a Provencal named Arnaut Daniel (Purgatorio, XIV, 140-147), the man spoke in Provencal. This was the only time in the entire work that someone spoke a language other than Italian. In fact, the Italians who Dante met on his journey all spoke the same Italian language (instead of regional dialects).

157 — In the subsequent chapters of “De Vulgari Eloquentia” (DVE) Dante focused on the language of the “Latins”, by which he meant the Italians:

“Those who use ‘sì’ live in that part of southern Europe that is defined by the land of the Genoese to the West, and by the outcrop of Italy stretching into the Adriatic to the East, and extends southward to Sicily.” (I, VIII, 6)

By this description, Dante intended to indicate the boundaries where the people spoke a dialect with the affirmation “sì”. This territory corresponded to the traditional and natural geographical territory of Italy: The Genoese boundaries were on the border with France, near Nice; the eastern promontory was Istria; the territory continued southward to Sicily, which was explicitly named; and the northern confines were identified with the Alps in another part of the work (I, VIII, 5).

Dante then warned that the “sì” language is fragmented into a multitude of vulgar dialects (Italian dialects), but he showed that these dialects can all be unified since they are different aspects of one perfect language, the “illustrious vernacular”, common to all regions (which, naturally, is the Italian language). Dante then described the differences and the common aspects of the various dialects of Italy. He divided them into 14 groups, 7 of which were to the east of the Apennines and 7 to the west.

“I say first that Latium [i.e. Italy] is divided into right and left sides; and if anyone asks what is the dividing line, I answer in short that it is the yoke of the Apennines… as Lucan describes it in the second book of his Pharsalia: the right side has as its basin the Tyrrhenian Sea, and the left the Adriatic.” (I, X, 4)

In Dante’s vision, Italy appears upside down, i.e. the South is at the top and the North is at the bottom:

“The regions of the right are: Puglia, but not all of it, Rome, the Duchy of Spoleto, Tuscany and the March of Genoa. Those of the left are: part of Puglia, the March of Ancona, Romagna, Lombardy, the March of Treviso and Venice. Friuli and Istria must belong to the left side of Italy, and the islands of Sicily and Sardinia to the right side of Italy.” (I, X, 5).

Dante’s classification was incomplete, since he did not go into deep enough detail, but instead grouped several regions together:

1) Campania, Tyrrhenian Lucania and Calabria form a single region according to Dante, which he called “the right side of Puglia”;
2) Puglia, Ionian Lucania, Molise and Abruzzo form a single region according to Dante, which he called “the left side of Puglia”;
3) Piedmont and Emilia were included in Lombardy;
4) Northern Umbria was included in Tuscany.

Despite these limitations, Dante’s classification was certainly valid.

In later chapters, he demonstrated a good knowledge of the various regional dialects, which he examined one by one, without sparing any criticism or disparaging remarks. His research is still productive, since he found a vast common heritage among all the vulgar dialects of Italy and also recognized that each dialect, although crude, contains within it a “scent” of the “illustrious vernacular”, the ideal language that is above all (and which today constitutes the Italian language).

Dante, however, warned that only a few authors proved themselves worthy of the new and noble language. He also emphasized that the illustrious vernacular should not be identified with the Tuscan, and openly criticized those among his fellow countrymen who “confused by their foolishness, arrogate to themselves the title of illustrious vernacular”. Regarding this, he said that the poems of certain Tuscan authors “are written in a municipal language, and not in a curial [i.e. national] language”. (I,XIII,1) According to Dante only four Tuscan authors sought a higher national language and proved themselves capable of writing in an illustrious vernacular: Cino da Pistoia, Lapo Gianni, Guido Cavalcanti and Dante himself. He also commended authors from other regions, such as Guido Guinizzelli of Bologna and some poets of the Sicilian School, whose language “is no different than the most illustrious”. (I, XII, 6)

158 — The French language — as a literary language — is older than Italian by about two centuries (the “Song of Roland” dates to about 1100) because the classical Latin tradition was stronger in Italy than anywhere else. However, it should be stressed that France had to wait until 1533 before they had an essay describing the different vulgar variants spoken in France, while Italy had already achieved this with Dante’s “De Vulgari Eloquentia” in 1304. The Italians also have a greater advantage than the French, since they can read the Italian texts of the Middle Ages without any translation. The French, on the other hand, have to read the romance of Lancelot with a parallel text translation, because their language has changed so much. The same can be said of the English, who can no longer understand Chaucer’s Middle English; although he is considered the father of English literature, his writings are unreadable to a modern Englishman. But the Italians can still read Dante without the need of any parallel text.

159 — In the French Constitution it explicitly specifies that the official language of the country is French. But the Italian Constitution does not specify anything about this, because the pre-unification Italian States had already voluntarily adopted the Italian language. The linguistic scholar Noam Chomsky stated: “A language is a dialect with an army and navy”. Chomsky meant that most languages have been imposed by force. But this never happened in Italy, since the pre-unification Italian States had all adopted the language of Dante as their official language, for natural reasons (a replacement for Latin). Inexplicably, some people today think that the Italian language was imposed by Piedmont in 1861. This claim is clearly false and baseless.

[…]

161 — Masuccio Salernitano, pseudonym of Tommaso Guardati (Salerno 1410-1475), wrote a story about Mariotto and Ganozza (novella 33 of his “Novellino”) based on a Sienese legend. His story inspired Luigi Da Porto to write “Giulietta e Romeo” (1524), which in turn was later taken by William Shakespeare (1591). Masuccio Salernitano is rarely mentioned in the modern anthologies of Italian literature because his language is considered to “impure” and “regional”. But Luigi Da Porto is highly regarded, since he wrote “Romeo and Giulietta”, based on real historical facts from Verona. Here is the summary of the original novel, in Masuccio’s own words:

“Mariotto senese, innamorato de Ganozza, como ad omicida se fugge in Alissandria; Ganozza se fenge morta, e, da sepultura tolta, va a trovare l’amante; dal quale sentita la sua morte, per morire anco lui retorna a Siena, e, cognosciuto, è priso, e tagliatole la testa; la donna nol trova in Alissandria, retorna a Siena, e trova l’amante decollato, e lei supra ‘l suo corpo per dolore se more.”

As can be seen, the text is extremely similar to modern standard Italian and can be easily understood by any modern Italian reader.

162 — The first non-Tuscan author who adopted the language codified by Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio, was Jacopo Sannazzaro, a Neapolitan writer originally from Lombardy (Naples, 1456-1530), author of the “Arcadia”. The Emilian author Matteo Maria Boiardo (Scandiano, 1441-1494), was a contemporary of Sannazzaro. He was the author of “Orlando Innamorato”, which was written in the so-called “illustrious Tuscan” (i.e. standard Italian).

Boiardo never completed this due to the French invasion of Italy. These are the last verses of the poem: “While I sing, O God redeemer, I see Italy all in flames and fire, brought by these men of Gaul, who with furious rage have come to lay waste to our land.”

The poem was continued by Ludovico Ariosto’s, who wrote “Orlando Furioso”. Ariosto, loke Boiardo, was from Reggio Emilia and worked in Ferrara. Another great poem of the 1500’s was “Jerusalem Delivered” by Torquato Tasso of Sorrento. Also in the 1400’s and 1500’s the first grammatical texts in the Italian vernacular began to spread.

[…]

164 — In 1583 in Florence the Accademia della Crusca (generally abbreviated as La Crusca) was founded for the purpose of codifying the Italian language. According to some commentators, La Crusca further contributed to the “Tuscanization” or “Florentinization” of the Italian language, as previously mentioned in point 50. So, it would be good to mention the age-old question that pitted the “Florentinists” against the “Italianists”, and vice-versa. The former argued that the Italian language should base itself on the illustrious Florentine. The latter instead believed that the Italian language should take into account all of the regional dialects.

Among the Florentists we can name (besides the Accademia della Crusca) Niccolò Machiavelli, Giovan Battista Niccolini, the Milanese author Alessandro Manzoni and the Neapolitan grammatician Basilio Puoti (see point 58). Manzoni in 1827 felt the need to go to Florence to “wash his clothes in the Arno River”, i.e. to better adapt the illustrious Florentine language in which he had written the first draft of his famous novel “The Betrothed”. Among the Italianists there was Dante Alighieri (see point 157), Giangiorgio Trissino (see point 47), Jacopo Corbinelli, Torquato Tasso, Ludovico Muratori, Vincenzo Monti and Giulio Perticari. It should be noted that Dante and Corbinelli were Florentines, but not Florentinists.

Fortunately the rigor of La Crusca and the Florentinists did not prevent the spread of regional vocabulary, which contributed a great deal to the Italian language. The natural use of language has even caused some exclusively Tuscan words to fall into disuse, which had been part of the Italian language despite not being used in any other regions. For example: “balocco”, which today has been replaced by “giocattolo” (“toy” in English). The Tuscan word “mesticheria” has been replaced by “ferramenta” or “coloreria” (“hardware” in English). The adverb “punto”, in the sense of agreement (i.e. “exactly” or “precisely” in English), is today used only in some areas of Tuscany. Also, the demonstrative pronoun “codesto” is not used in the spoken language (the loss of this word, however, represents a detriment to the expressiveness and precision of our language).

We already mentioned (see point 50) that the two most famous Italian words in the world today are “Pizza” (a Neapolitan word) and “Ciao” (a word of Venetian origin).

165 — Even if Tuscan had never existed, it is likely that the various vernaculars of the regions of Italy still would have been polished and integrated into a single national language, as can be clearly demonstrated by all the various examples cited so far. Although, of course, the path would have been more difficult without the contributions of Dante and other great Tuscan authors. Today, however, some commentators consider the Italian dialects almost as if they were completely “different languages” from each other. But the famous expression of Chomsky (see points 159 and 175) does not apply to Italy. We will address this claim again in points 171, 172 and 173, where we will cite definitive evidence that proves our thesis correct.

For now we must point out that if Tuscan had not existed, the “illustrious Neapolitan” would have been like that of Basile, or better yet that of Masuccio Salernitano (see point 161), which is more “impartial” than that of Basile (who, in fact, was oppoed to Tuscan and sought a more “local” expression distinct from Tuscan). The “illustrious Neapolitan” was reflected also in some popular expressions, such as the official title attributed to the poor fisherman Masaniello during the 1647 Neapolitan revolution against the Spanish: “Preposto e Prefetto Generale de lo Fedelissimo Popolo Napolitano” (“Officer and General Prefect of the Faithful Neapolitan People”).

166 — Let’s ask ourselves: instead of a single common language, would it have made sense to create different language based on those of Masuccio, Dante, the Sicilian poets (whom Dante considered equal to himself, see point 157), “Le miracole de Roma” and Bonvesin della Riva (see point 155)? Certainly, theoretically, they could have created three or more separate languages. Scandinavians have done precisely that and now have five different languages, of which four are very similar to each other: Danish, Swedish, and two types of Norwegian (Finnish, however, is very different and unrelated to the other four). The result is that none of these four languages are known on an international level. In fact, the Swedes are now so used to speaking English that they are beginning to forget their own language. Wouldn’t it be better for them to make a small sacrifice by slightly modifying their language, so they could unify it with Danish and Norwegian to create a stronger language? This topic will be resumed in point 175. Unity creates strength: the unified Italian language, despite being nineteenth in the world in terms of number of speakers, is currently the fourth most widely taught and studied language in the world (see point 180): an extraordinary result, when compared to the number of native speakers. Additionally, since the seventeenth century the Italian language has been the international language of music (as we shall see in points 167 and 168), and today it is also important in other fields, such as art in general, fashion and gastronomy.

167 — Since the seventeenth, the Italian language was internationally affirmed as the “language of music”. Still today musicians around the world use musical terms in Italian (despite pressure from the English language in modern music). To expand on what was said in points 21 and 54, here are some Italian words known by musicians all over the world: some are very famous, such as “concerto”, “maestro”, “opera”, “orchestra”, “pianoforte” (“piano” in English), “ritornello”, “sonata” and “tempo”.

Here are some words that predominate in musical notation: A Cappella, Accelerando, Adagio, Al Fine, Allegro, Andante, Aria, Assai, Cantabile, Coda, Con Brio, Con Spirito, Crescendo, Da Capo (D.C.), Dal Segno (D.S.), Dolce, Finale, Forte (f), Fortissimo (ff), Giocoso, Grave, Largo, Legato, Lento, Maestoso, Mezzoforte (mf), Moderato, Non troppo, Pianissimo (pp), Piano (p), Presto, Rallentando, Sincopato, Solfeggio, Staccato, Toccata, Vivace.

Words related to musical instruments, voices or sounds: Celeste, Fagotto, Falsetto, Oboe, Pizzicato, Soprano, Sotto Voce, Tenore, Tremolo, Trio, Trombone, Tuba, Vibrato, Viola, etc.

Some words linked to popular music: Ballata, Cantata, Mandolino, Serenata, Tarantella.

Some Italian words have been deformed in English: Alto (Contralto), Baritone, Cello (Violoncello), Contrabass (Contrabbasso), Clarinet, Contra Fagotto (Controfagotto), Piccolo (Flauto piccolo), Quartet, Quintet, Trumpet (Tromba), Solo (Assolo), Violin.

Certain Italian words that are not strictly musical have become famous through music, such as: Bis, Bravo, Capriccio, Divertimento, Finale, Impresario, Libretto, Scherzo, Viva. There is also a minority of French musical terms (such as Air, Badinerie, Bourree, Gavotte, Nocturne, Ouverture, Rondeaux, Suite).

168 — To see some concrete examples of musical notation in Italian, look at some famous pieces of classical music, written by great European musicians:

“Toccata und Fuge” by Bach, BWV 565, written 1707: the Toccata begins with the tempo “Adagio”, but in two points reaches the “Prestissimo”. The Fuga instead begins with “Maestoso”… The “Finale” slows until the “Adagissimo”.

The most famous symphony by Mozart is No. 40 (K550, written in 1788), whose movements are: 1) Allegro molto; 2) Andante; 3) Menuetto (Allegro); 4) Finale (Allegro assai).

Mozart preferred to write works in which the “libretto” (i.e. the text to sing) was also in Italian. Some of his famous works are: Le Nozze di Figaro (K492, written in 1786); Don Giovanni (K527, 1787); Così fan tutte (K588, 1789).

Beethoven’s famous Fifth Symphony (1808) has four “movements”: 1) Allegro con Brio; 2) Andante con Moto; 3) Allegro; 4) Allegro — Presto.

The ninth symphony of Beethoven (1823) was declared the Hymn of the European Community. Its last movement (“Presto”) contains a vocal part (unusual for a symphony), whose text is in German. This is “An die Freude” (“Ode to Joy”) by Schiller. However, its four movements, like all symphonic compositions, have tempo’s indicated in Italian: 1) Allegro, ma non troppo, un poco maestoso; 2) Molto vivace; 3) Adagio molto e cantabile; 4) Presto.

Nocturne op. 9 No. 2 by Chopin (1830) only one movement whose tempo is “Moderato”. Under the tempo, Chopin also reported the indication “Dolce”.

The Concerto No. 1 for Piano and Orchestra by Tchaikovsky (1875) has the following movements: 1) Allegro non troppo; 2) Andantino semplice; 3) Allegro con fuoco.

169 — The Italian language was used by some foreign musicians not only in music, but sometimes also in lyrics and titles (recall the works of Mozart). Here are some other examples:

The German composer Mendelssohn in 1833 named his Symphony No. 4 (op. 90) “Italian”.

The German-Hungarian composer Franz Liszt in 1838 dedicated the second annata of his ”Années de Pèlerinage” to Italy and in 1840 he added “Venice and Naples” (the original title was in Italian: “Venezia e Napoli”), which is a set of romantic piano pieces, including a famous “Tarantella”. Liszt wrote many other songs with an Italian title (for example the “Dante Symphony” in 1856).

The Russian composer Tchaikovsky in 1880 wrote “Capriccio Italien” (this is the original title). At that time the unification of Italy had already taken place, but here is another interesting thing to note: the “Capriccio Italien” consists of two songs that Tchaikovsky took from Italian popular music, i.e. a Neapolitan tarantella and a Venetian canzone. This means that Tchaikovsky found a natural connection link Veneto and Campania, just as Liszt had found a natural link between Venice and Naples, i.e. two regions and two cities which some Italians today claim are so different from each other. Obviously, to an outsider, the Italian regions are seen as very similar and homogeneous, whereas Italians tend to exaggerate differences.

Yet another example may be useful for those who are still skeptical: In 1813 Gioacchino Rossini composed the opera “L’italiana in Algeri” (“The Italian Girl in Algiers”). This title demonstrates (assuming at this point that there is still a need to prove anything) that the concept of being Italian was known and understood long before the unification of Italy. Moreover, operas were being written and sung in Italian since two centuries earlier.

170 — As mentioned in point 104, Linguistic Italy (i.e. the territory where the people traditionally spoke or still do speak a matrix of Italic and Gallo-Italic dialects) corresponds almost exactly to the “Diocesi Italiciana” (the way in which Italy was organized under the late Roman Empire), with the following exceptions: Tyrol (modern Austria) and South Tyrol (Province of Bolzano), which today have Tyrolean traditions and speak German; the Aosta Valley, which uses a Franco-Provencal language; a small Slovene community in Friuli-Venezia Giulia; and some small Albanian and Greek-speaking villages in southern Italy, such as Piana degli Albanesi.

171 — In point 165 we said that if Tuscan had not existed, presumably Italy still would have produced a unified language, although the process would have been slower and more difficult. Strangely this is considered a controversial point today. In the last few decades the belief that the various Italian dialects are different languages has become more widespread. But this idea has never been supported by linguists, who all agree that Sardinian (with the exception of the northern part of the island) and Friulan (which is a branch of Ladin) are the only dialects which could possibly be considered separate languages. But in any case, they are still extremely similar to Italian. In reality all the dialects, if they are “refined”, tend to become more similar to each other and virtually merge naturally into one language. This was already understood by Dante (see point 157), who included Sardinian and Friulian in this process (and therefore as part of the Italian group of languages). The Italian language is in fact a great “synthesis” between all the dialects of Italy (in statistics and in exact sciences one would say that is an excellent “fit”). Therefore, if for some absurd reason a single Italian language had not come into existence, today we would have three, four, ten, or more refined languages, all very similar to each other, at least as similar as Spanish and Portuguese are to each other. Here, however, some people argue that there is no counter-evidence that can confirm this theoretical reasoning and therefore the different regional dialects would have evolved independently and become very different from each other. The unexpected and surprising answer we can give is that counter-evidence does exist! Incredibly there is an original Italic language, which, despite having evolved in its own right, still remains very similar to our current language. We will examine this in the following two points.

172 — It should be noted that some lands have have an Italian dialect, despite never having been part of united Italy. The most obvious case is the Canton Ticino in Switzerland, where the dialect is a variety of Lombard and the official language is obviously Italian. But there is another land in which a foreign language has been imposed (as the only official language) and yet they still speak a local dialect that is clearly Italic. Here is an example of the language in question, which will be revealed below:

“Un certu gradu di latinità hè u criteriu principale chì permette di classificà e diverse lingue neulatine ind’a famiglia di e lingue rumanze (talianu, spagnolu, portughese, sardu, rumenu, francese…). Sò dunque e lingue nate da a latinisatione dì i paesi cunquistati da Roma, da u quartu seculu prima à Cristu à u secondu seculu dopu à Cristu. Ma issa latinisazione ùn hà micca inghjennatu dapertuttu lingue rumanze. Hè stata più prufonda in u centru di l’imperu rumanu è menu impurtante in e cunfine. … Dialettu o lingua? … Ci vole à dì chì da u puntu di vista di i linguisti, l’impiegu di una o l’altra parulla ùn traduce micca una sfarenza di natura ma piuttostu una sfarenza di puntu di vista. Tuttu u sistema linguaghjaghju propriu à una cummunutà, sia cum’ella sia, hè in listessu tempu lingua è [e] dialettu sicondu ch’ellu hè cunsideratu in sè stessu o piazzatu ind’è un’universu più ampiu.”

What language is this, which is very understandable and so similar to Italian, and which reminds us a bit of northern Sardinian, Sicilian and Calabrian, and even a bit like Umbrian and Ciociarian, and which in some ways resembles the Tuscan vernacular and even Genoese? The language in question is Corsican, spoken in Corsica, an island located north of Sardinia and south of the Ligurian Sea, which has belonged to France since 1768, one year before the birth of Napoleon in Ajaccio. France has imposed the French language on Corsica as the only official language, which is taught in schools as a “mother tongue” and which must be used by law. Therefore, the “Corsican language” was used only among the family or between friends, and today it is little known by young people, although in recent years some laws have granted a partial recognition to Corsican (but certainly not “bilingualism”, so there is still a long way to go).

173 — Let’s read another passage in this peculiar language, which, once again, elicits an immediate surprise due to its clear similarity to Italian. It may constitute the definitive “litmus test” mentioned in points 165 and 171:

“Lingua corsa è [e] lingua francese, ùn sò esciute da a stessa aghja linguìstica. S’è corsu è [e] talianu eranu cumplementarii, corsu è [e] francese ùn ponu esse chè in cuncurenza. Chi li restava à fà à u corsu? O sparisce o diventa una lingua cumpìita. Fù Santu Casanova chì ebbe issa bella idea quand’ellu fundò in u 1896, A Tramuntana. Ci eranu stati ancu nanzu scritti in corsu, cum’è per esempiu a puesia giocosa, ma eranu soprattuttu, puesia è literattura orale.”

Let’s look now at another excerpt from the online forum of the “Journal de la Corse”, in which the author seeks a rapprochement with the Italian language (though not all Corsicans share this sentiment):

“Perch è a cunniscenza e l’adopru di a lingua taliana so necessarii a’ u campa’ di a lingua Corsa? Perchè sò duie lingue di l’istessu stampu, sò traminduie isciute da u latinu, cum’e u spagnolu, u francese, u portughese e u rumenu chì sò tutte lingue rumanze. Ma u talianu è assai più apparentatu à u corsu chè tutte quill’altre…”

Clearly this language is very similar to Italian, even more so than Spanish (the language that is usually considered to be the closest to Italian). It is true that the use of the Corsican language today is reduced to to a flicker, having been exceeded by French and perhaps even by Arabic (spoken by immigrants). However, it remains remarkably similar to the Italian language and its various dialects. Yet, Corsica became permanently annexed to France in 1768, which is a long time ago! This was nearly one hundred years before the unification of Italy. In 1768 France was still ruled by King Louis XV, Napoleon was not yet born, the United States did not yet exist and the French Revolution did not begin until 21 years later. The metric system did not even exist, and therefore none of the units of measurement that are are familiar with today existed yet: meter, kilometer, gram, kilogram, liter, etc. Almost no modern technology existed (not even the train). From 1768 to today the world has experienced upheavals of all kinds, but despite all of these events, none of this altered the Italianity of the Corsican language, which still exists.

174 — Let’s summarize then the result of this unusual sociological and linguistic “experiment” (which our Corsican friends and former compatriots have had to forcibly live): take a region with an Italic dialect, separate it from Italy for more than two centuries, impose upon it a foreign language as the only official language… The end result is that the linguistic Italianity of this region continues to survive. At this point, it is a wonder how anyone can contradict what we have presented in points 165 and 171.

175 — Let’s continue with the topic discussed in point 166, on the small differences between the Scandinavian languages: the same can be said of other languages, so we can identify the following groups: Danish, Swedish and the two types Norwegian. 2) Hindi, Bengali and other Indian languages. 3) Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian. 4) Czech and Slovak. 5) Serbian and Croatian (even though the former is written in Cyrillic script, and the latter in Latin or Roman script).

We could also list a sixth group: the Iberian languages, i.e. Spanish (Castillan), Catalan, Portuguese and Galician (Spanish and Portuguese are spoken all over the world). The Spain of Francisco Franco imposed the exclusive use of Castilian. The use of Catalan was again authorized on an official level only recently, so one can say that Barcelona is “bilingual”, while the Principality of Andorra adopted Castillan as the only official language. Galician, however, can be defined as “Portuguese”, even though Galicia is part of Spain. In the northeast of Spain there is another language which is neither Neo-Latin nor even Indo-European: the Basque language.

Since the sixteenth century, France has eliminated the langue d’oc (Provencal and more generally Occitan) and has imposed the langue d’oil (Northern French). Linguistic minorities also are not recognized in France. For example the German minority in Strasbourg and throughout Alsace, Gaelic in Brittany, Basque and Catalan along the Spanish border, and Italic in Corsica and in the area around the Principality of Monaco. None of these languages are recognized; instead French has been forcibly imposed on these regions. As a result, the Italic language between Nice and Ventimiglia is nearly extinct (they speak only French now), but the Italian names of the towns in the Principality of Monaco remains as indisputable historical evidence of their Italian origin: Montecarlo or Monte Carlo, Moneghetti, Grimaldi, Larvotto, Monaco, etc.

In England, among the different dialects that exist there, the one that has been imposed is that of London (“Estuary English”), which then was also transplanted to Scotland, Wales and Ireland, where the original language was Gaelic, i.e. very different from English (for example, in Welsh “Dim Sassenach” means “No Saxon”, or “I don’t speak English”).

In these cases the Chomsky’s expression is certainly true: “A language is a dialect with an army and navy”. (see point 159). Chomsky’s statement, however, does not apply to Italy and Germany, there their respective languages were established in a “natural” way.

In Germany the divisions and contrasts between the various dialects is even more varied and complex than in Italy. Among the Germans there is even an intermediate stage between “languages” and “dialects”, or “idioms”. An “idiom” is regional, like a dialect, but it is more “illustrious”, almost like a language. Examples of well-known “idioms” are Swiss German and Bavarian (the latter is also spoken in most of Austria).

However, in Germany as well as in Italy, the contrast between language and dialect should not be overemphasized, as some people have done in the last few years. Language and dialects form a single large, rich and complete system. As mentioned in point 164, our popular tradition has allowed dialectal words and expressions to penetrate into the language, thus giving us a unique expressive richness perhaps unparalleled anywhere else.

176 — We must consider one last objection regarding the underlying unity of the Italian dialects. Some linguists (a minority) divide the Romance languages into two groups, “Western” and “Eastern”: according to this model, the Western group of languages would be those spoken in Spain, Portugal, France and Northern Italy. The Eastern group of languages, on the other hand, would be those spoken in Central and Southern Italy, including the islands, and Romania.

As we can see, this classification splits Italy in two, along the “Gothic Line” or the so-called “La Spezia-Rimini Line”. According to this, then, Italians of the north would be linguistically united to the French, Spanish and Portuguese, but not to Tuscans, who, (along with all the central and southern Italians) would instead be linguistically united to Romanians.

How does one respond to this? First of all, this line does exist, however: 1) it merely separates the Italian dialects of the north from the Italian dialects of the center and south; it certainly does not delineate different languages; 2) the line does not run from Rimini to La Spezia, but from Senigallia (Ancona) to Massa and Carrara. It is true that some northern dialects could be defined as “Gallo-Italic”. But the dialects of Veneto and Liguria, for example, would not fit into this classification. Furthermore, there is certainly no sufficient reason to connect them to “Gaul”, i.e. France. The only real “Gallic” dialects spoken in Italy are Franco-Provencal (used in the Aosta Valley) and the Provencal-Occitan dialects used in some alpine valleys of Piedmont, on the border with France.

We will not waste time discussing the theoretical division between “Western Romance languages” and “Eastern Romance languages”, which very few linguists accept and which seems to have been created in order to split Italy into two. We will just highlight 5 facts and let the reader judge for himself.

If the La Spezia-Rimini Line were really so important, then:

1) A Spaniard should be able to more easily understand a Frenchman rather than a Neapolitan or Sicilian. Also a Venetian should be able to understand a Parisian much better than a Roman. And a Florentine should be able to understand a person from Bucharest more than a person from Venice. Is any of this even remotely credible?

2) The Swiss people from Canton Ticino (who speak a Lombard dialect) would have to be considered rather stupid, since they have chosen Italian as their official language instead of French! If the so-called “Gallo-Italic” dialects of northern Italy were closer to French than to Italian, then Ticino would have to imitate the western cantons of Switzerland (i.e. Geneva, Lausanne and many other Swiss cities where the official language is French).

3) Dante would also be a fool, because in 1304 he included the dialects of Northern Italy in the “lingua di sì”, i.e. Italian (see “De Vulgari Eloquentia”) and not in the langue d’oc (Southern France) or langue d’oil (Northern France).

4) Duke Emanuele Filiberto of Savoy would also be a fool, since in 1560 he adopted two official languages: Italian in Piedmont; and French in Savoy. If the La Spezia-Rimini linguistic line had really been so obvious and important, then Piedmont should have adopted French instead of the language of the “Tuscan” and “Sicilian” poets, who were located well below that line.

5) Before accepting the validity of this line, we should point out a much more important and fundamental fact: the Romance languages all descend from Latin, which was the ancient language of Rome. Therefore it would be more correct to say that Provencal and French are Roman dialects! At the extreme, we could even define French as a heavily modified and corrupted Italian dialect. This might make some people laugh, but in reality it is more sensible than the inverted view that the dialects of northern Italy should be aggregated to French. Do not forget that French itself derives from the ancient Romans. It is good to remember this fact: that all these languages ultimately come from Rome, not from Toulon or Avignon (with all due respect to these two very beautiful cities).

177 — Let’s continue our discussion on dialects as supposedly “separate languages” (see points 165, 171 and 174). Regarding this subject, there is an essay by a certain “Shelburn” that can be found on an Internet Forum which can be easily found through a Google search.

While defending the use of the Neapolitan dialect, Shelburn does not consider it a “language” and also is not opposed to the existence of standard Italian as a reference language:

“I draw inspiration from some considerations made in the book ‘Il napoletano parlato e scritto’ [by De Blasi and Imperatore, Ed. Dante & Descartes]. Is Neapolitan a language or a dialect? Please note in advance that the problem should not be dramatized. First of all, the word ‘dialect’ comes from the Greek word ‘diàlektos’, which means ‘language’. Of course, in comparison to an official language, a dialect is far more geographically limited and has less prestige; but it is also true that a language and its dialects have the same origin, being descended from the same mother tongue. This is also why the relationship between Italian and Neapolitan can not be considered controversial… It is certain that the requirements generally needed to constitute a language are not sufficiently met by Neapolitan. Although it is true that Neapolitan has a rich literature, and is used in some songs and in the theatre, at most we can only conclude that Neapolitan is a literary language, because literature, theater and song are only some aspects of a language, and do not represent the entire universe of a language. Neapolitan is not used (and never has been used, despite what some people claim) as an official language in bureaucracy, in politics or in the courts. Secondly, with regard to the dominant language, it is good to dispel another misconception, which often misleads those who know little about the history of the Italian language and the dialects: the Italian language was never imposed by oppressive and authoritarian methods. Italian was voluntarily chosen and used as a language of written expression and then later adopted as an official language by millions of people who found it much more comfortable and practical to use a language that could be read and understood throughout the entire peninsula, from north to south. The Italian peninsula was perceived as a cultural unity in the Middle Ages… of course, not everyone knows this, and others present not to know. The real problem, if anything, is the hope that Neapolitan continues to remain in use. … In fact, a language does not survive (and can not be reborn) if its use does not correspond to the usefulness of the speaker. As long as it is be useful, Neapolitan will endure. We can only contribute to this cultural endurance.”

178 — To conclude this discussion on the Neapolitan dialect, which is the dialect that is most often mentioned when speaking of dialects that could possibly constitute autonomous “languages”, we will make this last point. It would be difficult to regard as “non-Italian” the famous song known all over the world, “O sole mio”, written in 1898 by the Carduccian poet Capurro and set to music by Di Capua:

“Quann’ fa notte, ‘o sole se ne scenne, me vene comm’a ‘na malincunia…”.

Capurro wrote in Italian on a daily basis, yet he voluntarily wrote “O sole mio” in Neapolitan: he obviously saw no opposition between language and dialect, but considered them simply two levels of the same language.

179 — Ironically enough, foreigners are often more objective and impartial in their descriptions of the Italian language than the Italians themselves. For example, an English linguistics website (Orbislingua.com) wrote about Italian and its dialects:

“The Italian language is one of the languages from which almost everybody knows at least one word (mostly about food or music). It quickly identifies a culture full of life and color. Isn’t Italian food famous for its pizzas, spaghetti, and macaroni? Isn’t Italian opera famous for its tenors and sopranos? And we shouldn’t forget both the sublime literature and the striking Italian film industry [the second in the world after American cinema] which has left us sentences as well known as “la dolce vita” and other adventures. … In Italy there are many different dialectal groups:

— Northern Italian or Gallo-Italic;
— Venetian in northeastern Italy;
— Tuscan (which includes Corsican) in west-central Italy;
— Roman and Umbrian in east-central Italy;
— The group of Neapolitan, Lucanian and Pugliese in some southern regions;
— The group of Calabrian, Salentino and Sicilian in other southern regions.

In general, they are all part of an intelligible continuum of languages which, nevertheless, can differ significantly from each other. Sardinian, on the other hand, spoken in Sardinia (particularly the dialects from the southern and central part of the island), is separate from the group of peninsular Italian dialects. It stems from a separate branch of the Romance languages. Well then, all these dialectal forms are spoken all around the Italian territories but they don’t have a written expression, so when it is time to express things in writing they always turn to standard Italian which dominates the whole country. … Nowadays, Italian is the native language of almost 66 million people in the world, mostly living in the Italic peninsula. It is the official language of Italy, San Marino, Vatican City (along with Latin) and Switzerland (along with French and German), in the canton of Ticino, where it is spoken by 500,000 people. It is also spoken in the Alps and in the Côte d’Azur, and in small communities in Croatia and Slovenia. Outside of Europe, it is estimated there are 1,500,000 native Italian speakers who live in the United States of America, 700,000 in Brazil, and 600,000 in Argentina. Although they usually speak dialectal forms instead of standard Italian, as they follow family traditions. In Somalia, its use is also spread, but it is dying in Libya and Ethiopia.”

[Note: Italian is very well known in Albania. It is also common in parts of Europe where there are many Italian immigrants (such as Germany and Belgium)].

180 — Currently (2004) Italian is the fourth most studied language in the world. If you consider the number of people who speak it, is only nineteenth in the world: the first is Chinese, followed by Spanish and English (in fact, the rankings change completely when you consider the number of people who study the various languages versus the number of native speakers). Obviously the most studied language in the world is English, followed by French, then Spanish, Italian and German. Italian therefore is fourth: it exceeds languages such as German (albeit by a small margin), Russian, Portuguese, Japanese, Chinese and Arabic. When one considers that the Italians have not done much to sustain their own language, but rather have only complained about its supposed uselessness and have tried to contrast it with the dialects in a senseless and harmful clash… this is an exceptional result.

We must also remember that Latin (the ancient language of Italy and of the various Roman empires, used in Europe up until 1600-1700) is still widely studied around the world. England’s constitution is called the “Magna Charta Libertatum” and its original text was in Latin. On the American dollar bill there are phrases in Latin, including including that is on the “Great Seal” of the United States of America: “E pluribus unum”, which means: “Out of many, one” (i.e. from many American States, emerges one single Nation). In Germany, Great Britain, the United States of America and all the English-speaking countries a doctoral degree is called a Ph.D., also known as a Philosophiae Doctor (which is Latin for Doctor of Philosophy, understood in its original meaning, very broad, a doctor of wisdom and general knowledge, comprising the various sciences such as physics, chemistry, mathematics, etc). Shortly before the 1800’s the Germans still wrote their thesis in Latin (See, for example, Hegel’s thesis “On the Orbits of the Planets”, whose original title is “Dissertatio de orbitis planetarum”). Latin words are still found in the scientific field today (for example in the natural sciences and astronomy) and obviously in the legal, literary and theological fields: in fact, Latin is still the official language of the Catholic Church. Latin, therefore, is not really a dead language, although in recent decades it has become customary to say that it is.

Chapter 6 — Expansion on the Arguments Summarized in Chapter 3 and Small Literary Anthology Concerning the Name ‘Italy’

181 — “The Aeneid”, written about 22 BC by Virgil (Mantua, 70-19 BC).

Italy is mentioned countless times in the poem, from the very first verse of the first book. In Book III Italy is described as the destination of Aeneas: “There is a placed named Hesperia… now called Italy, from the leader’s name. To that sweet land was our destiny.” According to legend, the Romans descended from the lineage of Anchises and Aeneas. Here is a brief excerpt from the final part of the third book, when Aeneas and his men see Calabria from their ships: for them this is the first vision of Italy (shortly after, they also see Sicily, dominated by Mount Etna):

“When he sees that all is calm in a cloudless sky, he gives a loud signal from the stern; we break up camp, venture on our way, and spread the wings of our sails. And now the stars were put to rout and Dawn was blushing, when far off we see dim hills and low-lying Italy. ‘Italy!’ cries Achates the foremost; ‘Italy!’ my comrades hail with joyful cry.”

182 — “Natural History”, written in 77 AD by Pliny the Elder (Como, 23-79 AD). Pliny was a victim of the famous eruption of Vesuvius. In Book III Pliny describes Italy and its regions. Particularly in verse 38 says:

“The first people of Italy are the Ligurians, after whom comes Etruria, Umbria and Latium, where there is Rome, the capital of the world… Afterwards comes Campania, then Picenum, Lucania and Bruttium [modern Calabria]. The southernmost point of Italy juts out into the sea from the almost crescent-shaped chain of the Alps.”

In verse 138 (near the end of the book) Pliny concludes: “This is Italy, sacred to the gods” (“Haec est Italia diis sacra”).

183 — Already in 1294 Dante Alighieri (Florence, 1265-1321) expressed the need for enlightened leadership in Italy in his “Convivio”, written in the vernacular several years before the Divine Comedy: “How the horse behaves in the pasture when it is without its rider is clear enough, especially in miserable Italy which is left without any government to care for it!” (IV, IX, 10)

Dante repeated and expanded this concept in the “Divine Comedy” (written between 1304 and 1320), especially in the sixth canto of the Purgatorio. Italy is named many times, beginning with the first Canto of the Inferno (I, 106), and even its borders are recorded (IX, 114), after having been been extensively and clearly set out in “De Vulgari Eloquentia” (point 157).

We can see Dante’s lamenting of Italy in the sixth Canto of the Purgatorio, which resumes (and inverts) the historical definition of Justinian (see point 109): “Italy is not a province, but the mistress of provinces” (the original term in Latin is “Domina”, which means “Dominator”, “Master”, “Mistress” or “Lord”):

“O enslaved Italy, a hostel of grief,
a ship without a master in a great storm;
no longer a mistress of provinces but a brothel!”

184 — Francesco Petrarca (Arezzo, 1304-1374), known in English as Petrarch, in the sonnet “O d’ardente vertute ornata e calda” (CXLVI of the “Canzoniere”, about 1340), wrote: “Italy is the beautiful country that the Apennines divide, and the Alps and the sea surround.”

Petrarch also devoted a long canto to Italy in poem CXXVIII of the “Canzoniere” (known as “Italia mia” or “All’Italia”, 1343):

“My Italy, though words cannot heal
the mortal wounds
so dense, I see on your lovely flesh,
at least I pray that my sighs might bring
some hope to the Tiber and the Arno,
and the Po, that sees me now sad and grave.
Ruler of Heaven, I hope
that the pity that brought You to earth,
will turn you towards your soul-delighting land. …

Nature provided well for our defence,
setting the Alps as a shield
between us and the German madness: …

Ancient courage is not yet dead in Italian hearts.”

There is also a short prose by Petrarch, “Salve chara Deo tellus”, written in 1353, observing Italy from the town of Monginevro, in the Cottian Alps. In these lines he celebrates the greatness of Italy, which he calls the “Bel Paese” (“Beautiful country”):

“O our Italy! Hail, most sacred land, beloved of God, safe for the good and terror for the proud, the most noble and most fertile land, more beautiful than any other country, surrounded by two oceans and crowned by the Alps; venerable home of laws and military might, land of Muses, rich in men and gold, I salute you! Both art and nature poured out their favours and made you the master of the world. … Gladly I recognize and salute my Fatherland. Hail, O beautiful mother, O glory of the world, hail!”

185 — Galeazzo di Tarsia (Naples, 1520-1553) wrote this sonnet around 1540:

“Already over the icy and hoary Alps… I feel my Italy… closed valleys, high hills and grate shadows…«

(From “Già corsi l’Alpi”, also called “All’Italia”, c. 1540)

186 — The article “La patria degli italiani” (“The Fatherland of the Italians”) was published anonymously in 1765 in the journal Il Caffé, directed by the Enlightenment philosopher and economist Pietro Verri. The article, written by Gian Rinaldo Carli (Capodistria, 1720-1795), is a short story and takes place in a cafe in Milan:

“The other day, an Unknown man…entered this coffee-house, and, after having done what politeness requires, sat down and ordered a coffee. Unfortunately, there happened to be next to him a certain Alcibiades… He stares at the Unknown with a smug smile of superiority and then inquires if he is a foreigner. The Unknown sizes him up from head to toe in a flash and with gracious ease answers, «No, not at all.” “Are you then Milanese?” pursued the other. “No sir, I am not Milanese,” he added. At this response, Alcibiades expresses surprise, and with good reason, for everyone else was startled by the turn of the dialogue.

«I am Italian,” answered the Unknown, «and an Italian in Italy is never a foreigner, just as a Frenchman is not a foreigner in France, nor an Englishman in England, a Dutchman in Holland, and so on.” The Milanese man tried in vain to sustain his position, by pointing out the universal custom in Italy of labeling foreigner anyone not born and not residing within the walls of a particular city; but the Unknown interrupted him and added openly: “Among other prejudices in Italy, there is also this one… This may be called an irrational characteristic that renders them inhospitable and inimical to their own kind, and as a consequence, causes the stagnation of art and science and places great obstacles in the achievement of national glory, which is ill served when the nation is divided into many factions and schisms. It is no great honor to the Italian ethos that, at all times, one encounters persons convinced of being, by nature and nationality, different from their neighbors, and who call one another foreigners, as if there were as many foreigners in Italy as there are Italians.” … The people in the coffee-house, overhearing this conversation, recognized the Unknown as an educated man of good sense, and a good patriot. … They recognized that an unreasonable prejudice had caused them to believe that an Italian from another city is not a co-citizen with other Italians…
”

It was then that the Unknown slightly rejoiced and proceeded to speak thus: «Ever since the Romans, for the sake of the Republic, dedicated their interest to conserving the whole of Italy, step by step all Italians were admitted to the administration of the Republic: from the Var to the Arsia all the people became Romans. All Italians, therefore, were partakers of the honors of Rome… If the nations were to argue among themselves who ranked the highest in nobility, we Italians certainly can not be matched by any other nation of Europe; … Italy was called “rerum domina” [“Mistress of all things”], a title which previously was reserved only for Rome.”

“In those times are we to believe that… an Italian was a foreigner in Italy? Certainly not; on the contrary, it was a supreme dignity shared by all parts of Italy. Thus we are all similar in origin… But the barbarians, taking advantage of our moment of weakness, imposed upon us the yoke of servitude… The wars that arose between the Goths and the Greeks led to the total defeat of the former, and the invasion of the Longobards caused Italy to become divided into two parts: Romagna, the Kingdom of Naples and Istria were under the Greeks; and the rest was under the Longobards. This division did not alter the condition of the Italians, except in so far that those who remained under Greeks went on to participate in the honors of the Byzantine Empire moved to Constantinople, the memories of which are preserved in documents from Romagna, Istria and Naples… Following the renewal of the Empire by Charlemagne, we were again gathered in a unified system. This was the state of Italy for eleven centuries; and this somehow is not sufficient to persuade the Italians that we are all similar to each other, and that we are all Italians…”

Having said all this, the Unknown suddenly rose, greeted everyone graciously and then departed, leaving all with a burning desire to hear him at length and enjoy the truth of his sentiments.”

[…]

191 — Vincenzo Monti (Alfonsine, 1754-1828) in 1801 wrote the poem “Per la liberazione d’Italia” (“For the Liberation of Italy”): “Beautiful Italy, beloved shores, again at last I behold you! My heart throbs in my chest, and my soul is overwhelmed with joy.”

192 — The great poet Giacomo Leopardi (Recanati, 1798-1837) wrote several works about Italy and the Italians. We have already presented a passage above (point 9). Now let’s look at his other writings. A little-known work is “Oration to the Italians” from 1815. Others are the following:

“My fatherland is Italy; for her I burn with love, and thank heaven for having made me Italian.”

(From “First Confessions”, from the “Epistolario”, 1817)

“Having so far forced myself to repress the movements of my soul, I cannot restrain them any longer, nor can I refrain from addressing you, o Young Italians, and from praying that for the sake of life and of your hopes you be moved to pity for this motherland of ours, which, suffering disaster such as could barely be read of any other nation, cannot hope nor wishes for any help other than yours. I am dying of shame and sorrow and indignation in thinking how she, unfortunate in the extreme, does not receive a single drop of sweat from the living, whereas the ancients happily and willingly gave her streams of blood, when she was much less needful of it… Please assist, o Young Italians, your Fatherland, give your helping hand to this grieving and fallen one, whose misfortunes are more than enough to move even her enemies to pity, and not only her sons. She was the master of the world, formidable on earth and sea, judge of peoples and arbitrator of war and peace, she was magnificent rich praised worshiped adored; she did not know any people that would not obey her…All is lost: to our Fatherland, infirm, exhausted, overcome, beaten, ragged, and eventually defeated and subdued, once she has lost the command over the world and over herself… nothing remains other than primacy in literature and in the fine arts, because of which she is great and a queen in her misery just as she was great in times of prosperity. … I pray and implore you, o Young Italians, I throw myself to the ground before you; for the sake of memory and of the only and eternal fame of the past, and for the heartrending appearance of the present, impede this bitter event, support the last glory of our most unhappy homeland. Do not permit, for God’s sake, that she whom others wounded, and who agonizes for the guilt of others, should die in your own guilty hands.”

(From “Discourse of an Italian on Romantic Poetry”, 1818)

193 — Let’s also look at these passages from two famous poems by Giacomo Leopardi:

“O, my fatherland, I see the walls, the arches, the columns, the images, and the lonely towers of our ancestors, but I see not their glory, I see not the laurel and the steel that our ancient fathers bore. … For both her arms are loaded down with chains, so that unveiled and with disheveled hair, she crouches all forgotten and forlorn, hiding her beautiful face between her knees, and weeps. Weep, weep, my Italy. … To arms, to arms: I’ll fight alone, and fall face forward, I alone. And may my blood, O heaven, become a fire to inspire the Italic people.”

(From “To Italy”, 1818)

“O, lay it to thy heart, my Italy,
Bring honor to thy dead to pay;
For their like walk not thy streets today.
Nor is there one whom thou canst reverence!
Turn, turn, my Fatherland, and behold
That noble band of heroes old…

And every breast with kindred zeal hath fired,
That is by love of Italy inspired.
May love of Italy inspire you still,
Poor mother, sad and lone…

O glorious spirit,
Tell me, does no one love thy Italy?
Is the flame that kindled thee extinct?”

(From “On the Monument to Dante Being Prepared in Florence”, 1818)

194 — Alessandro Manzoni (Milan, 1785-1873), in 1821 wrote the ode “Marzo 1821”:

“Never again shall these waters run between foreign banks, never shall barriers rise between Italy and Italy, never again! … A nation that shall be one, enslaved or free, between the Alps and the sea: one in its arms, its speech, its tongue, its altars, its memories, its blood and its heart. … O foreigners, now Italy returns to her own heritage, reclaims her soil; O foreigners, asunder strike your tents from a land which is not mother to you. … If the land on which you moaned oppressed pushes the bodies of your oppressors, who told you that sterile, eternal will the mourning of the Italian people be? Who told you that God, that God who heard you, will be deaf to our moaning?”

195 — The Hymn of Mameli or “Fratelli d’Italia”, also known as the “Canto degli Italiani”, was written in 1847 by the patriot Goffredo Mameli (Genoa, 1827-1849), who died at just 22 years old. The hymn was set to music by Michele Novaro, who was also from Genoa. Already in 1862 the great composer Giuseppe Verdi regarded it as the national anthem, but it did not officially become so until 1946. For a brief period in 1946, the national anthem was “The Legend of the Piave” (also known as “24 May”, “Song of the Piave” or “The Piave Whispered”) by Giovanni Gaeta, known by his pseudonym E. A. Mario. From 1861 to 1946, the national anthem was the “Marcia Reale”, whose text named Italy although it was already written in 1847 for the Piedmontese King.

Some interesting facts: the Hymn of Mameli is still the national anthem of the Italian Republic. The lyrics original version did not begin with “Brothers of Italy” but with “Long live Italy”.

English translation:

“Brothers of Italy, Italy has woken,
Scipio’s helmet bound upon her head.
Where is Victory? Let her bow down,
For God created her a slave of Rome.

Let us join in a cohort! We are ready to die; Italy has called.

We were for centuries downtrodden, derided,
because we are not one people, because we are divided.
Let one flag, one hope, gather us all.
The hour has struck for us to unite.

Let us join in a cohort! We are ready to die; Italy has called.

Let us unite, let us love one another; for union and love.
Reveal to the people the ways of the Lord.
Let us swear to set free the land of our birth:
United, for God, who can overcome us?

Let us join in a cohort! We are ready to die; Italy has called.

From the Alps to Sicily, Legnano is everywhere;
Every man has the heart and hand of Ferruccio;
The children of Italy are all called Balilla;
Every trumpet blast sounds the Vespers.”

196 — Giuseppe Mazzini (Genoa, 1805-1872) in 1859 wrote “La Patria” (from “I Pensieri”):

“The Fatherland is your collective life… The Fatherland is before all else the consciousness of the nation. … God, having created it, smiled upon it, and assigned to it the two most sublime borders in all of Europe: the Alps and the sea, symbols of eternal strength and eternal motion. From the immense circle of the Alps, similar to the vertebral column that constitutes the unity of the human form… the sea which our ancestors called Mare Nostrum—Our Sea. And just as gems fall from a diadem, so scattered around our sea we find Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily, and other smaller islands where the nature of the soil, the backbone of the mountains, the language and the heartbeat of their souls all utter the name of Italy.”

[…]

198 — The book “Heart”, written in 1886 by Edmondo De Amicis (Oneglia, 1846-1908), was an enormous success and for decades was a fundamental text for the education of children, on part with the story of Pinocchio. In fact, it was considered even more mature and advanced than Pinocchio, and was popular until the 1950’s. However, since the 1960’s the book has been subjected to criticism and ridicule. Here is an excerpt from the book:

“Beautiful Italy, great and glorious for many centuries, united and free for the past few years; who has scattered so great a light of intellect divine over the world, and for whom so many valiant men have died on the battle-field, and so many heroes on the gallows; august mother of three hundred cites, and thirty millions of sons; I, a child…venerate and love you with all my soul, and am proud of having been born of you, and of calling myself your son. I love your splendid seas and sublime mountains; I love your solemn monuments and immortal memories; I love your glory and beauty; I love and venerate the whole of you… Turin the valiant, Genoa the superb, Bologna the learned, Venice the enchanting, Milan the mighty; I love with the reverence of a son, gentle Florence and terrible Palermo, immense and beautiful Naples, marvellous and eternal Rome. I love you, my sacred country!”

Note: why is Palermo described as “terrible”? Probably due to the furor demonstrated during the episode of the Sicilian Vespers, which took place in 1282, when the people of Palermo started an uprising that led to the expulsion of the French invaders from the island. The Sicilian Vespers is remembered in the hymn of Mameli (see point 195) and Giuseppe Verdi even dedicated an opera to it in 1855, during the heart of the Risorgimento. A film was also made about the event in 1986. One final curiosity: the Sicilians were able to recognize the French by the fact that the French pronunciation of the word “ciciri” (“chickpeas”) was totally different from that of the Sicilians.

199 — Here is another excerpt from the book “Heart” by De Amicis.

“You will feel it when you become a man; when, returning from a long journey, after a prolonged absence, you step up in the morning to the bulwarks of the vessel and see on the distant horizon the lofty blue mountains of your country; you will feel it then in the impetuous flood of tenderness which will fill your eyes with tears and will wrest a cry from your heart. You will feel it in some great and distant city, in that impulse of the soul which will draw you from the strange throng towards a working man from whom you have heard in passing a word in your own tongue. You will feel it in that sad, haughty anger which will drive the blood to your brow when you hear insults to your country from the mouth of a stranger.”

This latter concept is connected to a story expressed in another tale from the same book: “The Little Patriot of Padua”, about a poor child who refused money from some foreigners who spoke ill of Italy. Other famous patriotic tales contained in the book are “The Little Vidette of Lombardy” and “The Sardinian Drummer-Boy”.

200 — The “Flight over Vienna”.

In this booklet we wanted to say very little about the Risorgimento. To compensate, allow me to give a brief account of the “Flight over Vienna”, an act of incredible bravery accomplished by the poet Gabriele d’Annunzio (Pescara, 1863-1938) and seven other aviators during the First World War. On August 9, 1918, while the war was in full swing, the eight Italians flew over Austria, defying enemy fire, simply to drop 400,000 leaflets over Vienna! Most of them (350,000) bore the Italian flag with the following message, translated into German:

“Viennese! Learn to know the Italians. We are flying over Vienna; we could drop tons of bombs. All we are dropping on you is a greeting of three colors: the three colors of liberty. We Italians do not make war on children, on old people, on women. We are making war on your government, the enemy of national liberties, on your blind, stubborn, cruel government that can give you neither peace nor bread, and feeds you hatred and illusions.

Viennese! You are famous for being intelligent. But why have you put on the Prussian uniform? By now, you see, the whole world has turned against you. You want to continue the war? Continue it; it’s your suicide. What do you hope for? The decisive victory promised to you by the Prussian generals? Their decisive victory is like the bread of Ukraine: You die waiting for it.

People of Vienna, think of your own fates. Wake up!

Long live liberty! Long live Italy! Long live the Entente!”

Another set of 50,000 leaflets, written in Italian, were also dropped over Vienna. Here is the text:

“On this August morning…suddenly there appears the three-color wing as an indication of the destiny that is turning. Destiny turns. It turns towards us with an iron certainty. … Your hour is passed. As our faith was the strongest, behold how our will prevails and will prevail until the end. … We didn’t come except for the joy of the daring, we didn’t come except to prove what we could venture and do whenever we want, in an hour of our choice. … Long live Italy!”

This venture was given ample coverage by newspapers around the world. Here are the names of the other seven pilots: Natale Palli, Antonio Locatelli, Piero Massoni, Aldo Finzi, Ludovico Censi, Giordano Granzarolo, Gino Allegri. Four other aircraft also departed: that of Giuseppe Sarti was forced to land in enemy territory; those of Ferrarin, Masprone and Contratti had to immediately land. Other famous enterprises carried out by D’Annunzio are the “Buccari Mockery” and the “Exploit of Fiume”.

Conclusions

Today many Italians have no consciousness of their national identity. Perhaps this collection of historical information can contribute to the reconstruction of this awareness and a sense of belonging to a nation that, for better or for worse, has over two millennia of history and has played a key role in the history of the world.

I do not see why we should deny or forget that Italy is one of the nations with major personality in the world and possess specific characteristics (some for better, some for worse) that distinguishes it from the other nations.

Today many falsely say that Italy is a “false” or “forced” nation “invented in 1861”. Yet the large number of historical facts presented above demonstrates that Italy has been talked about and recognized for at least 25 centuries and can be considered a nation for at least 21 or 22 centuries (i.e. since the first or second century BC). Italy is one of the very few nations in the world that has its roots in ancient times (rather than in the Middle Ages).

Some, however, deny this last observation and claim that the concept of nationality did not exist in ancient times nor in the Middle Ages, but was only born between 1800-1850. But if that were true, then the accusation that Italy was not a nation before the Risorgimento would be automatically proven false, since according to them the concept of nationality itself did not exist!

In reality the word “nation” was already being used well before the 1800’s: it was used in the letter written in 1592 by Campanella to Galileo (see point 20); Vico in 1725 wrote “Principles of the New Science Concerning the Common Nature of Nations”; Carli in 1725 spoke of “national glory” (see point 186). Outside of Italy, in 1776 the economist Adam Smith wrote “The Wealth of Nations” and the philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte in 1807 pronounced his “Addresses to the German Nation” (well before Germany was politically united, see point 148).

Today we also hear that the Italian language began to spread only in 1954, thanks to television! They say that before 1954 Italian was primarily a written language and only later became a spoken language. But these are superficial claims based on an obvious misunderstanding: illiteracy and ignorance were widespread and therefore a capillary diffusion of the Italian language was lacking among the lowest classes (who still spoke local dialects closely related to Italian).

This is a social problem that has always been recognized (for example, it was acknowledged by Leopardi). But to say that the Italian language was not spoken before 1954 is totally unjustified and nonsensical. It this were true, then what language was Mussolini speaking in his speeches of the 1920’s and 1930’s? Norwegian!? And what language did they speak in the Italian films of the 1930’s? Japanese? And if no one understood Italian, then why did people go to the movies?

If one listens to historic recordings from the last century, for example the short speech by the musician Puccini in New York in 1907, or the one by General Cadorna in 1917, it is clear that they were speaking Italian and that people were listening to them as well.

Let’s review the historical facts. Standard Italian remained primarily a literary language between 1300 and 1500: oral communication was almost always in dialect or in Latin, which was used in cultural and scientific fields. In the 1500’s Italian definitively replaced Latin in the academic field: for example, Giordano Bruno already wrote several works in Italian, as well as in Latin (see point 49). Around the 1600’s Galileo wrote works in Italian which laid the foundation of modern science. In the 1700’s Italian was spoken by all the noble families and middle class of the Italian peninsula. In 1861, when Italy was united, about 78% of the population was illiterate; the remaining 22% could read and write, which therefore indicates that at least 22% of the people understood and used the Italian language. In the twentieth century, public school contributed to the literacy of all Italians, so that illiteracy rates were reduced to negligible levels. Obviously radio and television have contributed much to the diffusion of proper Standard Italian among the lower classes, but this does not mean that the Italian language did not exist or that it was not already spoken for centuries.

Some people object: “In fact, the Italian language was known and used only by a small elite of intellectuals: in fact 78% of the population in 1861 did not know Italian, and they were an overwhelming majority! That means that millions of people from different regions expressed themselves in different dialects! Only 22% of the population was literate, i.e. able to read and write, and obviously this 22% also included people of lower culture and poor command of the Italian language. Therefore the concept of “being Italian” could only be valid for perhaps 10% of the population, i.e. for a very small minority!”

Response: I do not understand the purpose of the objection and it seems to me like we are more or less saying the same thing. Illiteracy and ignorance were widespread in Italy, but so what? The existence of these problems were well known and recognized, but I do not see how that can alter or deny the existence of Italian nationality, which was felt for centuries by those classes who were fortunate enough to have a higher culture, a better education and thus were able to live on a level much broader than the municipal or regional level.

To put it simply, those who were educated were certainly Italian. And those who were illiterate or ignorant? They were like people in a dark room: they could not know whether they were in a dark room or in a cave or somewhere else, let alone find their way. But those who could light a match and make a bit of light, they were able to recognize that the room they were in was Italy and they clearly understood its boundaries and what it meant. Garibaldi’s Thousand were all from the middle level of society; they were all educated and aware of what Italy was.

You can not say, however, that ignorant people belonged to another nationality: at most, perhaps we could say that they had no nationality; they were forced to live in socio-economic and cultural levels that were so low and limiting that you would have to say they were below the concept of nationality (and even below the concept of language, understood as a written language of a particular richness and completeness). Unfortunately it is true that ignorance plagued the lowest classes and hindered them at all levels, but this consideration seems off-topic, since this is not an issue of nationality, but a social problem.

However, some people, even after these clarifications, still continue to repeat the typical arguments: that “true nationalities” are regional ones. In other words, they claim that our ancestors were not Italians, but were simply Milanese, Roman, Neapolitan, Venetian, Sicilian and so on. Well, let’s respond to this one last time.

1) Let’s assume for the sake of argument that our ancestors were Milanese or Roman or Neapolitan (instead of Italian). Well, that does not change and does not solve the basic problem, namely that they were illiterate! Moreover the Milanese and Neapolitan dialects did not have a complete and codified form, so these “regional nationalities” could only further contribute to illiteracy, rather than eliminate it. I do not see the usefulness and meaning of these references to “regional nationalities”.

2) We must remember that 78% is not 100%: therefore there were also fortunate people, cultured people, who knew and understood Italian. The fact that they were a lucky minority and fewer in number, i.e. 22% (or even if you want to claim only 10%), does not change anything, because the rest of the people did not understand any language. The educated few, however, were still co-citizens of the illiterate majority and therefore functioned as “links” who bound and united the entire Italian population. To give a practical example, let’s consider Manzoni in Milan or Puoti in Naples. Manzoni undoubtedly was a fellow citizen of the illiterate Milanese, and Puoti was a co-citizen of the illiterate Neapolitans. However, Manzoni and Puoti both spoke and wrote in Italian and considered themselves Italians by nationality. This clearly represents an incontestable unifying element that dismantles the above objection.

But then people will cite the phrase of Massimo D’Azeglio: “Italy is made, now we must make the Italians.”

The meaning of this statement is obvious and related to what has already been said: according to D’Azeglio it was necessary to bring awareness to all Italians, of all social classes, to give them the knowledge that the more fortunate people already possessed for centuries. It is clear that this is what D’Azeglio meant, and it is puzzling how anyone could misconstrue this statement. Yet, some people still insist that D’Azeglio meant that Italians did not exist at all! D’Azeglio’s statement is so misunderstood and touted as “proof” that there was no Italian people, and that an Italian nation needed to be artificially created. In short, they claim that Italy was not a nation, but merely an invented arbitrary concept. But this interpretation does not hold water and is contradicted by numerous historical facts reported in the previous chapters.

In the course of the centuries many people recognized the existence of Italy and the Italians. We will cite only the most famous, from ancient times up to 1840 (well before Italian Unification) and we will even exclude “doubtful” cases (for example, it is safe to assume that Galileo, Michelangelo and Da Vinci were conscious of being Italian, but they did not explicitly say so in their writings, so we will exclude them to appease the objectors). From most recent to earliest: Manzoni, Liszt, Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Schopenhauer, Emerson, Stendhal, Leopardi, Rossini, Hegel, Murat, Napoleon, Mozart, Foscolo, Alfieri, Goethe, Goldoni, Montesquieu, Vico, Campanella, Guicciardini, Charles V, Fieramosca, Machiavelli, Boiardo, Sannazzaro, Boccaccio, Petrarch, Dante, Frederick II of Swabia, Frederick Barbarossa, Cimabue, Otto II of Saxony, Otto I, Charlemagne, Justinian, Theodoric, Odoacer, Diocletian, Pliny the Younger, Pliny the Elder, Caesar Augustus, Strabo, Virgil, Cicero, Julius Caesar, Sulla, Cato the Elder, Pythagoras… Is it possible that all these people were wrong? All of them!? If they were all idiots, then D’Azeglio must have been schizophrenic, because on the one hand — according to objectors — he believed that Italians did not exist yet (i.e. they must be “made”), but on the other hand he wrote (and depicted in a panting) “The Challenge of Barletta”, specifically describing the Italian nationality of Ettore Fieramosca and Fanfulla da Lodi and distinguishing them from the French and Spanish knights. In reality D’Azeglio was able to distinguish an Italian from a Spaniard, so how could he believe that Italians did not exist?

In reality, those dishonest people who wish to deny that Italy has a solid two thousand year tradition, can only cling to very few footholds, so few that we can summarize them quickly: the most popular is the phrase of Metternich, “Italy is a geographical expression” (see point 143); then there is the famously misunderstood phrase of D’Azeglio, “Italy is made, now we must make the Italians”; then they reference the failure of Murat, Pisacane some other unfortunate episodes of the Risorgimento (which is easily explained by the ignorance of the lower classes); then they cite brigandage in parts of the South , as if it were a reaction against Italian Unification (in reality this phenomenon already existed a century earlier); and finally, they are convinced that Garibaldi’s Thousand were all northerners (which is not true, see point 146). In brief, they cling to just a few facts, some of which are false, while others are unessential and irrelevant, and they are all insignificant when placed in the general picture of historical events.

Ultimately, these kinds of arguments will never seriously negate the consistency of the ancient tradition of Italy, which is confirmed by an impressive body of historical facts. Those who insist on denying this, only put their ignorance or their obtuseness on display for all to see.

Repubblica Italiana Italian Republic
Anthem: Il Canto degli Italiani  The Song of the Italians
Capital (and largest city)	Rome 41°54′N 12°29′E
Official languages	Italian1[1]
Demonym	Italian
Government	Unitary parliamentary republic
—	President	Sergio Mattarella
—	Prime Minister	Mario Draghi
Legislature	Parliament
—	Upper House	Senate of the Republic
—	Lower House	Chamber of Deputies
Formation
—	Unification	March 17, 1861
—	Republic	June 2, 1946
EU accession	March 25, 1957 (founding member)
Area
—	Total	301,338 km² (71st) 116,346 sq mi
—	Water (%)	2.4
Population
—	2021 estimate	62,390,364 [2] (23rd)
—	2011 census	59,433,744[3]
—	Density	201.7/km² (63rd) 521.2/sq mi
GDP (PPP)	2021 estimate
—	Total	$2,598.14 trillion[4] (12th)
—	Per capita	$43,139.24[4] (33rd)
GDP (nominal)	2021 estimate
—	Total	$2,111.65 trillion[4] (8th)
—	Per capita	$35,061.62[4] (25th)
Gini (2019)	32.8 [5]
Currency	Euro (€)2 (EUR)
Time zone	CET (UTC+1)
—	Summer (DST)	CEST (UTC+2)
Internet TLD	.it3
Calling code	[[+394]]
1	French is co-official in the Aosta Valley; Slovene is co-official in the province of Trieste and the province of Gorizia; German and Ladin are co-official in the province of South Tyrol.
2	Before 2002, the Italian Lira. The euro is accepted in Campione d’Italia, but the official currency there is the Swiss Franc.[6]
3	The .eu domain is also used, as it is shared with other European Union member states.
4	To call Campione d’Italia, it is necessary to use the Swiss code +41.

Italy (Italia), officially the Italian Republic, is a Southern European country with a population of approximately 60 million. It comprises the Po River valley, the Italian Peninsula and the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Called «il Belpaese» (beautiful country) by its inhabitants due to the variety of its landscapes and for having the world’s largest artistic patrimony; Italy is home to the greatest number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites of any nation in the world.

The Italian Republic shares its northern alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia. The country also shares a sea border with Croatia, Slovenia and France. The independent countries of San Marino and the Vatican City are enclaves within Italian territory. Also belonging to the republic is the commune of Campione d’Italia, an enclave in the territory of the Italian Switzerland. The Republic includes only the 92 percent of Italian physical region, delimited conventionally by the alpine watershed; besides the above-mentioned enclaves, the following territories do not belong to the country: the Principality of Monaco, Nice with Briga and Tenda, some strips of the Alps near the French border (Monginevro, Moncenisio and Piccolo San Bernardo), the Italian Switzerland (Canton Ticino and some valleys of Grigioni), the peninsula of Istria and a piece of Venezia Giulia, the island of Corsica and the archipelago of Malta.

Today, Italy is a highly developed country, a member of the G8 and a founding member of what is now the European Union, having signed the Treaty of Rome in 1957.

Italy was home to many well-known and influential European civilizations, including the Etruscans, Greeks and the Romans. For more than 3,000 years Italy experienced migrations and invasions from Germanic, Celtic, Frankish, Lombard, Byzantine Greek, Saracen, Norman, and Angevin peoples, and was divided into many independent states until 1861 when it became a nation-state.

Both the internal and external facets of Western Civilization were born on the Italian peninsula, whether one looks at the history of the Christian faith, philosophy, art, science or social customs and culture.

Geography

Italy consists predominantly of a large peninsula (the Italian Peninsula) with a distinctive boot shape that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, where together with its two main islands Sicily and Sardinia it creates distinct bodies of water, such as the Adriatic Sea to the north-east, the Ionian Sea to the south-east, the Tyrrhenian Sea to the south-west and finally the Ligurian Sea to the north-west.

The Apennine mountains form the backbone of this peninsula, leading north-west to where they join the Alps, the mountain range that then forms an arc enclosing Italy from the north. A large alluvial plain called the Po-Venetian plain is drained by the Po River—which is Italy’s biggest river with 652 km—and its many tributaries flowing down from the Alps.

Major rivers include the Tiber (Tevere) (405 km), Adige (410 km), Arno (241 km), Piave (220 km), Reno (212 km), Volturno (175 km), Tagliamento (170 km), Liri-Garigliano (158 km), Isonzo (136 km).

Its highest point is Mont Blanc (Monte Bianco) at 4,810 metres (15,781 feet). Italy is more typically associated with two famous volcanoes: the currently dormant Vesuvius near Naples and the very active Etna on Sicily.

The city of Venice, often called «the city of water,» stretches across numerous small islands in the marshy Venetian Lagoon along the Adriatic Sea in the northeast section of the country. The city is world-famous for its canals. It is built on an archipelago of 122 islands formed by about 150 canals in a shallow lagoon. The islands on which the city is built are connected by about 400 bridges. In the old center, the canals serve the function of roads, and every form of transport is on water or on foot. In the 19th century a causeway to the mainland brought a railway station to Venice, and an automobile causeway and parking lot was added in the 20th century. Beyond these land entrances at the northern edge of the city, transportation within the city remains, as it was in centuries past, entirely on water or on foot. Venice is Europe’s largest urban carfree area, unique in Europe in remaining a sizable functioning city in the 21st century entirely without motorcars or trucks.

Climate

The Italian climate is unique in each region. The north of Italy (Turin, Milan, and Bologna) has a true continental climate, while below Florence it becomes more and more Mediterranean.

The climate of the coastal areas of the Peninsula is very different from that of the interior, particularly during the winter months. The higher areas are cold, wet, and often snowy. The coastal regions, where most of the large towns are located, have a typical Mediterranean climate with mild winters and hot and generally dry summers. The length and intensity of the summer dry season increases southwards (compare the tables for Rome, Naples, and Brindisi).

Italy is subject to highly diverse weather conditions in autumn, winter, and spring, while summer is usually more stable.

The least number of rainy days and the highest number of hours of sunshine occur in the extreme south of the mainland and in Sicily and Sardinia. Here sunshine averages from four to five hours a day in winter and up to ten or eleven hours in summer.

In the north the precipitation is quite well distributed during the year. Between November and March the Po valley is often covered by fog, above all the central zone (Pavia, Cremona, and Mantua). Snow is quite common between early December and mid-February in cities like Turin, Milan and Bologna.

History

The word Italy derives from the Homeric (Aeolic) word ιταλός, which means bull. Excavations throughout Italy have found proof of people in Italy dating back to the Paleolithic period (the «Old Stone Age») some 200,000 years ago. The first Greek settlers, who arrived in Italy from Euboea island in the eighth century B.C.E., were possibly the first to use the reference land of bulls.

Italy has influenced the cultural and social development of the whole Mediterranean area, deeply influencing European culture as well. As a result it has also influenced other important cultures. Such cultures and civilizations have existed there since prehistoric times. After Magna Graecia, the Etruscan civilization and especially the Roman Republic and Empire that dominated this part of the world for many centuries, Italy was central to European science and art during the Renaissance.

Serving as the center of the Roman civilization for centuries, Italy lost its unity after the collapse of the Roman Empire and subsequent barbaric invasions. Briefly reunited under Byzantium (552), Italy was occupied by the Longobards in 568, resulting in the peninsula becoming seriously divided. For centuries the country was the prey of different populations, resulting in its ultimate decline. Most of the population fled from cities to take refuge in the countryside under the protection of powerful feudal lords. After the Longobards came the Franks (774). Italy became part of the Holy Roman Empire, later to become the Holy Roman Germanic Empire. Pippin the Short created the first nucleus of the State of the Vatican, which later became a strong countervailing force against any unification of the country.

Population and economy started to pick up slowly after 1000, with the resurgence of cities, trade, arts and literature. During the later Middle Ages the fragmentation of the peninsula, especially in the northern and central parts of the country, continued, while the southern part, with Naples, Apulia and Sicily, remained a single dominion. Venice created a powerful commercial empire in the Eastern part of the Mediterranean Sea and Black Sea.

The Black Death (1348) inflicted a terrible blow to Italy, resulting in one third of the population being killed by the disease. The recovery from this disaster led to a new resurgence of cities, trade and economy which greatly stimulated the successive phase of Humanism and the Renaissance (XV-XVI) when Italy again returned as the center of Western civilization, exerting strong influence on the other European countries.

Domination by other countries

After a century where the fragmented system of Italian states and principalities were able to maintain a relative independence and a balance of power in the peninsula, the French king Charles VIII in 1494 opened the first of a series of invasions, that lasted half of the sixteenth century, and created a competition between France and Spain for the possession of the country. Ultimately Spain prevailed (the Treaty of Cateau-Cambresis in 1559 recognized the Spanish possession of the Kingdom of Naples) and for almost two centuries became the hegemon in Italy. The alliance between reactionary Catholic Spain and the Holy See resulted in the systematic persecution of any Protestant movement, with the result that Italy remained a Catholic country with marginal Protestant presence. The Spanish domination and the control of the Church resulted in intellectual stagnation and economic decadence, also attributable to the shifting of the main commercial routes from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic Ocean.

Austria succeeded Spain as hegemon in Italy after the Peace of Utrecht (1713), having acquired the State of Milan and the Kingdom of Naples. The Austrian domination, thanks also to the Illuminism embraced by Habsburg emperors, was a considerable improvement upon the Spanish one. The northern part of Italy, under the direct control of Vienna recovered its economic dynamism and intellectual fervor.

The French Revolution and the Napoleonic War (1796-1851) introduced the modern ideas of equality, democracy, law and nation. The peninsula was not a main battle field as in the past but Napoleon completely changed its political map by destroying the Republic of Venice in 1799, which never recovered its independence. The states founded by Napoleon, with the support of minority groups of Italian patriots, were short-lived and did not survive the defeat of the French Emperor in 1815.

The Restoration saw all the pre-Revolution states restored with the exception of the Republic of Venice (previously under Austrian control) and the Republic of Genoa (under Savoy domination). Napoleon rule give birth to the first national movement for unity and independence. Albeit formed by small groups with almost no contact with the masses, the Italian patriots and liberals staged several uprisings in the decades up to 1860. Giuseppe Mazzini and Giuseppe Garibaldi created the most economic reform for the impoverished masses. From 1848 onwards the Italian patriots were openly supported by Vittorio Emanuele II, the king of Sardinia, who put his arms in the Italian tricolor dedicating the House of Savoy to Italian unity.

Unification

The unification of Italy was declared on March 17, 1861, after a successful war (the Second War of Independence) against Austria with the support of France, and after Giuseppe Garibaldi organized an invasion of the Kingdom of Two Sicilies (Naples and Sicily) in 1860. Vittorio Emanuele II became the first king of the united Italy.

The national territory was enlarged to Veneto and Venice in 1866 after the third War of Independence, fought by allied Italy and Prussia against Austria. Rome itself remained for a little less than a decade under the Papacy thanks to French protection, and became part of the Kingdom of Italy on September 20, 1870, after Italian troops stormed the city.

The first unified state was plagued by a gruesome rebellion of the Southern populations opposed to the new domination, by economic stagnation, misery, illiteracy and a weak national consciousness. Italian was spoken by a small part of the population while the rest spoke local dialects.

In 1878 Umberto I succeeded his father Vittorio Emanuele II as King of Italy. He was killed by an anarchist in 1900 and succeeded by his son Vittorio Emanuele III.

Industrialization and modernization, at least in the northern part of the country, started in the last part of the nineteenth century under a protectionist regime. The south, meanwhile, stagnated under overpopulation and underdevelopment, forcing millions of people to search for employment and better conditions abroad. This lasted until 1970. It is calculated that more than 26 million Italians migrated to France, Germany, Switzerland, United States, Argentina, Brazil, and Australia.

Democracy

Democracy made its first appearance at the beginning of the twentieth century. The 1848 Constitution provided for basic freedoms but the electoral laws excluded the disposed and the uneducated from voting. It wasn’t until 1913 that male universal suffrage was allowed. The Socialist Party became the main political party, replacing the traditional liberal and conservative organizations. The path to a modern liberal democracy was interrupted by the tragedy of the World War I (1914-1918), which Italy fought along with France and Great Britain. Italy was able to beat the Austrian-Hungarian Empire in November 1918. It obtained Trento and Trieste and a few territories on the Dalmatian coast. (Zara) was considered a great power, but the population had to pay a heavy price. The war produced more than 600,000 dead, inflation and unemployment, economic and political instability, which in the end allowed the fascist movement to reach power in 1922 with the tacit support of King Vittorio Emanuele III, who feared civil war and revolution.

Mussolini

The fascist dictatorship of Benito Mussolini lasted from 1922 to 1943 but in the first years Mussolini maintained the appearance of a liberal democracy. After rigged elections in 1924 gave Fascism and its conservative allies an absolute majority in the Parliament, Mussolini canceled all democratic liberties in January 1925. He then proceeded to establish a totalitarian state. Political parties were banned, independent trade unions were closed. The only permitted party was the National Fascist Party. A secret police (OVRA) and a system of quasi-legal repression (Tribunale Speciale) ensured the total control of the regime upon the Italians who, while in the majority, either resigned themselves to or welcomed the dictatorship, many considering it a last resort to stop the spread of communism. While relatively benign in comparison to Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia, several thousand people were incarcerated or exiled for their opposition and many were killed by fascist thugs (Carlo Rosselli) or died in prison (Antonio Gramsci). Mussolini tried to spread his authoritarian ideology to other European countries and dictators such as Salazar in Portugal, General Francisco Franco in Spain and Hitler in Germany. Conservative, democratic leaders in Great Britain and United States were favorable to Mussolini in the early years of his governance.

In 1929 Mussolini formed a pact with the Holy See, resulting in the rebirth of an independent state of the Vatican for the Catholic Church in the heart of Rome. In 1935 he declared war on Ethiopian it was subjugated in few months. This resulted in the alienation of Italy from its traditional allies, France and Great Britain, and its nearing to Nazi Germany. A pact with Germany was concluded in 1936 and then another in 1938 (the Iron Pact). Italy supported Franco’s revolution and Hitler’s advances in central Europe, accepting the annexation of Austria to Germany in 1938, even though the disappearance of a buffer state between mighty Germany and Italy was unfavorable for the country. In October 1938 Mussolini managed to avoid the eruption of another war in Europe, bringing together Great Britain, France and Germany at Czechoslovakia’s expense.

In April 1939 Italy occupied Albania, a de-facto protectorate for decades, but in September 1939, after the invasion of Poland, Mussolini decided not to intervene on Germany’s side, due to the poor preparation of the Italian armed forces. Italy entered the war in June 1940 when France was almost defeated. Mussolini hoped for a quick victory but Italy suffered from the very beginning from the poor training of its army and the lack of experience of its generals. Italy invaded Greece in October 1940 via Albania but after a few days was forced to withdraw. After conquering British Somalia in 1940, a counter-attack by the Allies led to the loss of the whole Italian empire in the Horn of Africa. Italy was also defeated in Northern Africa and saved only by the German armed forces led by Rommel.

After several defeats, Italy was invaded in May 1943. In July 1943, King Vittorio Emanuele III staged a coup d’etat against Mussolini, having him arrested. In September 1943 Italy surrendered. It was immediately invaded by Germany and for nearly two years the country was divided and became a battlefield. The Nazi-occupied part of the country, where a puppet fascist state under Mussolini was reconstituted, was the theater for a savage civil war between freedom fighters («partigiani») and Nazi and fascist troops. The country was liberated by a national uprising on April 25, 1945 (the Liberazione).

Republic

Agitation against the king ran high in the north where leftist and communist armed partisans wanted to depose him. Vittorio Emanuele gave up the throne to his son Umberto II who again faced the possibility of civil war. Italy became a Republic after a popular referendum held on June 2, 1946, a day now celebrated as Republic Day. The republic won with a 9 percent margin; the north of Italy voted prevalently for a republic, the south for the monarchy. The Republican Constitution was approved and went into effect on January 1, 1948. It included a provisional measure banning all male members of the house of Savoy from Italy. This stipulation was redressed in 2002.

Since then Italy has experienced a strong economic growth, particularly in the 1950s and 1960s, which lifted the country to the position of being one of the most industrialized nations in the world, albeit with perennial political instability. The Christian Democratic Party and its liberal and social democratic allies ruled Italy without interruption from 1948 until 1994, marginalizing the main opposition party, the Italian Communist Party, until the end of the cold war.

In 1992-1994 a series of scandals (nicknamed «Tangentopoli») and the ensuing Mani pulite investigation destroyed the post-war political system. New parties and coalitions emerged: on the right, Forza Italia of the media-mogul Silvio Berlusconi became the main successor of the Christian Democrat party. On the left the Democratici di Sinistra (Democrats of the Left) became the moderate successors of the Communist Party, while the most liberal and progressive Catholic politicians became a part of La Margherita (the Daisy). In 1994 Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia and its allies (National Alliance and the Northern League) won the elections but the government collapsed after only a few months because the Northern League split out. A technical government cabinet led by Lamberto Dini, supported by the left-wing parties and the Northern League, lasted until Romano Prodi’s new center-left coalition won the 1996 general election. In 2001 the center-right took the government and Berlusconi was able to remain in power for five years. The 2006 elections returned Prodi with a slim majority.

Italy is a founding member of the European Community, European Union and NATO.

Government and Politics

The 1948 Constitution of Italy established a bicameral parliament (Parlamento), consisting of a Chamber of Deputies (Camera dei Deputati) and a Senate (Senato della Repubblica), a separate judiciary, and an executive branch composed of a Council of Ministers (cabinet) (Consiglio dei ministri), headed by the prime minister (Presidente del consiglio dei ministri).

The President of the Republic (Presidente della Repubblica) is elected for seven years by the parliament sitting jointly with a small number of regional delegates. The president nominates the prime minister, who proposes the other ministers (formally named by the president). The Council of Ministers must retain the support (fiducia) of both houses.

The houses of parliament are popularly and directly elected through a complex electoral system which combines proportional representation with a majority prize for the largest coalition (Chamber). The electoral system in the Senate is based upon regional representation. The Chamber of Deputies has 630 members, the Senate 315 elected senators; in addition, the Senate includes former presidents and other persons (no more than five) appointed senators for life by the President of the Republic according to special constitutional provisions. Both houses are elected for a maximum of five years. If the majority coalition no longer supports the government, the Prime Minister can be ousted with a vote of no confidence, at which point the President can either appoint a new Prime Minister capable of forming a government with the support of Parliament, or dissolve Parliament and call for new elections.

A peculiarity of the Italian Parliament is the representation given to Italians permanently living abroad (more than two million). Among the 630 Deputies and the 315 Senators there are respectively 12 and 6 elected in four distinct foreign constituencies. Those members of Parliament were elected for the first time in April 2006 and they enjoy the same rights as members elected in Italy. In addition, the Italian Senate also has a small number of senators for life, appointed by the President of the Italian Republic «for outstanding patriotic merits in the social, scientific, artistic or literary field.» Former Presidents of the Republic are ex officio life senators.

Legislative bills may originate in either house and must be passed by a majority in both. The Italian judicial system is based on Roman law modified by the Napoleonic code and later statutes. A constitutional court, the Corte Costituzionale, passes on the constitutionality of laws, and is a post-World War II innovation.

All Italian citizens older than 18 can vote. However, to vote for the senate, the voter must be at least 25 or older.

Administrative divisions

Italy is subdivided into 20 regions (regioni, singular regione). Five of these regions enjoy a special autonomous status that enables them to enact legislation on some of their specific local matters, and are marked by an *:

1. Abruzzo (with capital L’Aquila)
2. Basilicata (Potenza)
3. Calabria (Catanzaro)
4. Campania (Naples, Napoli)
5. Emilia-Romagna (Bologna)
6. Friuli-Venezia Giulia (Trieste)
7. Latium, Lazio (Rome, Roma)
8. Liguria (Genoa, Genova)
9. Lombardy, Lombardia (Milan, Milano)
10. Marches, Marche (Ancona)
11. Molise (Campobasso)
12. Piedmont, Piemonte (Turin, Torino)
13. Apulia, Puglia (Bari)
14. Sardinia, Sardegna (Cagliari)
15. Aosta Valley, Valle d’Aosta / Vallée d’Aoste (Aosta, Aoste)
16. Tuscany, Toscana (Florence, Firenze)
17. Trentino-South Tyrol, Trentino-Alto Adige / Trentino-Südtirol (Trento, Bolzano-Bozen)
18. Umbria (Perugia)
19. Sicily, Sicilia (Palermo)
20. Veneto (Venice, Venezia)

All regions except the Aosta Valley are further subdivided into two or more provinces.

Economy

Italy’s capitalistic economy remains divided into a developed industrial north, dominated by private companies, and a less developed agricultural south. Italy’s economy has deceptive strength because it is supported by a substantial “underground” economy that functions outside government controls. Most new materials needed by industry and the majority of energy requirements are imported.

Italy joined the Euro from its conception in 1999. Italy’s economic performance has at times lagged behind that of its EU partners, and the current government has enacted numerous short-term reforms aimed at improving competitiveness and long-term growth. It has moved slowly, however, on implementing certain structural reforms favored by economists, such as lightening the high tax burden and overhauling Italy’s rigid labor market and expensive pension system, because of the current economic slowdown and opposition from labor unions.

Italy has been less successful in terms of developing world class multinational corporations. Instead, the country’s main economic strength has been its large base of small and medium size companies. These companies typically manufacture products that are moderately advanced technologically and therefore increasingly face crushing competition from China and other emerging Asian economies. Meanwhile, a base of corporations able to compete in markets for advanced goods and services is underdeveloped or lacking entirely. It is not obvious how Italy will overcome this significant structural weakness in the short run, and Italy has therefore been referred to as the new «sick man of Europe.»^[7]

Science and technology

The contributions of revered Italian visionaries such as Galileo Galilei and Leonardo da Vinci made considerable advancements toward the scientific revolution. Other notable Italian scientists and inventors include Fermi, Cassini, Volta, Lagrange, Fibonacci, Marconi, and Meucci.

The Italians love of automobiles and speed has made Italy famous for its production of many of the world’s most famous sports cars and the industry that flourishes there. Some of the world’s most elite vehicles were developed in Italy: Lamborghini, Ferrari, Alfa Romeo, and Masarati are but a few of the well-known luxury cars that originated in Italy.

Demographics

Italy’s population density is higher than that of most Western European countries. However, the distribution of the population is widely uneven. The most densely populated areas are the Po Valley (that accounts for almost a half of the national population) and the metropolitan areas of Rome and Naples, while vast regions such as the Alps and Apennines highlands, the plateaus of Basilicata and the island of Sardinia are very sparsely populated.

The population of Italy almost doubled during the twentieth century, but the pattern of growth was extremely uneven because of large-scale internal migration from the rural South to the industrial cities of the North, a phenomenon which happened as a consequence of the Italian economic miracle of the 1950–1960s. High fertility and birth rates persisted until the 1970s, after which they started to decline, and the population rapidly aged.

From the late nineteenth century until the 1960s Italy was a country of mass emigration. Between 1898 and 1914, the peak years of Italian diaspora, approximately 750,000 Italians emigrated each year.^[8]

Starting from the early 1980s, until then a linguistically and culturally homogeneous society, Italy begun to attract substantial flows of foreign immigrants.^[9] After the fall of the Berlin Wall and, more recently, the enlargements of the European Union, large waves of migration originated from the former socialist countries of Eastern Europe (especially Romania, Albania, Ukraine and Poland). An equally important source of immigration is neighboring North Africa (in particular, Morocco, Egypt and Tunisia), with soaring arrivals as a consequence of the Arab Spring.

The distribution of immigrants is largely uneven in Italy: 87 percent of immigrants live in the northern and central parts of the country (the most economically developed areas), while only 13 percent live in the southern half of the peninsula.

Religion

Roman Catholicism is by far the largest religion in the country. Although the Roman Catholic Church has been separated from the state, it still plays a role in the nation’s political affairs partly due to Holy See’s location in Vatican City, within Rome itself. Some 80 percent of Italians are Christian, with the vast majority being Roman Catholic and very small groups of Jehovah’s Witnesses and Protestants)^[2] Other Christian groups in Italy include Jehovah’s Witnesses

Italy has received several waves of immigrants and as a result there are some 800,000 to 1 million Muslims.^[2]

Languages

The official language of Italy is Standard Italian, descendant of Tuscan dialect and a direct descendant of Latin. (Some 75 percent of Italian words are of Latin origin.) However, when Italy was unified, in 1861, Italian existed mainly as a literary language, and was spoken by less than three percent of the population. Different languages were spoken throughout the Italian peninsula, many of which were Romance languages which had developed in every region, due to political fragmentation of Italy. Each historical region of Italy had its own so-called ‘dialetto’ (with ‘dialect’ usually meaning, improperly, a non-Italian Romance language), with variants existing at the township-level.

Massimo d’Azeglio, one of Cavour’s ministers, is said to have stated, following Italian unification, that having created Italy, all that remained was to create Italians. Given the high number of languages spoken throughout the peninsula, it was quickly established that ‘proper’ or ‘standard’ Italian would be based on the Florentine dialect spoken in most of Tuscany (given that it was the first region to produce authors such as Dante Alighieri, who between 1308 and 1321 wrote the Divina Commedia). A national education system was established — leading to a decrease in variation in the languages spoken throughout the country over time. But it was not until the 1960s, when economic growth enabled widespread access to the television programs of the state television broadcaster, RAI, that Italian truly became broadly-known and quite standardized.

Today, despite regional variations in the form of accents and vowel emphasis, Italian is fully comprehensible to most throughout the country. Nevertheless certain dialects have become cherished beacons of regional variation—the Neopolitan dialect which is extensively used for the singing of popular folk-songs, for instance, and in recent years many people have developed a particular pride in their dialects.

In addition to the various regional variations and dialects of standard Italian, a number of separate languages are spoken.

Culture

Italy, as a state, did not exist until the unification of the country came to a conclusion in 1861. Due to this comparatively late unification, and the historical autonomy of the many regions that comprise the Italian Peninsula, many traditions and customs that we now recognize as distinctly Italian can be identified by their regions of origin, which further reflect the influence of the many different peoples that occupied those areas, and of the importance of religion, especially Roman Catholicism. Despite the pronounced political and social isolation of these regions that prevailed throughout Italy’s history, Italy’s contributions to the cultural and historical heritage of Europe and western civilization at large, remain immense.

Architecture

Architectural ruins from antiquity throughout Italy testify to the greatness of cultures past. Italy’s great treasures are seen by visitors from all over the world today. The history of architecture in Italy is one that begins with the ancient styles of the Etruscans and Greeks, progressing to classical Roman, then to the revival of the classical Roman era during the Renaissance and evolving into the Baroque era. During the period of the Italian Renaissance it had been customary for students of architecture to travel to Rome to study the ancient ruins and buildings as an essential part of their education. Three of the greatest architects of the Renaissance period are Brunelleschi, Alberti, and Palladia.

Today the unmistakable contributions of the ancient and classical architecture forms from this region of the world are everywhere evident in public buildings throughout the world. Classic Greco-Roman columns and domes have been used in the building of capitols and government buildings worldwide.

Art

Italy has been a seminal place for many important artistic and intellectual movements that spread throughout Europe and beyond, including the Renaissance and Baroque. Perhaps Italy’s greatest cultural achievements lie in its long artistic heritage, which is validated by the names of Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Donatello, Botticelli, Fra Angelico, Tintoretto, Caravaggio, Bernini, Titian, and Raphael, among many others.

The history and development of art in western culture is grounded in hundreds of years of Italian history. Florence, Venice, and Rome, in particular, are brimming with art treasures in museums, churches, and public buildings.

Cuisine

Italian cuisine is also popular worldwide. From delicious tiramisu ice creams to pasta, pastries, and wines, there are numerous regional specialties which run the full gamut of culinary experience. Italian cuisine has become universally loved; from the simple spaghetti dish or casual pizza to the sophisticated anti-pasta, and several course gourmet experiences. Italy produces legendary fine wines and it is customary to call on the expertise of the local restauranteur to pair a particular wine with the food being served the customer.

Fashion

Italy is one of the world centers of modern high fashion clothing and accessory design. Fashion houses such as Armani, Benetton, Fendi, Gucci, Versace, and Prada have become household words. Many of Italy’s top fashion designers have boutiques that can be found around the world. The popularity and influence of Italian-style fashion design also reaches into the area of interior design and furniture making.

Literature

Beginning with the eminent Florentine poet, Dante Alighieri, whose greatest work, the Divina Commedia is often considered the foremost literary statement produced in Europe during the Middle Ages, there is no shortage of celebrated literary figures. The writers and poets Boccaccio, Giacomo Leopardi, Alessandro Manzoni, Tasso, Ludovico Ariosto, and Petrarca, are best known for their sonnets. Prominent philosophers include Bruno, Ficino, Machiavelli, and Vico. Modern literary figures and Nobel laureates are nationalist poet Giosuè Carducci in 1906, realist writer Grazia Deledda in 1926, modern theater author Luigi Pirandello in 1936, poets Salvatore Quasimodo in 1959 and Eugenio Montale in 1975, and satirist and theater author Dario Fo in 1997.

Music

From folk to classical, music has always played an important role in Italian culture. Having given birth to opera, for example, Italy provides many of the very foundations of the classical music tradition. Some of the instruments that are often associated with classical music, including the piano and violin, were invented in Italy, and many of the existing classical music forms can trace their roots back to innovations of sixteenth and seventeenth century Italian music (such as the symphony, concerto, and sonata). Some of Italy’s most famous composers include the Renaissance composers Palestrina and Monteverdi, the Baroque composers Corelli and Vivaldi, the Classical composers Paganini and Rossini, and the Romantic composers Verdi and Puccini. Modern Italian composers such as Berio and Nono proved significant in the development of experimental and electronic music.

Sports

Football (calcio) is a popular spectator and participation sport. The Italian national team has won the World Cup four times (1934, 1938, 1982 and 2006). Major Italian clubs frequently compete at a high level of European competitions. Rugby union is very popular in Italy; clubs compete domestically in the Super 10, as well as the European Heineken Cup tournament. The national team competes in the Six Nations Championship, and is a regular at the Rugby World Cup. Basketball (pallacanestro) is a sport gaining rapid popularity in Italy, although national teams have existed since the 1950s. The nation’s top pro league, Lega, is widely regarded as the third best national league in the world after the American NBA and Spain’s ACB. In some cities, (see Bologna, Siena, Pesaro or Varese) basketball is the most popular sport. Cycling is also a well represented sport in Italy. Italians are second only to Belgium in winning the most World Cycling Championships. The Giro d’Italia is a world famous long distance bicycle race held every May and constitutes one of the three Grand Tours along with the Tour de France and the Vuelta a España, each of which last approximately three weeks. Auto racing receives much attention in Italy, while the nation is host to a number of notable automobile racing events, such as the famed Italian Grand Prix. The Italian flair for design is legendary, and Ferrari has won more Formula Ones than any other manufacturer.

Notes

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Allen, Beverley. Revisioning Italy: National Identity and Global Culture. University of Minnesota Press, 1997. ISBN 978-0816627271
• Bonechi, Monica, and Giovannella Masini.Rome and the Vatican: complete guide for visiting the city. Gold guides. Florence, Italy: Bonechi, 2001. ISBN 8847601363
• Coppa, Frank J., and William Roberts. Modern Italian History: An Annotated Bibliography. (Bibliographies and indexes in world history, no. 18) New York, NY: Greenwood Press, 1990. ISBN 0313248125
• Euvino, Gabrielle. The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Italian History and Culture. Indianapolis, IN: Alpha, 2002. ISBN 0028642341
• Holmes, George. The Oxford History of Italy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. ISBN 0198205279
• Os, H. W. van. Dreaming of Italy. The Hague: Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis, 2006. ISBN 9040082227
• Welch, Evelyn S. Art and Society in Italy, 1350-1500. (Oxford history of art.) Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. ISBN 0192842455

External links

All links retrieved September 22, 2021.

• Italy CIA World Factbook
• Italy Magazine
• Life in Italy
• Italian History Index
• Italian Government Tourist Board

The History of Italy has begun more than 2,5 thousand years ago. During this time the country experienced both the peak of its power and the decline of the civilization, but even now in Italy you can see traces of that great nation, which once was Italy. However, despite the fact that Italy had passed the peak of its development, now it is quite a powerful state in all senses of the word.

The History of Rome and the Italian civilization began about 7-8 century BC. In those days in the territory of Italy prevailed the city-states as in Greece. Italy was inhabited by many tribes, but one of them was destined to become the basis of the future great empire.
The Basis of the future mega-state became the city of Rome. Being founded in 753 BC by Latin-Sabine tribes at first Rome was a kingdom. Subsequently, the tsarist regime was overthrown and was established a republic.
After the establishment of republic Rome’s government began its expansion in Italy. After the conquest of Italy, Rome continued its expansion in the Mediterranean, which led to a number of wars with the Carthaginians, with the result that the latter was destroyed, and the boundaries of the Roman state expanded considerably.
At the turn of the new and old eras Rome became the Empire, which was greatly facilitated by Julius Caesar. Caesar Augustus was the first emperor of Rome. Empire remained the most powerful state until the 3 rd century. By the end of the 4th century the Roman Empire was completely disintegrated into East and West Empires. And if East has existed for more than a thousand years, the West during the 5th century was being attacked by barbarians, and in 476 has ceased to exist when last emperor of the West Roman Empire, Romulus Augustus was deposed.

In Italy was founded a barbaric state. The Christianity that long before became the official religion was of great importance in the state and often clashed with the secular power. Later, Italy was a part of the empire of Charlemagne and Otton and his sons. The dispute between the papacy and the emperors led to the elimination of imperial power. In Italy began the period of fragmentation, which ended only in the 19th century.
During the Renaissance in Italy the Duchy of Milan, Florence and Venetian republic, Papal States and the Kingdom of Naples were the most powerful states. In the 16 century a large part of Italy became a part of the Habsburg Empire.
Due to the opening of America the largest trade routes shifted to the Atlantic, and the Italian cities fell into decay. In the late 18th — early 19th centuries Italian states were included in the empire of Napoleon Bonaparte. After the Congress of Vienna there was no change in the structure of Italy and then the Italians began to seek ways of uniting the state themselves.

The period of consolidation that began in the mid-19th century, ended in 1870. Earlier in 1861, Victor Emmanuel became the first king of Italy. Also, were annexed the Papal States and Italy’s capital moved to Rome. Virtually the entire ethnic territory of Italy was now again under the rule of Rome.
Since that time began the restoration of the former greatness of Italy and its power which lasted until the First World War. Being on the side of the Entente in this war, Italy lost it rather than won, despite the victory of the coalition. With the wave of the revanchist sentiments in 1922 the Fascists came to power, headed by Benito Mussolini. Under the regime of Mussolini, the king was under the control of the party, was reached an agreement with the church on the autonomy of the Vatican, and also made a number of economic success and annexed Ethiopia. Later was occupied Albania, and Rome entered the so-called axis with Berlin and Tokyo. After the beginning of the Second World War Italy almost immediately lost its possessions in Africa and in 1943 surrendered to the Allies, and Mussolini was ousted from power.

After the war, Italy had been robbed of her possessions and was practically in its modern version. In 1946 the king abdicated the throne and left the country. In 1952 Italy became a member of the European Coal and Steel Community, and in 1957 signed the Treaty establishing the Euratom and the European Common Market, the foundations of the future EU. In 1993 it was officially formed. In 1999 Italy adopted the single European currency Euro. And in 2007 it became a member of a new Mediterranean Union. Also, Italy is a member of NATO since 1949, the Council of Europe, UN and other regional and international organizations, including the Schengen Agreement.
The Prime Minister of Italy at the moment is Silvio Berlusconi, and president, who nominally heads the state, is Giorgio Napolitano.